One disability or carer benefit, for one person, can take a whole household out of the benefit cap. Here is every exemption, how they interact and what to check if your Universal Credit has been capped.
Updated 8 October 2026 · Cap amounts and thresholds are the official 2026/27 figures
The benefit cap does not apply to your household if you, your partner or a child under 18 living with you gets Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Adult Disability Payment, Child Disability Payment or one of the other disability benefits listed below. It also does not apply if you or your partner gets Carer's Allowance or Carer Support Payment. The same goes for a Universal Credit award that includes the LCWRA element or the carer element and for Employment and Support Allowance with the support component.
Two exemptions have nothing to do with health. You are not capped once you, and your partner if you have one, have reached State Pension age, and you are not capped while you are on Universal Credit and earn £881 a month or more between you after tax and National Insurance. People who have recently stopped work can also get a nine-month grace period before the cap starts.
So the cap is less about how much you get and more about who in the household gets what. A single award for one person can lift the limit for everyone on the claim, and losing that award can bring the limit back. That makes the cap one of the clearest cases of one benefit decision changing another.
The cap was not increased for 2026/27, while most benefits rose in April and the two-child limit on the Universal Credit child element ended for assessment periods starting on or after 6 April 2026. Official figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions on 22 September 2026 show what followed. In May 2026, 160,000 households had their Universal Credit capped, 48% more than in February. Between March and May, 58,000 households were capped for the first time, the highest number in any quarter since the pandemic. The average capped household lost £346 a month, up from £237 in February.
The department says the rise coincides with uprating, the removal of the two-child limit and the rebalancing of Universal Credit, although its statistics do not show how much each change contributed. The most common capped household now has three children. Families who had never been near the cap are meeting it for the first time, and for many of them the first thing worth checking is not what to cut but whether someone at home already qualifies for an exempting benefit. The rest of this year's changes are on our UK benefit changes 2026 timeline.
The cap depends on where you live, whether you are single or a couple and, if you are single, whether your children live with you.
| Household | Per week | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Couple, or single parent with children living with you (outside Greater London) | £423.46 | £1,835 | £22,020 |
| Single adult (outside Greater London) | £283.71 | £1,229.42 | £14,753 |
| Couple, or single parent with children living with you (Greater London) | £486.98 | £2,110.25 | £25,323 |
| Single adult (Greater London) | £326.29 | £1,413.92 | £16,967 |
Weekly and monthly figures from gov.uk; yearly figures are the monthly amount multiplied by 12. If you are in a couple but do not live together, the single amounts apply.
Northern Ireland has its own version of the cap at the same levels: £423.46 a week for couples and lone parents and £283.71 a week for single people, with no separate London rate.
The cap adds up most of the money a working-age household gets to live on: Universal Credit, Child Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance (unless you get the support component), Jobseeker's Allowance, Housing Benefit, Maternity Allowance and a handful of older benefits such as Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Bereavement Allowance and Widowed Parent's Allowance. If the total goes over your limit, the excess comes off your Universal Credit. Child Benefit counts even though it is paid separately, which is one reason larger families meet the cap first.
What the cap leaves out matters just as much. PIP, DLA, Attendance Allowance and the Scottish disability benefits are not added to the total. They are not simply ignored either: receiving them switches the cap off. If you get Universal Credit and Housing Benefit at the same time, which can happen in some supported or temporary housing, the Housing Benefit is counted as nil for the Universal Credit cap. Almost every capped household is now capped through Universal Credit; in May 2026 only 150 households were capped through Housing Benefit.
None of this is about savings. The cap is a separate rule from the capital limits in Universal Credit, which we cover in which benefits are means-tested.
