Carer's Allowance

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Carer’s Allowance is the main benefit for carers. If you are looking after someone for 35 hours a week or more, you may be eligible.

Download our factsheet on Carer's Allowance

You don’t have to be related to or live with the person you care for.

Carer's Allowance (CA) is paid at £61.35 a week (2014/15 rate). The amount paid is usually increased each April.

Carer’s Allowance is taxable. However, carers will only have to pay tax if they have other sources of taxable income such as an occupational pension or earnings. CA on its own is below the threshold for paying tax.

Carer’s Allowance is not means-tested – in other words not based on your income or savings – but earnings may affect your entitlement. It is not based on your National Insurance record.
Can I get Carer's Allowance?

Not every carer can get CA. You may be eligible if you meet all the following conditions:

You look after someone who gets a qualifying disability benefit.
You look after that person for at least 35 hours a week.
You are aged 16 or over.
You are not in full-time education.
You earn £102 a week (after deductions) or less.
You satisfy UK presence and residence conditions.

Here is more information about each of the conditions.

You look after someone who gets one of the following qualifying disability benefits.

This includes:

Disability Living Allowance (DLA) at either the middle or highest rate for personal care needs
Attendance Allowance (at either rate) or Constant Attendance Allowance of the normal maximum rate paid with the Industrial Injuries or War Pensions schemes
the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) (at either rate)

You look after that person for at least 35 hours a week.

The 35 hours can include:

time spent physically helping the person
time you spend ‘keeping an eye’ on the person you look after, eg preventing them coming to harm by walking out of the house
time spent doing practical tasks for them, eg cooking
time taken doing practical tasks, even if you don’t do them in the presence of the person you are looking after may also count
(for instance, if you look after someone who visits you regularly for the care they need, time spent preparing for the visit or cleaning up afterwards should count)

Time spent travelling to and from the person you care for does not count.

You must provide 35 hours of care for every week you claim CA. For CA, a week runs from Sunday to Saturday. You cannot average out your hours over a number of weeks.

You cannot add together the time you spend caring for different people to make up the 35 hours. If you care for more than one person, you must choose which person you claim for, as you can only get one payment of CA.

Similarly, if you share the caring role with another person, and you both provide at least 35 hours of care every week, only one of you can claim CA. You need to decide between you who should make the claim. The other person should seek advice about the benefits they can claim, and may be able to claim Carer’s Credit for the time they are caring.

However, if the person you care for is also caring for someone, you can both claim CA as long as you both meet all the criteria. This also applies if you are caring for each other.

You are aged 16 or over.

You can make a claim up to three months before your 16th birthday, although the benefit will only be paid from the day you become 16 years old.

You are not in full-time education.

The meaning of ‘full-time education’ is complicated and may depend on a number of factors including the type of course you are doing. If you are studying or thinking about studying then contact the Carers UK Adviceline for further advice.

CA is not paid during temporary absences from your course including holiday periods.

You earn £102 a week (after deductions) or less.

If you are in paid work (including self-employment) you cannot get CA if you earn more than £102 a week.

The following amounts are deducted from your gross weekly earnings before your earnings are taken into account for CA:

Income Tax
National Insurance
half your contributions towards an occupational/personal pension*

*For example, if you earn £110 per week (after tax and national insurance) you will not be entitled to Carer's Allowance. However, if you put £20 per week into a pension, half of the £20 can be deducted from your earnings. Your earnings for Carer's Allowance would therefore be £110 - £10 = £100 per week. As this is under the earnings limit you could claim Carer’s Allowance.

If you are self-employed, you can also first deduct expenses that are incurred ‘wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the business’, in the same way that you can for income tax purposes.

If you have to pay for someone to look after the person you care for or a child under 16 while you are at work you can deduct those payments from your earnings up to the value of half your earnings (after the above deductions if they apply). However, this will not apply if the person you are paying is a close relative (a spouse, partner or civil partner, parent, son, daughter, brother or sister).

Occupational or personal pensions do not count as earnings and you can be paid CA in addition to these. However, if you get extra CA for your partner their occupational/personal pension could affect this extra amount.

Note: Some carers previously received extra benefit for their partner as part of their CA. This was called the adult dependant addition but is not available for new claims.

If you do receive taxable income such as occupational or private pensions or part-time earnings you should inform the tax office about your CA, because it is a taxable benefit.

You satisfy UK presence and residence conditions.

The presence and residence rules changed in April 2013 for new claimants. To satisfy the residence and presence tests you must now meet both the following conditions:

You must have been present in Great Britain for 104 weeks out of the 156 weeks before claiming (2 out of the last 3 years).
You must be habitually resident.

‘Present’ means physically present in the UK. Some people may be treated as being in the UK while abroad, eg members of the armed forces. Special rules apply to countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) and several others who Britain has agreements with. If you think this applies to you, you should seek advice.

The habitual residence test is a test to see if you normally live in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Republic of Ireland or the Isle of Man. The test will be applied if you have been living abroad. There is no legal definition of ‘habitual residence’. Relevant factors are where you normally live, where you expect to live in future, your reasons for coming to this country, the length of time spent abroad before you came here, and any ties you still have with the country where you have come from.

