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Later Life GuideSee what you can claim

Benefits and entitlements for older people

Benefits at pension age go unclaimed for the same reasons every time: the forms are hard, the rules are badly explained, and nobody tells you which answers actually matter. These guides fix that, one benefit at a time.

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Payment dates
When each benefit is paid, and the dates a bank holiday moves.

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Guides by topic

Pension Credit

Pension Credit tops weekly income to £238 single or £363.25 for a couple. Savings do not disqualify you, and there is no upper limit — and the payment is only part of what claiming brings.

Attendance Allowance

£76.70 or £114.60 a week for help with personal care after State Pension age. Not means-tested, no carer required, and savings make no difference at all.

State Pension

£241.30 a week at the full new rate, from age 66 rising to 67 between April 2026 and April 2028. You have to claim it; it is not paid automatically. The 10-year minimum, the qualifying years that set the amount, and the day it arrives.

Carer's Allowance

£86.45 a week for 35 hours of caring. But a claim can end the severe disability addition worth £86.05 a week to the person you care for — so the household arithmetic comes first.

Council tax

Council Tax Reduction for pensioners in England is set by national regulations, not by each council: the first £10,000 of savings is ignored, the guarantee credit of Pension Credit disregards everything, the reduction can reach 100%, and a claim is backdated three months automatically. Beside it sit the discounts: 25% for living alone, and the severe mental impairment disregard a household with dementia may be missing.

Winter help

The payments that go towards a winter heating bill after State Pension age: who gets them automatically, who has to claim, and which ones changed this year.

Housing Benefit

If you have reached State Pension age and rent your home, Housing Benefit is still yours to claim; Universal Credit is for people under it. The pension-age rules disregard the first £10,000 of savings, backdate a claim three months automatically, and carry no bedroom tax. What you get, how to claim, and what changes you must report.

PIP

You usually have to be under State Pension age to make a new PIP claim; over it, the route is Attendance Allowance, unless you had PIP in the last 12 months. An award that exists when you reach pension age carries on and is reviewed, but the mobility part cannot be raised after that. Attendance Allowance pays the same two rates as PIP's daily living part and has no mobility part. People born on or before 8 April 1948 stay on DLA.

Blue Badge application

Some people get a Blue Badge automatically on the strength of a benefit award. Everyone else is assessed by their council on what they write. Here is which group you are in.

Appointee

A DWP appointee claims and manages benefits for someone who cannot manage their own. It costs nothing, needs no court, and covers benefits only. What it involves, how it is granted, and how to stop one who is misusing it.

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