UK Benefit Cap Calculator

About the UK Benefit Cap Calculator

Work out whether the benefit cap reduces your Universal Credit, the way DWP works it out (Advice for decision making, Chapter E5). The cap limits the total of most working-age benefits: £2,110.25 a month in Greater London and £1,835.00 elsewhere in Great Britain for a couple or a single parent, £1,413.92 and £1,229.42 for a single adult with no child living with them (GOV.UK). DWP adds up your Universal Credit, Child Benefit and the other capped benefits for the month and takes anything above the cap off your Universal Credit, less any childcare costs element.

The cap does not apply when you or your partner get a disability or carer benefit such as PIP, Attendance Allowance or Carer’s Allowance, when your award includes the LCWRA or carer element, when you earn £881 a month or more between you after tax, in the 9-month grace period after your earnings fall, or once you (and your partner) reach State Pension age. Enter your household, your Universal Credit and the benefits you get; nothing you type leaves your browser.

Without a pass the free preview shows how much the cap takes, in full; a Pro pass opens every figure: the benefits counted, the amount over the cap, your Universal Credit after it, each exemption checked and the working, with the CSV and printing.

The benefit cap amounts

• Greater London: £2,110.25 a month (£25,323 a year) for a couple, with or without children, or a single parent whose children live with them; £1,413.92 (£16,967 a year) for a single adult.
• Elsewhere in Great Britain: £1,835.00 (£22,020 a year) and £1,229.42 (£14,753 a year).
• Weekly amounts (the cap councils apply to Housing Benefit): £486.98 and £326.29 in London, £423.46 and £283.71 elsewhere.
• A couple who live apart get the single amounts (GOV.UK).

What the cap counts

Universal Credit (before the cap and before any sanction), Child Benefit (£27.05 a week for the eldest child, £17.90 for each other child), New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance, New Style Employment and Support Allowance, Maternity Allowance, Widowed Parent’s Allowance, Bereavement Allowance, Widow’s Pension, Widowed Mother’s Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance (GOV.UK). A benefit paid weekly counts × 52 ÷ 12 a month, one paid every four weeks × 13 ÷ 12. Housing Benefit paid alongside Universal Credit (for supported or temporary accommodation) counts as nil (ADM E5022), and Bereavement Support Payment and the State Pension are not on the list.

Who the cap does not affect

• State Pension age: a single person who has reached it, or a couple when both have. If only one of you has, the cap can still apply.
• Universal Credit with the LCWRA element (you cannot work because of a health condition) or the carer element.
• A benefit for you or your partner: Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Adult Disability Payment, Attendance Allowance, Pension Age Disability Payment, Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, Carer Support Payment, Employment and Support Allowance with the support component, Industrial Injuries Benefits, war pensions, War Widow’s or Widower’s Pension, Armed Forces Independence Payment, an Armed Forces Compensation Scheme guaranteed income payment, or Guardian’s Allowance.
• A benefit for a child you are responsible for: Disability Living Allowance, Child Disability Payment, PIP, Adult Disability Payment, SADLA, Carer’s Allowance or Carer Support Payment.
• One of these benefits that you, your partner or a young person you are responsible for are entitled to, but not paid only because of a stay in hospital, a care home or another institution, still exempts you; this does not apply to ESA, Carer’s Allowance, Carer Support Payment or Guardian’s Allowance (GOV.UK; ADM E5042).

The earnings exemption and the grace period

The cap does not apply in a month when your earnings, or your and your partner’s together, are at least £881 after tax and National Insurance: 16 hours a week at the National Living Wage of £12.71, × 52 ÷ 12, rounded down. If you claim because your earnings fell or you stopped work, and you earned at least the threshold of the time in each of the 12 months before, the cap waits for a grace period of 9 months: from the first day of the assessment period in which your earnings fell or, for a new claim, from the day after your last day of work or the payday on which your earnings fell below the threshold. A break in your claim does not stop the grace period running (GOV.UK).

How the reduction is worked out

The amount over the cap is the total of the counted benefits less the cap. DWP takes it off your Universal Credit, less the childcare costs element in your award; when that element is larger than the amount over the cap, nothing is taken. The cap only ever reduces Universal Credit: your other benefits are paid in full, and Universal Credit cannot go below nothing (ADM E5031 to E5033).

If the cap affects you

Contact DWP through your Universal Credit journal or the Universal Credit helpline. For help with rent or a deposit, your council can check whether you can get help from its Crisis and Resilience Fund (in England) or a Discretionary Housing Payment (in Scotland or Wales); these are not affected by the cap (GOV.UK). Working enough to earn £881 a month, or a change that brings an exemption, lifts the cap from that month.

Official sources

• GOV.UK: Benefit cap
• GOV.UK: Benefits affected by the cap
• GOV.UK: Benefit cap amounts
• GOV.UK: When you’re not affected by the benefit cap
• GOV.UK: When the benefit cap affects your Universal Credit payments (the grace period)
• GOV.UK: Help if you’re affected by the benefit cap
• DWP Advice for decision making, Chapter E5: Benefit cap (Universal Credit)
• GOV.UK: Benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027
• GOV.UK: Child Benefit, what you’ll get

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Limitations

• For Universal Credit claims in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland has its own arrangements.
• A household that gets Housing Benefit and no Universal Credit is capped by its council at the weekly amounts; this calculator works out Universal Credit claims.
• It uses the amounts you enter for one assessment period; DWP works the cap out on the amounts of each assessment period, as your statement shows them.
• An estimate from the published rules, not a decision of the Department for Work and Pensions and not financial advice.

Privacy

On this device: nothing is sent

Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.