Benefits and support How your income affects Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support

The money we don’t count to work out benefit

  • The first £5 of the money you earn each week, if you are single.
  • The first £10 of the money you earn each week, if you are a couple.
  • The first £20 of the money you earn each week if you are disabled, registered blind with social services, or we treat you as a carer.
  • The first £25 of the money you earn each week, if you are a single parent.
  • A weekly allowance from New Enterprise Allowance to help start up a business.
  • Disability Living Allowance.
  • Attendance Allowance.
  • Mobility Allowance.
  • Payment from any of the following special government trust funds:
  • Constant Attendance Allowance
  • Charitable or voluntary payments. For example, this could include payments from a charity, a voluntary organisation, or family and friends.
  • Child Benefit
  • Exceptionally Severe Disablement Allowance and Severe Disablement Occupational Allowance (which are part of Industrial Injuries Benefit).
  • Severe Disablement Occupational Allowance.
  • War Pensioner's Mobility Supplement.
  • War Widow's or War Widower's Supplementary Pension.
  • War Widow's or War Widower's Pension.
  • War Disablement Allowance.
  • World War 2 Atrocity compensation payments.
  • Payments made by the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund 
  • The first £15 a week of any maintenance payments that are not for a child (as long as you have a dependent child or children living with you).
  • Your children's income and capital.

Even if we don't count the income you and your partner receive, you must still tell us about all the income you get, apart from the trust funds listed above  - it may affect how we work out your benefits in other ways.

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