Is Universal Credit going up? The April 2026 rise and what is set for April 2027

Yes. Universal Credit has gone up every April since 2020, and April 2027 is already partly fixed in law. The Universal Credit Act 2025 sets a minimum for the standard allowance: it must rise by at least September 2026 CPI plus about 0.78% for three of the four rates, and plus 0.19% for a single person under 25. Most other amounts, such as the child element, the carer element and the work allowances, have risen with CPI in practice, but for those the increase is a government decision rather than a legal duty. The lower health element of £217.26 is frozen by the same Act. What is not known yet is the figure. The Office for National Statistics publishes September's CPI at 7am on 21 October 2026, and DWP sets out the new rates in its uprating statement, which last year came on Budget day. This year's Budget is on 28 October 2026, so the statement is expected then or during November. This page will be updated on 21 October and again after the Budget. Until then every 2027/28 amount here is a formula, not a forecast, and we give no figure for CPI.

The Act sets a floor, not a figure. Section 1 says the 2027/28 standard allowance must be at least the 2025/26 amount increased by September 2025 CPI (3.8%), then by September 2026 CPI, then by an uplift of 3.1%. For a single person aged 25 or over that is £400.14 × 1.038 × (1 + September 2026 CPI) × 1.031, which comes to £428.221 × (1 + CPI). The same method reproduces this year's rates. £400.14 × 1.038 × 1.023 is £424.898, and the published 2026/27 rate is £424.90. Both couple rates match the same way. The one exception is the single under-25 rate: its minimum was £336.593, but DWP set it at £338.58. DWP has not said why. Our reading of the arithmetic is that it meets a separate test on the health element, explained below: £768.38 less the £429.80 protected rate comes to £338.58. The Act measures CPI as the rise in the price index from one September to the next, which for 2026/27 was 134.2 to 139.3, the 3.8% DWP used. The minimum is an "at least", so DWP can pay more but cannot round below it: in 2026/27 the £666.963 couple minimum was paid as £666.97. All four minimums, written as a multiple of CPI, are in the figures section. To see what your own household gets at today's rates, run it through the Universal Credit Calculator.

Because the uplifts in the Act are cumulative, not stacked. Each year's minimum starts from the previous year's Step 2 amount in the Act, the figure before that year's uplift and not necessarily the rate actually paid, so every new uplift replaces the one before rather than adding to it. Section 1(4) sets 2.3% for 2026/27, 3.1% for 2027/28, 4.0% for 2028/29 and 4.8% for 2029/30. The 2026/27 rates already carry the 2.3%, so the extra for April 2027 is 1.031 ÷ 1.023, about 0.78% above CPI for the three rates paid at their minimum. A claim that Universal Credit will rise by inflation plus 3.1% in April 2027 misreads the Act. On the same reading, if each year is set at its minimum, the real rise is about 0.87% in April 2028 and 0.77% in April 2029. The Act covers the tax years 2026/27 to 2029/30, and for those years it switches off the usual annual review of the standard allowance, so the formula takes its place. Income-related ESA follows a mirror rule for its personal allowance, which matters if you are still waiting to move from ESA to Universal Credit.

The two rates are treated differently. The lower rate of £217.26, paid on most new claims since 6 April 2026, is frozen. Section 3 of the Act removes the duty to review and uprate the health element for every year up to 2029/30, and nothing in the Act requires the lower rate to rise. The same section freezes the legacy limited capability for work element of £158.76, still paid in some older awards. The independent Young People and Work review, commissioned by the Secretary of State, describes the lower rate as frozen until 2029/30. The protected rate of £429.80 is covered by the same freeze, but section 4 adds a guarantee: for every combination of the protected rate and a standard allowance, the total must rise by at least CPI each year. If it would fall short, DWP must raise the protected rate, the standard allowance, or both. That is what happened in April 2026. The old single rate of £423.27 became £429.80, the exact amount that took a single person aged 25 or over from £823.41 to £854.70, a rise of 3.8% to the penny. Because the standard allowance's own real rise in April 2027 is only about 0.78%, the guarantee is likely to bite again once September CPI is above roughly that level, so in practice the protected rate is likely to go up despite the freeze. How DWP will meet the test has not been published, so we give no figure. Who keeps the protected rate is set out in the health element's two rates. To check which of the two rates applies to your own claim, use the Health Element Calculator.

In practice yes, but this is the part the law leaves to the government. The child element, the disabled child additions, the carer element, the childcare cost caps, the work allowances and the housing cost contribution are all reviewed every year under section 150 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. For Universal Credit, though, an increase after that review is discretionary rather than required. In April 2026 every one went up by 3.8%, rounded, through the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026: the child element to £303.94 per child (£351.88 for an eldest child born before 6 April 2017), the carer element to £209.34, the childcare caps to £1,071.09 and £1,836.16, the work allowances to £427 and £710, and the housing cost contribution to £96.55. The November 2025 uprating statement put it plainly: the Act took the standard allowance and health element out of the review, and other rates covered by it rose by 3.8%. The 2027/28 figures arrive with this autumn's statement and are expected to become law in the Up-rating Order 2027 in early March. Until then the Child Element Calculator uses the current rates.

