What is the benefit cap and how does it affect me?
Almost 80,000 households in Great Britain had their benefits capped from February 2024. The benefit cap is a limit on the total amount of benefit people can get. It applies to most people aged 16 or over who have not reached State Pension age. The amount of the cap depends on whether:
- you live inside or outside Greater London; and
- you’re single or in a couple; and
- your children live with you (if you’re single)
If you’re in a couple but you do not live together, you’ll get the amounts for a single person.
For people living outside Greater London the cap is:
- Couple or single parent: £423.46 per week/£1,835 per month
- Single without children: £283.71 per week/£1,229.42 per month
For people living inside Greater London the cap is:
- Couple or single parent: £486.98 per week/£2110.25 per month
- Single without children: £326.29 per week/£1,413.92 per month
Almost all benefits, apart from disability and health benefits such as PIP, are counted when calculating whether the benefit cap is applied:
- Universal Credit
- Bereavement Allowance
- Child Benefit
- Employment and Support Allowance
- Housing Benefit
- Jobseeker’s Allowance
- Maternity Allowance
- Widowed Parent’s Allowance (or Widowed Mother’s Allowance or Widow’s Pension if you started getting it before 9 April 2001)
However, many people with sight loss are not affected by the benefit cap because of the exemption rules:
- if you’re over State Pension age.
- If you’re part of a couple and one of you is under State Pension age, the cap may apply.
- if you or your partner get Universal Credit because of a disability or health condition that stops you from working (this is called ‘limited capability for work and work-related activity’)
- if you get Universal Credit because you care for someone with a disability
- if you get Universal Credit and you and your partner earn £881 or more a month combined, after tax and National Insurance contributions
- if you, your partner or any children under 18 living with you gets:
- Adult Disability Payment (ADP)
- Armed Forces Compensation Scheme
- Armed Forces Independence Payment
- Attendance Allowance
- Carer’s Allowance
- Carer Support Payment
- Child Disability Payment
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
- Employment and Support Allowance (if you get the support component)
- Guardian’s Allowance
- Industrial Injuries Benefits (and equivalent payments as part of a War Disablement Pension or the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme)
- Pension Age Disability Payment
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
- Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance
- Universal Credit with limited capability for work and work related activity element or carer element
- War pensions
- War Widow’s or War Widower’s Pension
Updated 07.09.26
