The Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme, worth up to £5,000 towards a faster connection, closes to new applications on 20 November 2026. In Aberdeenshire alone, 2,089 premises are still eligible and have not used it.
The Scottish Government is closing the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme. The official page now says: "The Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) will close to new applications on 20 November 2026." That leaves six weeks.
The voucher pays up to £5,000 towards installing a faster connection, and covers all direct installation costs carried out by a registered supplier. It is for homes and businesses where the current connection is slower than 30 Mbps and there are no plans for a superfast connection through the R100 contracts or commercial build. These are the properties that R100 and commercial rollout are not going to reach.
The Government says requests submitted before the closing date "will continue to be processed against the SBVS eligibility criteria", and that "existing connections and approved applications are unaffected". So the date that matters is when your request goes in, not when the work is done.
Check your address on the Scottish Government's broadband address checker, linked from the official scheme page. If you are eligible, the next step is to contact one of the roughly 30 registered suppliers. Our help page has the details.
Aberdeenshire Council's officer for digital connectivity told us this week that the area has had the highest take-up of the scheme in Scotland for some time. As of October 2026, residents there had used 1,189 vouchers. Another 2,089 premises in Aberdeenshire are still eligible and have not.
That is one council area, and by the council's account the one where the scheme has worked best. We do not have figures for the rest of Scotland.
Neither official page gives a reason for the closure, or says what an eligible household should do after 20 November. For a property with no superfast connection planned, the voucher has been the main route to a subsidised one. We will report what replaces it, if anything does.
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