Fusion Fibre hit with a winding-up petition from HMRC

HMRC has filed a winding-up petition against Fusion Fibre Group, one of the smaller full fibre companies selling broadband in the UK. The petition was filed on 29 July 2026, as reported by ISPreview, which broke the story and is so far the only outlet carrying it. Nobody else has reported it yet, so treat everything below as their reporting rather than ours.

A winding-up petition, in ISPreview’s description, is a legal action usually taken by a creditor against a company that owes them money. It is a serious step. It is also not the same thing as a company failing: petitions get settled, withdrawn or dismissed. Which of those happens here is not something anybody can tell you today, including us.

It landed at an awkward moment. ISPreview separately reported that part of Fusion Fibre’s own network went down just after 7:30pm on Sunday evening, with customers in areas including Cambois and Startforth still off more than a day later. The same report says people struggled to reach support, because the company does not run a 24 hour line and has no public service status page. ISPreview was careful to say it is unclear whether the outage and the petition are connected, and nothing we have seen says they are.

If you are a Fusion Fibre customer, this is an unsettling thing to read over breakfast. A petition being filed does not by itself change your contract or your service. The useful advice is dull:

• Keep your own record of when the broadband was out. Dates and times are the thing you will wish you had written down if you end up complaining later.
• Do not switch in a panic. A petition is not a closure notice, and a week of waiting usually costs less than an exit handled in a hurry.

The wider point is the one this site keeps returning to, and it cuts both ways. Small networks are how a lot of households get a genuinely cheaper full fibre price. Small networks also carry small-company risk that BT and Sky do not. Our guide on whether it is safe to switch to a small provider sets out what protections exist if one fails, and what to look at before you sign. Fusion Fibre’s prices, speeds and contract terms sit on its provider page and are unchanged, because nothing has been announced that changes them.

What to watch for next is a statement from the company, a hearing date, or the petition being paid off and withdrawn. Any of the three would tell a customer more than the current silence does. If one of them happens, it gets a new story rather than a quiet edit to this one.