Government portal not working: what to do (the United Kingdom)

Checked on

When a government portal does not work, you need to know whether the problem is site-wide or happens only to you. This page helps you tell the two cases apart and find the right support contact.

Is the portal down, or is it your login?

A portal may be down for everyone, or it may be a problem only with your login, your browser, or your connection. To separate the cases, try using another device on a different connection—a phone on mobile data, for instance. Or ask someone else to try the same portal from a different place.

On this site, each service page shows a status. That status comes from problem reports sent in the last 24 hours. If you see a spike in reports, other people may be hitting the same problem. But if the site answers our tests, that does not mean the portal works; a portal can be slow or broken but still answer.

The portal's own help pages may have instructions to recover or reset your login details if you have lost them. Check the portal's own pages first.

  • Try another device and connection; check the portal's own help pages for sign-in recovery.

What to check before you call

Look at this site's service page for that portal. You will find an hour-by-hour chart for the past day and a map showing where the reports were sent from.

Find the portal's official help pages and contact information. Check the portal's official contact page to see how to reach the department.

A page with no recent reports says only that nobody has sent one; it proves nothing about the portal.

Who can confirm a problem, and how to reach the department

Only the department running the portal can confirm a technical problem. To reach them, find their official contact page or status page. This site links to the official status page when we have found it.

Government departments in the UK publish technical support pages and contact information. When you have a technical problem, contact the department that runs the service. For tax and customs services online, HMRC handles technical issues. For passport services, contact HM Passport Office.

GOV.UK also has a contact form for questions or comments about the website.

Examples of how departments help

HMRC says to contact it about technical problems with its systems, such as sending forms online, error messages and its free software and tools, and you can also call it.

For British passports issued in the UK, HM Passport Office is the body to contact for advice or complaints.

  • Look for the contact page of the department that runs the service.

See which services are most reported on this site's ranking page. Which services are down today →

Sources and date

The facts about public bodies come from their own pages, read on :

What we say about this site rests on our methodology.