Official PIN rates
How much do prison calls cost at High Down?
They pay from PIN credit, not you. Official weekday rates: 2.48p a minute to a landline, 5.50p to a mobile. 10p minimum. See what a week costs them.
- Landline2.48p a minute
- Mobile5.5p a minute
- Minimum10p a connected call
Weekday rates — the dearer days. Weekend is cheaper. A typical 15-minute call, five times a week, is £4.13 to a mobile and £1.86 to a landline. Until 31 May 2027.
Same week, both numbers
Your mobile
£4.13
5.5p a minute. They pay this from PIN credit.
A landline
£1.86
£2.27 less from the same week. The rate is official, not a product.
What is local at High Down
- Families at High Down report a PIN wait of 2 days.
- Families at High Down report a first-call wait of Same day.
- First-night call available
Which landline number should you give them?
A landline costs them less than half as much on weekdays. Since 11 August, numbers that forward calls can be refused.
Update
Since 11 August 2026, 0800 numbers as social contacts — and numbers used for call diversion / re-routing — must be restricted.
GOV.UK · Interception policy framework · §7.9Any UK landline gets the landline rate. If you have one at home, give them that. It costs nothing extra.
Questions families ask
- Official weekday rates at HMP High Down: 2.48p a minute to a UK landline, 5.5p to a UK mobile. 10p minimum per connected call. A typical 15-minute call, five times a week, is £4.13 to a mobile and £1.86 to a landline. Weekend is cheaper. Until 31 May 2027.
- They pay from PIN credit, not you. There is no incoming call. Credit is bought from spends. Private-cash is one part of that.
- A landline is 2.48p a minute on a weekday. A mobile is 5.5p. Same week, same minutes: about £2.27 less from their PIN on a landline.
- A UK landline is the cheap rate: 2.48p a minute on a weekday, against 5.5p for a mobile. Cheap prison-call apps usually forward the call, and prisons can refuse those numbers since 11 August 2026. The call-services guide lists which ones still connect.
- No. The call rate is the same. Weekly private-cash is not. That is the Incentives Policy Framework, not the phone tariff.
- The pence-per-minute is the national public-estate tariff. HMP High Down does not publish a different rate. What is local is the PIN wait, the first call, and any call-length cap families report.
How we price a week
- The tariff is national for the public estate. A prison page does not invent a local rate.
- The calculator and worked examples use weekday rates — the dearer days. Weekend is cheaper.
- Each connected call is at least 10p, even if the minute-rate would be less.
- They buy PIN credit from spends. Private-cash is one part of that. The call rate does not change on Basic, Standard or Enhanced.
- Local pages add what families report at that prison: PIN wait, first call, and any call-length cap. Those are community reports, not an HMPPS service level.
- Rates last checked September 2026. The published tariff runs until 31 May 2027.
Sources: GOV.UK · Staying in touch with someone in prison · Ministry of Justice · letter to the Justice Committee, 1 July 2025 · GOV.UK · Incentives Policy Framework · GOV.UK · Interception policy framework · §7.9. Last checked September 2026. IEP updated 31 March 2025.