What will affect your Universal Credit payments

Savings, assets and investments

Any income from savings, assets and investments (for example, interest on savings, rent you receive from properties you own or dividends from shares) is considered to be ‘capital’.

Capital with a value of £6,001 to £16,000 will affect your Universal Credit. For each £250 above £6,000, your Universal Credit is reduced by £4.35 a month. If it is not a complete £250, it is rounded up to the next £250.

For example: If you have capital of £6,300, your Universal Credit will be reduced by £8.70 a month until the value of your capital is £6,300 or less.

When your capital is £6,250 or less, your Universal Credit will be reduced by £4.35 a month until the value of your capital is £6,000 or less.  Once your capital is £6,000 or less, your Universal Credit will no longer be reduced.

If you have capital valued at £16,000 or more, you are not entitled to Universal Credit.

‘Capital disregards’ are amounts of capital that are not taken into account when deciding how much Universal Credit you can get.  Capital disregards include:

• assets of a business that is trading
• premises or land you live in
• occupational and personal pensions

This is not a complete list.  For more information, speak to your work coach.

Unearned income

Regular income other than earnings (including some benefits) will usually be treated as unearned income when working out your Universal Credit payments.  This means that you will get less Universal Credit.

Unearned income includes:

• pension payment
• student income
• employment and training payments paid as a substitute for Universal Credit or for living expenses

This is not a complete list.  For more information, speak to your work coach.

Deductions

You may get less Universal Credit if you:

• have had a Universal Credit advance
• have had a Hardship Payment
• have had a Fraud Penalty
• have had a Sanction
• owe money to third party suppliers (for example, gas and electricity companies
• have benefit debt or have received benefit overpayments
• have received Tax Credit overpayments

You can find information on when money can be taken from your Universal Credit payments, and who to contact if you have any questions.

Sanctions

Your Universal Credit payment may be reduced if you do not meet the responsibilities set out in your Commitment and you cannot give a good reason to explain why. This is known as a Sanction. 

With a Sanction, you will be told how much of your Universal Credit payment you will lose and for how long.