You cannot usually get CA if you have immigration restrictions on your stay in the UK (eg you are not allowed to claim public funds which include most welfare benefits and housing and homelessness services). If this is the case, seek advice before claiming because a claim for CA could affect your future right to remain in the UK.

Note: You may be able to get free immigration advice from your local Law Centre. Alternatively, you can search for local legal aid immigration advice.
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Carer’s Allowance and other benefits/ income

You cannot usually be paid CA if you receive one or more of the following benefits:

Contribution-based ESA
Incapacity Benefit
Maternity Allowance
Bereavement or widow’s benefits
Severe Disablement Allowance
Contribution-based JSA
State Retirement Pension (see below)

However, if any of these are paid at less than the amount of CA, you could be paid a small amount of CA on top of the other benefit you get.

Although in most cases you cannot be paid CA if you get one of the benefits above, you will still have ‘underlying entitlement’ to CA if you meet all the conditions. This ‘underlying entitlement’ means that the carer premium or carer addition can be included in calculations for means-tested benefits.

State Retirement Pension

While there is no upper age limit for claiming CA, payment of CA usually stops when you reach retirement age because your State Retirement Pension will be paid instead. You will, however, have an ‘underlying entitlement’ to CA which means you could get the carer addition in your Pension Credit.

If your State Retirement Pension is less than the amount of CA paid, you may continue to get a small amount of CA in addition to your State Retirement Pension to make up the difference.

Although you could ask to carry on being paid CA instead of getting your State Retirement Pension straight away (ie you could defer your pension) you will not build up any extra pension during that time. It is always important to seek further advice before making any decisions.

If your partner is being paid a State Retirement Pension, and receives an extra amount for you, you can still claim CA (before you reach retirement age), but the amount your partner gets for you will be affected. If the amount of CA paid is higher than or equal to the amount your partner gets for you, then the addition will not be paid. If the CA amount is lower, you can be paid the difference through the ‘adult dependent addition’ of your partner’s pension.

The income of the person you care for

If you claim CA the amount of means-tested benefit paid to the person you look after can sometimes be reduced.

For example, a person living on their own (or treated as living alone), or a person who is one of a couple who live alone and both get a qualifying disability benefit, would get the severe disability premium. (It is called the severe disability addition when paid as part of Pension Credit).

The severe disability premium (or addition) can only be paid to someone if no-one gets CA for looking after them, so once CA is paid to their carer, the severe disability premium or addition can no longer be paid.

If a couple qualifies for the severe disability premium/addition, they will be getting a double rate. If someone starts to receive CA for caring for one of them, they will get a single rate of the premium/addition. If another person starts to receive CA for caring for the other member of the couple, they will lose the premium/addition altogether.

Note that having underlying entitlement to CA will not affect the benefits of the person you are looking after.

Work-focused interviews

Work-focused interviews are not compulsory for CA claimants.

However, if you also get other benefits such as Income Support, you may still have to attend a work-focused interview before the claim can be decided.

The interview is with a personal adviser who will discuss opportunities for work and training, and the help they can offer you with this. You do not have to take any action following suggestions made in the meeting, but if you fail to attend or participate in an interview, your benefit could be reduced. If you feel that a work-focused interview is inappropriate for you, eg because of the level of care you provide or because of your own health needs, you can ask for the interview to be deferred or waived.

If you are claiming Employment and Support Allowance, there are different rules about work-focused interviews. To find out more about this please contact the Carers UK Adviceline.

A new benefit called Universal Credit has started to be introduced in some areas, which carers will be able to claim. Universal Credit will replace certain benefits such as Income Support and Housing Benefit. Contact the Carers UK Adviceline to find out more about this.

Some groups of carers will be placed in the no work-related requirements group for Universal Credit. This means that they will not have to participate in work-related requirements and will not have to attend work related interviews. The groups are:

carers who meet the conditions for entitlement to CA
carers who meet the conditions for entitlement to CA except for the earnings rule
carers with caring responsibilities for one or more severely disabled persons for at least 35 hours a week but who do not meet the conditions for entitlement to CA when the Secretary of State is satisfied that it would be unreasonable to require the claimant to comply with work related requirements

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Protecting your National Insurance record

Your National Insurance record is a summary of the National Insurance contributions paid through work, or credits awarded when you are unable to work. It is used to work out your entitlement to some state benefits, eg State Retirement Pension or contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

For each week that you receive CA you get a National Insurance Credit to help protect your record. Credits can also count towards Bereavement Benefits for your spouse or civil partner.
Carer’s Credit

Carer’s Credit is a way of protecting pension rights for people who are caring for someone but are not in paid work and are unable to claim carers’ benefits. If you already get CA then you do not need to claim Carer’s Credit as your pension is already protected.

To claim the Carer’s Credit you need to be caring for one or more disabled person for a total of 20 hours or more a week. The disabled person must be getting at least one of the following:

Attendance Allowance
Constant Attendance Allowance
the middle or highest rate of Disability Living Allowance care component
the standard or enhanced rate of the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment

If the person you’re caring for doesn’t get one of these benefits, you may still be able to get Carer’s Credit. When you apply, fill in the Care Certificate part of the application form and get a health or social care professional to sign it.

To claim Carer’s Credit you need to apply to the CA Unit of the Department of Work and Pensions (England, Wales and Scotland) or the Disability and Carers Service (Northern Ireland).