Carer's Allowance
If you care for someone you could be entitled to Carer's Allowance. Find out more.
Financial support for carers
If you're taking on a caring role, it's important to check whether you might be entitled to financial support – especially if your income is lower because you've given up work or reduced your hours.
What is Carer's Allowance?
Carer's Allowance is the main welfare benefit to help carers, worth £81.90 per week (this figure is usually reviewed each April). To be eligible for Carer's Allowance, you must:
- spend at least 35 hours per week caring for someone, whether or not you live with them
- care for someone who receives certain benefits
- not be in full-time education or earning more than £151 a week (after tax and expenses)
Benefits for the person you care for
The person you care for must receive either Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance care component (at the higher or middle rate), Personal Independence Payment daily living component (at either rate) or Armed Forces Independence Payment, depending on their circumstances.
Are you entitled to extra money?
Do you know what benefits you're entitled to? Our online benefits calculator can help you quickly and easily find out what you could be claiming.
What is Carer's Credit?
If you give up work to care for someone, you might be worried that not paying National Insurance (NI) will lower your State Pension. But if you care for someone for at least 20 hours per week, you could get Carer's Credit, which helps to maintain your NI record.
If you get Carer’s Allowance, you'll get Carer's Credit automatically. However, you don’t have to be receiving Carer’s Allowance to get Carer's Credit.
What is the carer element of Universal Credit?
If you're claiming Universal Credit and you care for someone for at least 35 hours per week and they receive a qualifying disability benefit, the carer element means that you won’t have to look for paid work.
The carer element increases the amount of Universal Credit you could get by £198.31 per week, but how much you get depends on your income and savings because it's means tested. You should let Universal Credit know if you're a carer because it could increase your Universal Credit payments.
You don’t need to be claiming Carer’s Allowance or living with the person you care for to qualify. However, this element can affect their benefits, so you should get advice before you claim it.
Support for carers from your local council
Your local council may have a duty to provide you with support services to help you in your role as a carer. The services provided include things like:
- getting help around the house or garden
- counselling or other emotional support
- help to access education, exercise classes or other things in the community.
The first step is to arrange a free carer's assessment with your local council. Following the assessment, they'll decide whether you're eligible for help.
Find out more about the carer's assessment
Find your local council
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If you're eligible for help, the council may arrange support services for you, but they may also arrange care services for the person you look after to enable you to take a break from caring. This is sometimes called 'respite' or 'replacement' care.
Your council may charge you for any services you receive. If they're going to charge you, they must first carry out a financial assessment. The assessment looks at your income and any savings to see if you're entitled to help with some, or all, of the costs.
If the council meets your support needs as a carer by arranging care services for the person you look after, such as respite care, then they must charge the person you look after, not you. This is because it's the person you look after who's receiving the services. The council must carry out a financial assessment to look at the person's income and any savings and see if they're entitled to help with some, or all, of the costs of the services provided.
What is a carer's personal budget?
If your local council decides that you're eligible for help following the carer's assessment, they'll work with you to draw up a support plan. This outlines what services or help you need to support you in your caring role.
As part of your support plan, the council will set a 'personal budget'. This is the overall cost of the support services that would meet the needs identified in your assessment. Depending on the outcome of a financial assessment, you might need to contribute to the overall cost.
You may be able to receive a 'direct payment', based on your personal budget.This is where the council give you money to arrange your own support services.
We're here to help
We offer support through our free advice line on 0800 678 1602. Lines are open 8am-7pm, 365 days a year. We also have specialist advisers at over 120 local Age UKs.