Working on UC
Calculator · benefit cap · 2026 to 2027

Will the benefit cap cut your Universal Credit?

The benefit cap limits the total benefits some working-age households can get. Many people are exempt, including everyone who gets the LCWRA element or PIP. Answer three short steps to check.

Answer the steps in order. You can stop as soon as it says you're exempt.

Step 1: Are you exempt?

Tick any that apply to you, your partner or a child living with you

Step 2: Your earnings

£a month

What reaches your bank account after tax and National Insurance. If you live with a partner, add their take-home pay too. Self-employed? Use your profit after tax and National Insurance.

£a month

Payments you make into a personal pension from your bank account, including payments you're planning to make. Leave it blank if you don't. Don't include a workplace pension taken from your wages: that's already left out of your take-home pay.

Step 3: Your household and benefits

Where do you live?
Who lives with you?
£a month

Take this from your Universal Credit statement, the monthly statement in your online account. Use the amount before any "benefit cap" deduction. Not on UC yet, or about to change your pension payments? The pension calculator can estimate it.

Child Benefit counts towards the cap: £27.05 a week for the eldest and £17.90 for each other child.

£a month

Shown on your Universal Credit statement as the childcare element. This part is protected from the cap. Leave it blank if you don't have it.

£a month

Most people can leave this blank. It's for things like new style JSA, new style ESA without the support component, Maternity Allowance or Widowed Parent's Allowance.

How the cap works

  1. You're exempt if you, your partner or a child living with you gets one of the health, disability or carer benefits in step 1.
  2. You're also exempt if your household earns £881 a month or more.
  3. Otherwise, add up the benefits that count: Universal Credit, Child Benefit and a few others.
  4. Compare the total with your cap: £1,229.42 a month for a single adult, or £1,835 for a couple or family, outside Greater London. In London it's £1,413.92 or £2,110.25.
  5. If the total is higher, your UC is cut by the difference. Childcare costs are protected.

Pension payments and the cap

  • GOV.UK says the £881 test uses earnings after tax and National Insurance. DWP is likely to take your pension payments off too, the same way it does when working out your UC.
  • So paying a lot into a pension could take you below £881 a month and bring the cap into play.
  • If you get LCWRA, PIP, the carer element or another benefit in step 1, you're exempt anyway, whatever you pay in.
  • This is an estimate, not financial or benefits advice. Citizens Advice can check your figures for free.
Where these figures come from

Checked November 2026.