Late Payment Statistics 2026: How Often Invoices Get Paid Late

Last updated: October 12, 2026. We re-check every figure each quarter.

Most small businesses get paid late. In 2026, 59% of US small businesses have invoices more than 30 days overdue, and in the December quarter of 2025 UK small businesses were paid 8.0 days late on average. Below are 31 statistics on how often invoices are paid late, how late they run, what it costs, and what gets invoices paid sooner. Each one links to its source, with the publisher and year.

How common is late payment?

• 59% of US small businesses have invoices overdue by 30 days or more, up from 47% the year before (Intuit QuickBooks, Small Business Late Payments Report, 2026).
• 62% of UK small businesses are owed money from unpaid invoices, and on average 11% of their invoices are 30 or more days overdue (Intuit QuickBooks UK, Small Business Late Payments Report, 2025).
• Over 1.5 million UK businesses, or 28% of all businesses, are affected by late payments each year (UK Office of the Small Business Commissioner, Late Payments Research, 2025).
• 52% of European companies faced problems due to late payments in 2024, five points more than in 2023 (European Commission, EU Payment Observatory Annual Report, 2025).
• Late payment affects 7 in 10 North American companies, and overdue invoices make up an average 23% of their B2B receivables (Atradius Payment Practices Barometer North America, press release, 2026).

How late do invoices get paid?

• US small businesses were paid an average of 8.5 days late in the June quarter of 2026 (Xero, 2026).
• In the December quarter of 2025, small businesses were paid on average 8.0 days late in the UK, 7.8 in the US, 6.6 in Australia, 4.5 in New Zealand and 9.7 in Canada (Xero Small Business Insights, 2026).
• Across Europe, the gap between agreed terms and actual payment in B2B trade widened from 16 days in 2023 to 20 days in 2026 (Intrum European Payment Report, 2026).
• In the EU, the average payment period is 60.3 days for business-to-business transactions and 69.8 days when a public authority pays a business (European Commission, EU Payment Observatory, 2025).
• EU suppliers report average agreed payment terms of 43 days for B2B sales and 55.9 days for sales to government, so actual payment runs well past the agreed date (European Commission, EU Payment Observatory, 2025).

What does late payment cost small businesses?

• US small businesses with unpaid invoices are owed $17.7K on average (Intuit QuickBooks, 2026).
• 39% of US small business owners say a single late payment made it hard to cover payroll or bills in the past year (Intuit QuickBooks, 2026).
• Late payments cost the UK economy almost £11 billion a year (UK Office of the Small Business Commissioner, 2025).
• 14,000 UK businesses close each year because of late payments, equivalent to 38 businesses every day (UK Office of the Small Business Commissioner, 2025).
• UK businesses are owed an estimated £26 billion in late payments at any one time, an average of £17,000 per business affected (UK Office of the Small Business Commissioner, 2025).
• UK businesses that spend staff time chasing late payments spend an average of 86 hours a year doing it (UK Office of the Small Business Commissioner, 2025).
• European companies spend an average of 9.85 hours a week chasing late payments (European Commission, EU Payment Observatory, 2025).
• 62% of European businesses say being paid late leads them to pay their own suppliers late (Intrum European Payment Report, 2026).

Freelancer late payment statistics

• 85% of freelancers have invoices paid late at least some of the time (Remote, Contractor Management Report, 2025).
• 29% of freelance invoices sent through Bonsai over three years were paid at least a day late (Bonsai, 2026).
• 32% of UK freelancers had a client delay payment in the previous 12 months (IPSE Freelancer Confidence Index, Q1 2024).
• 91% of New York freelancers surveyed had been paid late at least once in their career, and 54% had waited 3 months or longer (Freelancers Union, 2022).

UK and EU policy on late payment

• The UK government plans to cap payment terms at a maximum of 60 days, with strictly limited exemptions, starting no earlier than 2027 (UK Department for Business and Trade, consultation response, 2026).
• 15% of UK businesses have avoided working with specific customers because of how those customers pay (UK Office of the Small Business Commissioner, 2025).
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that 1 in 4 bankruptcies are due to invoices not being paid on time (European Commission, EISMEA, 2023).

To work out the interest you can add to a late invoice under these rules, use the late fee calculator.

What the data says works

Three things show up again and again in the data: shorter payment terms, paying online, and asking for money up front.

• 55% of US businesses on net 30 terms have overdue invoices, compared with 26% of those that ask for immediate payment (Intuit QuickBooks, 2026).
• Among US businesses with no overdue invoices, 64% require immediate payment, against 34% of businesses with overdue invoices (Intuit QuickBooks, 2026).
• Longer payment terms go with longer actual payment periods in 87% of cases (European Commission, EU Payment Observatory, 2025).
• Xero says customers who take online invoice payments get paid up to twice as fast, based on its own customer data (Xero, 2026).
• QuickBooks says letting customers pay online gets invoices paid up to 4x faster than paper invoices, based on its user data (Intuit QuickBooks, 2025).
• 50% of European businesses now ask customers to prepay, up from 46% in 2025 (Intrum European Payment Report, 2026).

In practice, that means short terms such as net 15 or due upon receipt, a pay link on every invoice, and reminders that go out on time instead of when you remember. SolidInvoice puts a card and PayPal pay link on every invoice, and on Pro and Business plans it emails overdue clients for you. If a client still pays late, the late fee calculator works out what you can add, and our overdue invoice email templates cover what to send.

Key takeaways

★ Late payment in 2026, in five numbers

• 59% of US small businesses have invoices more than 30 days overdue (QuickBooks, 2026).
• UK small businesses are paid 8.0 days late on average (Xero, December quarter 2025).
• Late payments close 14,000 UK businesses a year (UK Small Business Commissioner, 2025).
• 85% of freelancers are paid late at least some of the time (Remote, 2025).
• Businesses on net 30 terms are about twice as likely to have overdue invoices as those asking for immediate payment (QuickBooks, 2026).

How to cite this page

Link to this page as "Late Payment Statistics 2026, SolidInvoice" at https://solidinvoice.co/blog/late-payment-statistics. Where you can, cite the original source linked next to each figure as well.

Get paid sooner with a pay link on every invoice and, on Pro and Business plans, reminders that send themselves. Start a free 14-day trial of SolidInvoice.