How to complain about an advert to the ASA, and what happens next

Last verified 11 September 2026. If you want to know how to complain about an advert in the UK, the short answer is this: go to the Advertising Standards Authority’s online complaint form, say where and when you saw the ad, say what is wrong with it, and give your name. It is free, it takes about ten minutes, and one complaint is enough to start an investigation if the ad appears to break the rules.

The longer answer is that the ASA is the right door for most adverts but not all of them, that around 80 per cent of complaints go nowhere because the ad has not broken a rule, and that the regulator cannot fine anyone. What it can do is make an advertiser withdraw or change an ad and publish its name for doing so. In 2025 the ASA handled more than 40,000 complaints about 25,397 ads and had over 22,000 ads amended or withdrawn, according to Lewis Silkin’s summary of its annual report.

Does the ASA cover the advert you want to complain about?

The ASA applies two codes: the CAP Code for non-broadcast advertising and the BCAP Code for TV and radio. Between them they cover TV and radio spots, catch-up and on-demand ads, podcast ads, posters and billboards in paid-for space, press ads and advertorials, cinema, direct mail and leaflets, commercial email and SMS, paid search and banner ads, in-game ads, promotions and competitions, and paid-for social media posts including influencer content where a brand has paid and has editorial control. Since March 2011 the CAP Code has also covered claims on advertisers’ own websites and social accounts. We explain the codes in detail in our guide to UK advertising rules.

The list of what the ASA does not cover is shorter but catches people out. Editorial content, programme sponsorship credits, product packaging, political advertising, film trailers, private classified ads and the technical detail of financial products all belong to someone else. The table below says who.

How to complain about an advert: step by step

The ASA only accepts complaints through its online form, or by phone on 020 7492 2222 if you cannot use it. It does not accept complaints by email. Before you start, gather the four things the form asks for.

• Where and when you saw or heard the ad: the channel and programme, the website or app, the platform and account name, the newspaper or the street.
• A photo, screenshot or screen recording if you can get one. Online ads vanish, and the ASA cannot investigate what it cannot see.
• What is wrong with it, pointing at the specific claim, image or line. “It is misleading because it says the price is £9.99 and the checkout charges £14.99” is a complaint; “it annoyed me” is not.
• Your name and contact details. The ASA does not accept anonymous complaints, but it protects the anonymity of members of the public unless there is a good reason to reveal them and it has your permission.

Two rules of thumb from the form itself. The ASA asks you to limit a complaint to three issues, so pick the strongest. And if you are complaining about a competitor, you must first have tried to resolve it with them directly and be able to show that you did. Competitor complaints, and complaints from anyone with a public profile or a clear interest in the outcome, can be disclosed to the advertiser and named in the ruling under the procedures updated on 29 May 2026.

You do not need to cite a rule number, but it helps. Misleading claims fall under section 3 of the CAP Code, with rule 3.7 requiring the advertiser to hold evidence for objective claims before publication. Harm and offence is section 4, children section 5, and an ad that is not obviously an ad, such as an undisclosed influencer post, breaches rules 2.1, 2.3 and 2.4. The rules guide maps the rest.

What happens after you complain

Every complaint is assessed against the codes and the ASA’s prioritisation principles, which weigh the potential harm, the risk, the likely impact of intervening and whether the resource is proportionate. The ASA says that around 80 per cent of complaints do not raise an issue under the rules, and those are closed with an acknowledgement and no further update. A single complaint is enough for the ASA to act if there appears to be a problem, and it says so on its complaints page. Numbers do not decide cases, which is why 1,513 complaints about MoneySuperMarket’s Epic Strut produced nought upheld.

Informal resolution

Where there is a problem but it is minor, clear-cut or the advertiser has a good record, the ASA contacts them and asks for an assurance that the ad will be changed or withdrawn. These informally resolved cases are not put before the ASA Council and no ruling is published, so there is no adjudication to quote. This is how the majority of the 22,000 amended or withdrawn ads in 2025 were dealt with, and it is faster than a formal investigation by months.

Formal investigation

Where the issue is serious, contested or new, the ASA opens a formal investigation. It writes to the advertiser, and where relevant the agency, media owner and clearance body, setting out the complaint and the rules engaged and asking for evidence. The advertiser has seven working days to respond, or five in cases involving harm or offence, and a failure to respond is itself a breach of the codes. Under the May 2026 procedures the ASA can now refuse late evidence unless the party can show it was not reasonably foreseeable that it would be needed, and it can give an early provisional view on whether a complaint is likely to be upheld.

An investigations executive drafts a recommendation. The independent ASA Council receives recommendations through an online system and makes rulings weekly, meeting in person for the significant ones. Rulings are sent to the parties under embargo and published on the ASA website every week. Either side has 21 days from being told of the Council’s decision to ask the Independent Reviewer to look again, on the grounds of a substantial flaw in the process or new evidence, and a request to hold publication pending review must now be in by 12pm on the Thursday before publication.

