What is your household missing? The unclaimed benefits check

Around £23 billion of benefits and support goes unclaimed in the UK every year, mostly because people assume they will not qualify. Answer eight quick questions above and see what your household appears entitled to, with the official free claim link for each.

How this checker works

The tool above asks eight questions: whether you or your partner have reached State Pension age, your household make-up, how many dependent children you have and the age of the youngest, whether you are in paid work, your household income before tax, your savings, and whether rent, disability or caring responsibilities apply. From those answers it screens you against the headline rules for the main UK entitlements and shows what looks worth claiming, each with its official, free claim link. It is deliberately a fast screen rather than a full means test: the point is to stop you ruling yourself out of things you have never actually checked.

That self-exclusion is the whole problem. Support is split across three different systems, HMRC for Child Benefit, Tax-Free Childcare and Marriage Allowance, the DWP for Universal Credit, Pension Credit and disability benefits, and your local council for Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit. No one of them will ever tell you what the other two owe you.

What the checker screens you for

Entitlement	2026/27 value	Means-tested?
Child Benefit	£27.05 a week first child (£1,406.60 a year), £17.90 each additional (£930.80 a year)	No, but a tax charge applies from £60,000 income
Tax-Free Childcare	Government adds £2 for every £8 you pay in, up to £2,000 per child per year	Work and income conditions, not savings
Marriage Allowance	£1,260 of allowance transferred, worth £252 a year	Income conditions only
Pension Credit	Tops up low pensioner incomes, roughly £3,900 a year for the average missing claimant	Yes
Universal Credit	Depends on rent, children and income	Yes
Council Tax Reduction	Up to 100% of the bill, set by each council	Yes
PIP / Attendance Allowance	Paid for the impact of a condition, on top of any other income	No
Carer's Allowance	Paid for 35+ hours a week of care, subject to an earnings limit	Earnings-tested

A worked example: the family who assumed they got nothing

Take a couple with two children aged two and six. One partner earns £64,000, the other £9,000 from part-time work. They assumed a £73,000 household was over every limit. The checker disagrees on three counts.

Child Benefit: two children pay £44.95 a week, £2,337.40 a year. The High Income Child Benefit Charge only starts at £60,000 of the higher earner's adjusted net income and removes 1% per £200 above it. At £64,000 the charge is 20%, £467.48, so the family keeps £1,869.92. Opting out entirely, as many do, would throw that away. Check your own position with the Child Benefit tax calculator.

Tax-Free Childcare: both parents work and neither has adjusted net income over £100,000, so they qualify. With a two-year-old in nursery costing £800 a month, paying through the account means the government adds £160 of that £800 every month, worth up to £2,000 a year per child. In England they should also check the funded childcare hours for working parents, which run alongside. The Tax-Free Childcare calculator shows the top-up on your actual fees.

What they do not get is instructive too: Marriage Allowance fails not because of the £9,000 income but because the higher earner pays 40% tax; the recipient must be a basic-rate taxpayer. The checker tells you this so you do not waste time applying.

Total found in ten minutes: roughly £3,900 a year of support for a household that had claimed none of it.

The entitlements people wrongly rule themselves out of

• Pension Credit. Hundreds of thousands of eligible pensioner households never claim. It can be paid even with some savings and a small private pension, and it unlocks Warm Home Discount, help with housing costs and a free TV licence over 75. If a parent or neighbour is on a low pension income, run their numbers too.
• PIP and Attendance Allowance. Neither is means-tested. Income, savings and a working partner are all irrelevant; what matters is how a health condition affects daily living or mobility. People with decades of NI contributions routinely never claim.
• Council Tax Reduction. This is a separate scheme from the 25% single person discount, run by each council with its own rules, and it can cut a bill to zero. Renters and owners both qualify.
• Child Benefit above £60,000. Between £60,000 and £80,000 you keep part of it, and even above £80,000 it is usually worth claiming and opting out of payments, because the claim protects the non-working parent's State Pension record and gets the child a National Insurance number automatically.
• Marriage Allowance. Worth £252 a year and backdatable four years, but roughly a five-minute claim. If one of you earns under £12,570 and the other is basic rate, use the Marriage Allowance calculator and then claim on GOV.UK.

Common mistakes when checking entitlements

• Testing household income against individual limits. The Child Benefit charge and the £100,000 childcare cut-off test each parent separately, not the household. Two £59,000 earners keep everything; one £90,000 earner with a non-working partner loses most of it.
• Assuming savings block everything. They matter for Universal Credit and Pension Credit, but not for PIP, Attendance Allowance, Child Benefit or Tax-Free Childcare.
• Never re-checking. Entitlements switch on and off with life events: a new baby, rent increase, drop in hours, a partner moving in or out, reaching State Pension age. Re-run the checker after any of them.
• Stopping at the screen. This tool tells you what deserves a proper look. Amounts for Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Council Tax Reduction need a full calculation before you rely on them.

Claim routes at a glance

Every entitlement in this checker is claimed free through an official channel, and none of them needs a paid intermediary or a phone queue longer than the claim itself.

• Child Benefit: claim online at GOV.UK or through the HMRC app; new parents can claim as soon as the birth is registered and payments can be backdated up to three months.
• Tax-Free Childcare and funded hours: one online childcare account at GOV.UK covers both; you reconfirm your details every three months.
• Marriage Allowance: the lower earner applies online at GOV.UK in about five minutes; backdating is part of the same form.
• Pension Credit: apply online, by post, or by phone; a claim can be backdated three months, and one successful claim automatically opens the door to Warm Home Discount and other passported help.
• Universal Credit: claimed and managed through your online account; support with the application is available free from Citizens Advice's Help to Claim service.
• Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit: claimed from your own council's website, not GOV.UK, which is exactly why they get missed.
• PIP, Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance: claimed from the DWP; the disability forms are long, so free help from Citizens Advice or a local carers' centre measurably improves success rates.

What to do next

Claim anything the checker flags through the official GOV.UK page linked on each result; every claim is free and none of them needs a paid intermediary. For the means-tested benefits, follow up with one of the full independent calculators listed at gov.uk/benefits-calculators, which model rent and childcare costs in detail. Then check the tax side of your household with the take-home pay calculator, because a wrong tax code and an unclaimed benefit have the same effect on your bank balance.

This checker is a guide based on headline rules, not a decision about your claim; always confirm entitlement and amounts on GOV.UK before making financial decisions.

Who should use this calculator

Billions of pounds in benefits go unclaimed every year, largely because people assume they will not qualify. This checker asks about your household, income and circumstances and flags what may be worth pursuing — including entitlements that are not means-tested at all, such as Attendance Allowance and Personal Independence Payment, which many people wrongly rule themselves out of.

Pension Credit is the most under-claimed of all, and it matters beyond its own value because it acts as a gateway: receiving it can unlock help with council tax, a free TV licence over 75, and cold weather payments. Checking costs nothing.

What this calculator assumes

• Entitlement is assessed on household circumstances — who lives with you, income, savings and health.
• Means-tested benefits generally taper as income rises rather than stopping at a cliff edge.
• Some benefits are not means-tested and depend on care or mobility needs rather than income.
• Results indicate what is worth applying for, not a decision.

Limitations — what it does not cover

• The actual decision, which rests with DWP, HMRC or your local council after a full application.
• Capital limits. Savings above a threshold reduce or remove means-tested benefits entirely.
• The benefit cap and the two-child limit, which restrict total entitlement.
• Migration to Universal Credit from legacy benefits, where timing can affect what you receive.
• Devolved benefits in Scotland, administered by Social Security Scotland under different rules.
• Immigration status and the no-recourse-to-public-funds condition.