Any one of these is enough. You do not need more than one, and it does not have to belong to the person who claims Universal Credit.
| Exemption | Whose award counts | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| PIP (any component, any rate) | You, your partner or a child under 18 living with you | Covers a 16 or 17-year-old who claims PIP in their own name |
| DLA (any component, any rate) | You, your partner or a child under 18 living with you | The usual disability benefit for children under 16 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland |
| Adult Disability Payment, Child Disability Payment, Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance | You, your partner or a child under 18 living with you | Scotland's replacements for PIP and DLA |
| Attendance Allowance, Pension Age Disability Payment | You or your partner | Mainly matters for a couple where one partner is over State Pension age and the other is not |
| Carer's Allowance or Carer Support Payment | You, your partner or a young person aged 16 or over included in your claim | The person cared for does not have to live with you |
| Universal Credit carer element | Included in your Universal Credit award | For caring at least 35 hours a week for someone on a qualifying disability benefit |
| Universal Credit LCWRA element | Included in your Universal Credit award | Limited capability for work (LCW) on its own does not count |
| ESA with the support component | You or your partner | ESA in the work-related activity group counts towards the cap instead |
| Armed Forces Independence Payment, Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments, war pensions, War Widow's or Widower's Pension | You or your partner | Industrial Injuries Benefits also exempt you |
| Guardian's Allowance | You or your partner | Paid to some people bringing up a child whose parents have died |
| Earnings of £881 a month or more | You and your partner combined, after tax and National Insurance | Applies to Universal Credit; equal to 16 hours a week at the National Living Wage |
| State Pension age | You, and your partner if you have one | In a couple where one of you is under State Pension age, the cap may still apply |
Based on the gov.uk benefit cap guide and Part 7 of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013.
The household rule is the easiest part to overlook. For the cap, your household means you, your partner and the children you are responsible for. An award to another adult who lives with you, such as a grown-up son or daughter or a grandparent, does not lift the cap on your claim. Within that household, four situations are worth checking.
To see how two particular benefits sit together, such as Carer's Allowance with Universal Credit or PIP with ESA, try our "Can I get both?" combination checker.
Because the exemptions are tied to other awards, the cap moves whenever those awards change. Four moments are worth planning for.
Tell Universal Credit through your online journal as soon as you or anyone in the household is awarded an exempting benefit. Extra amounts in Universal Credit are not added automatically, and gov.uk notes that the carer element is not applied just because you start getting Carer's Allowance. When the change is made, it takes effect from the first day of the assessment period in which the new entitlement began, not from the day you reported it.
Awards made late are where money can go missing. PIP decisions can take months, and some awards are only made after a mandatory reconsideration or a tribunal. The rules let the Department for Work and Pensions revise a Universal Credit decision when you or a member of your family is awarded another benefit for a period that includes the date that decision took effect. If a PIP award is backdated, ask through your journal for the cap to be removed for the months the award covers and for any difference to be paid. PIPexpert explains the rest of the interaction in its guide to PIP and Universal Credit.
The reverse also applies. If PIP is stopped at a review, a child's DLA ends or Carer's Allowance stops, the cap can apply again from the start of the assessment period in which that entitlement ended. The knock-on can run across two households: when someone loses the daily living part of PIP, their carer's Carer's Allowance or carer element usually ends too, because those depend on the qualifying benefit, and the carer's own household may then be capped.
Challenging the decision that removed the exemption is often the most valuable step. You usually have one month from the date of the decision to ask for a mandatory reconsideration, and our benefit deadline calculator works out the exact last day from the date on your letter. For PIP, PIPexpert has a full guide to the mandatory reconsideration.
PIP, DLA and Attendance Allowance can stop being paid during a long stay in hospital or, in some cases, in a care home. That does not bring the cap back. The exemption rules cover a person who is still entitled to the benefit but is not being paid it because of a hospital or care home stay, so the household stays exempt. The payment rules themselves differ by benefit: see PIPexpert on PIP in hospital or a care home and AttendanceExpert on Attendance Allowance in hospital or a care home.
The LCWRA exemption only applies once the LCWRA element is actually part of your Universal Credit award. Being found to have limited capability for work, without the work-related activity part, does not exempt you, and neither does ESA in the work-related activity group. The months before the LCWRA element starts can therefore be capped unless another exemption applies. If the element is later added with backdating, ask for the cap to be reviewed for the same months. ESAexpert covers the timing in its guide to LCWRA backdating and the waiting period.
If you are waiting, check whether someone in the household already gets, or could claim, PIP or another exempting benefit. PIP and the Work Capability Assessment are separate tests, so a decision on one does not settle the other, as our guide to PIP and the Work Capability Assessment explains.
