What is Carers Allowance? How Can I Claim a Carers Allowance

If you are looking after a person for 35 hours or more within a week, you can be eligible for the carer’s allowance. The information provided in this article applies to the carers who belong to England, Northern Island, Scotland and Wales. The current rate of carer’s allowance in 2024-2025 is  £67.60 per week.

Most people confuse carer’s allowance is based on your income but that is not the case. It has nothing to do with your income or your partner’s income. It has been observed in many cases that people earn from their job but they are still eligible for the carer’s allowance. You must be wondering by now how can I claim a carer’s allowance.

In this article, we will cover the following discussion points based on frequently asked questions about carers’ allowance. This includes:

• What Is a Carer’s Allowance?
• Eligibility Criteria – can I claim a carer’s allowance?
• How to claim Carer’s Allowance

What Is a Carer’s Allowance?

A non-contributory benefit in the UK is known by the name of a carer’s allowance. This is allowable for individuals who care for disabled people for 35 hours or more than that in a week.

Its old form called invalid care allowance was introduced in 1976. According to the criteria of this type, married women were not eligible to claim it.

Moreover, to make the carer’s allowance work, it is not mandatory to be living with the person that you might take care of because of physical disability.

Eligibility Criteria – can I claim a carer’s allowance?

To be eligible for the allowance, there are certain criteria that you and the person you care for have to meet in any case. Otherwise, the chances are less to get the amount of allowance and enjoy relevant benefits.

Eligibility of the person you Care for:

It is mandatory for the disabled person you care for to have one of the following mentioned benefits to be eligible for the carer’s allowance. See the benefits listed below for you.

• Armed forces’ independent payment
• Attendance Allowance
• Daily living component, personal independence payment
• Constant attendance allowance which must not be less than the full-day rate
• Child disability allowance, the highest care rate is only available in Scotland

Eligibility Conditions for you:

The earnings belong to you can’t exceed more than £151 in a week, once the expenses listed below are taken off:

• National insurance contributions – some of them
• Half of the amount that you used to pay for occupational pension schemes or personal pension schemes
• Income tax
• Expenses like equipment are still to be paid

Moreover, the rest half of your earnings are allowed to pay someone but not the children or person you take care of when you are at work.

Some other conditions of your eligibility include the following:

• You must be over 16 years of age
• The working hours must be 35 or more than that in a week to care for a disabled or ill person.
• No immigration control process for you
• You can’t be part of a full education
• While you claim, you must be living or test living in Northern Ireland
• Either you live in Northern Ireland as a permanent resident or you belong to armed forces and live abroad. The situation will be the same if you live and serve someone who is associated with the armed forces and living abroad.
• You have lived in Northern Ireland for two to three years before you made the claim.

This is to be noted that if two or more people serve as carers of the same disabled person then only one of the carers will get the allowance. There are cases when one carer does the job for two or more disabled people.

You can’t add the hours of both the people to make it a count of 35. Also, if couples care for each other in the phase of illness or disability, both partners are allowed to claim separately.

How to claim Carer’s Allowance?

Now that you know the eligibility criteria, you must be thinking of the process to claim it. Online application is the most user-friendly way for this. If this is not suitable for you, you can download the apps and get help from disability and Carer’s service. The app varies for your age. The details include the following:

• Use application form DS700 if you are under state pension age.
• Use application form DS700(SP) if you are over state pension age.

The Bottom Line:

Now that you know how can I claim a carer’s allowance, we can sum up the discussion by saying that a carer’s allowance is easy to claim if all the conditions are met by you and the person you care for.

However, for a seamless process, do reach out to disability and carer’s services. We hope this article helped to develop a better understanding.

Disclaimer: This article intends to provide general information based on the ability to claim a carer’s allowance.