How long it takes

The ASA does not publish a service standard for the whole journey. Its own guidance is that straightforward complaints that raise no issue can be closed within a few days, that timescales otherwise depend on the complexity of the issues and whether the advertiser agrees to change the ad without a formal investigation, and that a small number of complex cases, for example where independent experts assess evidence, can take six months or more. In practice a formal ruling is a matter of months, not weeks. If yours proceeds you will be told; if it does not, silence after the acknowledgement is the answer.

What the ASA can and cannot do to an advertiser

The ASA cannot fine, cannot award you compensation and cannot order a refund. Its sanctions start with the ruling itself: an upheld complaint is published with the advertiser’s name and picked up by the trade and national press, which is why the monthly rulings get read. The ad must not appear again in that form, and the advertiser is told what to change.

For online advertisers who ignore a ruling, the ASA can list them on its non-compliant advertisers page, ask search engines to remove their paid-search ads, run its own search ads naming them and work with platforms to get content taken down. Influencers who keep failing to disclose can be named for up to three months. Offline, CAP’s members can withhold advertising space, withdraw trading privileges, require pre-vetting of poster campaigns for up to two years and bar an ad from industry awards.

Behind all of that sit the legal backstops with actual penalties. Broadcasters who fail to enforce a ruling can be referred to Ofcom, which can fine them or revoke a licence. Persistent non-broadcast offenders can be referred to Trading Standards. Financial promotions go to the FCA, gambling licensees to the Gambling Commission, and since 6 April 2025 the Competition and Markets Authority can fine businesses directly for breaches of consumer law, up to 10 per cent of worldwide turnover.

TV, online or social: does it change how you complain?

Not the destination, but the detail does. A TV ad has already been cleared by Clearcast against the BCAP Code before the major commercial channels accepted it, which means the advertiser will defend it with Clearcast’s help and the ASA will ask Clearcast for its reasoning. Clearcast does not take public complaints; it is a clearance body, not a regulator. If your objection is to the programme, the sponsorship bumper, product placement or the number of breaks, Ofcom is the right door, and it says plainly that complaints about spot advertising are handled by the ASA on its behalf.

Online ads are not pre-cleared, so the ASA is often seeing the ad for the first time when you send it. Screenshot the whole thing including the URL, the date and any small print, because the advertiser can change the page an hour later. If the company has no UK address the ASA will try to pass it through the cross-border system, but you should expect less.

Social media complaints are mostly about disclosure. A post is an ad if the brand paid, gifted with conditions or had any control over the content, and it must be obviously identifiable as one before you engage with it, not from a hashtag buried in the caption. Capture the post, the account name and the timestamp, and note whether any label was visible without tapping “more”.

When the ASA is the wrong door

Political ads are the most common misdirected complaint. CAP Code rule 7.1 exempts marketing communications whose principal function is to influence voters in an election or referendum, and the ASA’s advice page confirms nobody regulates their content in non-broadcast media. On TV and radio they are banned outright by the Communications Act 2003, which Ofcom enforces. Government advertising that is not party political does fall under the code, under rule 7.2.

Consumer law is different again. If a business has actually taken your money on the strength of a misleading claim, you want Trading Standards, and the route is the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133, which passes reports on because you cannot contact Trading Standards directly. The CMA says itself that it cannot step in on individual complaints, but it will take reports about a business’s wider practices and can now use them to investigate and fine. Fake reviews and drip pricing, both banned under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, are CMA territory as much as ASA territory.

Before you press send

• Check the table above. If it is packaging, a programme, a sponsorship credit or a political ad, the ASA will close it unread.
• Capture the ad now, with the date, the place and the full claim.
• Name the problem, not the feeling. Misleading, harmful, offensive, not identifiable as an ad, or targeted at children are the categories the codes use.
• Pick your three strongest points and drop the rest.
• Do not organise a campaign of complaints. One good complaint carries the same weight as a thousand, and the Council rules on the ad, not the count.
• Expect an acknowledgement, then nothing, unless the case goes forward. That is the system working, not ignoring you.

Frequently asked

How many complaints does it take to get an advert banned?

One. The ASA says a single complaint can be enough if there appears to be a problem under the rules, and the ad is judged on the codes rather than on how many people objected.

Can I complain to the ASA anonymously?

No, you must give your name and contact details. The ASA protects the anonymity of members of the public and only names complainants who have a public profile or a clear interest in the outcome, such as a competitor.

How long does an ASA complaint take?

Complaints that raise no issue are closed in days, and informally resolved cases in weeks. A formal investigation usually takes a few months, and the ASA warns that the most complex cases can take six months or more.

Sources

• ASA: Make a complaint; How we handle complaints; Sanctions; Political advertising advice; Updates to complaint handling procedures, effective 29 May 2026
• Lewis Silkin on the ASA and CAP Annual Report 2025, 14 April 2026, and on the ASA complaint handling changes, 6 July 2026
• Ofcom: complaining about an advert you saw; Clearcast: what we do
• Citizens Advice consumer helpline page; GOV.UK, Tell the CMA about a competition or market problem