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Our Benefits Calculator 
gives you an instant estimate of the help you may get with your rent ( Housing Benefit only )or Council Tax Support.
This calculation is only an estimate based on the information you supply.
Your circumstances could mean that you are affected by The Benefit Cap. Please see Benefits Cap
To claim Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Support, please see our How to Claim page.
To claim tax credits, you must contact Universal Credit
To find out about the full range of benefits available and how to claim them, visit the benefits pages of the GOV.UK website
If you still receive Job Seekers Allowance (Income Based), Employment & Support Allowance (Income Based) or Income Support you will generally receive the maximum Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support that can be awarded. If you have friends, relatives or anyone over 18 living in your home, a deduction will generally be made from your benefit. See our page other people living with you for more information.
If you do not receive Job Seekers Allowance (Income Based), Employment & Support Allowance (Income Based) or Income Support we will need to know how much money you have coming in to calculate your entitlement.
We will add together your earnings and any other income and benefits you have (including your partner's income, if you have one). We will also need to have income details for any other people living with you.
Savings and investments include such things as bank or building society deposits, stocks, shares, and other investments. We add together your savings and capital with your partner's.
If your savings are £6,000 or less we will ignore them. For every £250 (or part of £250) you have over £6,000, we add £1 to the money we count each week when working out your benefit. This is called 'tariff income'.
If you have savings and investments, either separately or jointly with your partner, worth more than £16,000, you will not be entitled to Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support.
We work out your benefit by comparing your weekly income with your 'applicable amount' which is the amount the Government says you need to live on each week. Every year the Government sets the levels of personal allowances and premiums which make up your 'applicable amount' and we must use this to work out how much Housing Benefit you will get. The applicable amount will be higher for some people, for example if you have a disability or have been unwell for a long time, or if you are a one parent family.
The Council sets the levels of personal allowances and premiums used to work out how much Council Tax Support you will get.
The amount of Housing Benefit that you may be awarded may not necessarily be the full amount of rent that you pay to the Council or Housing Association. Please see our Housing Benefit for social housing tenants with spare bedrooms page for more information
The amount of Housing Benefit that you may be awarded may not necessarily be the full amount of rent that you pay to your landlord. Please see our section on Private Tenants for more information.
From April 2014 the amount of Council Tax Support that you may receive will be based on 80% of your Council Tax liability and this will also be restricted to 80% liability of a Band C property, unless you fall into one of the 'protected groups', where it will be based on 100% of your Council Tax liability. Please see our Council Tax Support page for more information.
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