On Universal Credit, the cap does not apply in any assessment period where your earnings, or your and your partner's combined earnings, reach £881 a month after tax and National Insurance. The figure is set at 16 hours a week at the National Living Wage, converted to a monthly amount, and it rose from £846 on 1 April 2026. If you are self-employed, it is your actual earnings that count: income you are only treated as having under the minimum income floor does not.
Work is also how most households leave the cap. In the quarter to May 2026, 59% of the households that came off the cap did so because their earnings reached the threshold, according to the same DWP statistics.
If you have just stopped working or your pay has dropped, you may get a nine-month grace period before the cap starts. You qualify if all of these are true:
A partner's earnings count towards those 12 months even if they are not claiming, and you need to report your last 12 months' earnings when you apply. For a new claim, the grace period starts from the day after you last worked or the payday when your earnings fell below the threshold. The nine months keep running if you stop claiming and then claim again, so a short job in the middle does not restart the clock.
If your Universal Credit includes the childcare costs element, that part is shielded from the cap. The amount taken off is the excess over the cap minus your childcare costs element, and if the childcare costs element is larger than the excess there is no reduction at all. For example, if your benefits come to £150 a month over the cap and your award includes £400 for childcare, the cap takes nothing.
Scotland follows the same benefit cap rules as England and Wales, and the Scottish benefits are written into them: Adult Disability Payment, Child Disability Payment, Pension Age Disability Payment, Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance and Carer Support Payment all exempt a household. Scotland had the lowest share of capped Universal Credit households in May 2026, at 1.0%. ADPexpert explains how ADP works with Universal Credit.
Northern Ireland runs its own cap at the same weekly levels and with the same main exemptions. Households with children who are affected may be able to get a Supplementary Payment to cover the loss of Universal Credit or Housing Benefit by contacting the Welfare Supplementary Payments Team.
If you get Universal Credit, contact DWP through your journal or the Universal Credit helpline. If you are capped through Housing Benefit instead, gov.uk lists a separate benefit cap helpline on 0800 169 0145. A local advice service can also check your figures with you.
For most capped households the way out is a disability or carer benefit that someone at home already qualifies for. Our sister sites help with the claims themselves:
Free guides to every part of a PIP claim and a personalised report that helps you describe how your condition affects you on the PIP2 form.
Start with a free preview →Help with the Work Capability Assessment and the WCA50 form, the route to the LCWRA element and ESA's support component.
Start with a free preview →For a partner over State Pension age: clear answers for every care question on the Attendance Allowance form, with one question written free first.
Try one question free →Yes. If you, your partner or a child under 18 living with you gets PIP, the benefit cap does not apply to your household. Either component at either rate is enough, so a mobility award on its own still exempts you.
Yes. Disability Living Allowance for a child living with you, at any rate, exempts the whole household. The same applies to Child Disability Payment in Scotland.
Yes. Carer's Allowance, Carer Support Payment in Scotland and the carer element of Universal Credit all exempt your household. The person you care for does not have to live with you.
No. Only the LCWRA element of Universal Credit or ESA with the support component exempts you. LCW on its own, or ESA in the work-related activity group, does not.
On Universal Credit, the cap does not apply if you earn £881 a month or more, or you and your partner earn that much between you, after tax and National Insurance. The threshold was £846 until 31 March 2026.
You can ask. When another benefit is awarded for a period that includes the date a Universal Credit decision took effect, DWP can revise that decision, and the change runs from the start of the assessment period in which the new entitlement began. Report the award in your journal and ask for the cap to be removed for those months.
No. The cap was not increased for 2026/27. It is £423.46 a week for couples and single parents whose children live with them and £283.71 a week for single adults outside Greater London, and £486.98 and £326.29 a week in Greater London.
Sources: gov.uk: Benefit cap · Universal Credit Regulations 2013, Part 7 (the benefit cap) · UC, PIP, JSA and ESA (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2013, reg 12 and Sch 1 para 31 · DWP: Benefit cap, number of households capped to May 2026 · gov.uk: Universal Credit, what you'll get · gov.uk: Carer's Allowance eligibility · nidirect: The Benefit Cap · gov.uk: help from your local council (Crisis and Resilience Fund)