Apply for housing benefit or council tax reduction
Every five to six years, the calendar makes it so we have 53 Mondays instead of the usual 52. This coming financial year, 2024 / 2025, is one of those special years.
If you get Universal Credit, the Department for Work and Pensions will only pay for 52 weeks of your rent in a year. In a 53 week financial year, this means there will be one week of rent that will not be covered by Universal Credit.
Find out what we're doing to help and what to do if you're affected and already struggling with the cost of living.
Do you have an account?
Usually, we ask you to create an online benefit account before you apply. But our system is overloaded at the moment because of COVID-19. If you do not have an online benefit account, please just fill out the form using the link below.
If you already have an account, you can still access your account to complete forms and view your personalised benefit information.
Ready to apply?
The application form should take between 10 and 20 minutes to complete.
You will need to have your personal and income details ready.
You can upload scanned evidence of your address, income and other benefits or do this later.
What happens next
We will send you an email confirmation. A summary of the answers and the evidence checklist are attached for you to save or print.
We want to give you a decision on your claim as quickly as possible.
- If you have uploaded all the documents listed in the evidence checklist then we aim to process your application within 10 working days.
- If something is missing or we need to check something before we can process your application, we will contact you by phone or email.