Six things are still open. Local Housing Allowance has been frozen since April 2024 at the rates fixed on 31 January 2024, and whether it moves in 2027/28 will be announced in the uprating statement, with the rent officers' order expected in January 2027, as it was made on 6 January 2026. That decision is what moves the housing element for private renters, and while it stays frozen the gap to actual rents keeps widening. The benefit cap is £22,020 a year for couples and families outside London and £14,753 for single adults, or £25,323 and £16,967 in Greater London, and was last raised in April 2023. It is not uprated each year: the law requires a review at least once every five years, and nothing has been announced for 2027/28. The other elements wait for the statement. The start date for amounts other than the standard allowance waits for the Up-rating Order 2027, expected in early March. The health element for under-22s is a proposal, not law: the 2025 Pathways to Work Green Paper consulted on delaying it until age 22 in a reformed system after the Work Capability Assessment is replaced, the government's response says it will share proposals "in due course", and nothing ties it to April 2027. On 1 October 2026 the Guardian reported that ministers are now considering going further, removing the health element for claimants under 25, possibly including existing ones. That is a proposal too, not announced policy: DWP said it will not pre-empt the Milburn and Timms reviews, and the Guardian reports that the change would need a bill, which ministers are looking at for the next session of Parliament in 2027. And the Timms review is about PIP, not Universal Credit rates. Its final report is due later this autumn, and since PIP is not counted as income for Universal Credit it would affect an award only through the routes PIP opens. Nothing from it is legislated for April 2027.

Not on 6 April. For the standard allowance the Universal Credit Act 2025 fixes the start itself: each year's amount applies to any assessment period beginning on or after the first Monday of the tax year. 6 April 2027 is a Tuesday, so that is Monday 12 April 2027. In 2026 the regulations setting the standard allowance and the protected health element were made on 6 February and applied from assessment periods beginning on or after 6 April 2026, the first Monday. For the other amounts, section 150 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 sets the same kind of rule: a change applies from the first day of your first assessment period that begins on or after the uprating date, not the first one that ends after it. That date is the first Monday unless the Up-rating Order picks an earlier day in April, and the 2025 and 2026 orders both used the first Monday. Payment then arrives 7 days after that assessment period ends, or on the working day before if that falls on a weekend or bank holiday. The result is that the first higher payment arrives between mid-May and mid-June 2027, and if your assessment period starts between the 6th and the 11th of the month you wait almost a month longer than someone whose period starts on the 12th, because your April period began a few days too early. The worked table is in the figures section. If the order chose 6 April instead, a period running from the 6th would get the amounts the order covers a month sooner, in a payment on Wednesday 12 May 2027, while the standard allowance would still follow the Act's date. You do not need to do anything: the new amounts are applied automatically. The Payment Dates Calculator works out your own dates. Why the day you claimed fixes them for the life of the claim is explained in the guide to assessment periods and payment dates.

By 3.8% for most amounts, and more for the standard allowance, which got CPI plus the first 2.3% uplift under the new Act. A single person aged 25 or over went from £400.14 to £424.90 a month, a couple where one is 25 or over from £628.10 to £666.97, a single person under 25 from £316.98 to £338.58, and a couple both under 25 from £497.55 to £528.34. The child element rose from £292.81 to £303.94, the carer element from £201.68 to £209.34, and the work allowances from £411 and £684 to £427 and £710. The childcare caps went up with them, which the Childcare Costs Calculator applies to your own bills. The benefit cap earnings exemption rose from £846 to £881 a month even though the cap itself did not move. How each of these feeds into the final award is set out step by step in how Universal Credit is calculated.

Two rules changed shape, not just amount. The two-child limit ended on 6 April 2026, so Universal Credit now includes a child element for every child you are responsible for, and the exceptions people had to apply for no longer matter for the element itself. Families already claiming did not need to do anything: the extra amount arrived in the May or June payment, depending on where their assessment period fell. And the health element split into two rates, £429.80 and £217.26. The higher rate is protected for anyone already receiving it, anyone who reported their condition before 6 April 2026, anyone who had the support group component of income-related ESA before that date and still gets it when they claim Universal Credit, a few other transitional cases set out in the regulations, anyone meeting the severe conditions criteria, and anyone claiming under the special rules for end of life. Everyone else gets the lower rate, a difference of £2,550.48 a year between two people with the same condition. Some things did not move at all. Local Housing Allowance stayed frozen at the rates set in April 2024, the benefit cap was frozen again, and the 14% and 25% under-occupancy reductions, the capital limits of £6,000 and £16,000, and the 55% taper are unchanged. If you have three or more children, check every child has an element on your statement. One change came later in the year: from the 2026 to 2027 school year every child in a Universal Credit household in England can get free school meals, but you still need to apply.

Wednesday 21 October 2026, 7am: the ONS publishes September 2026 CPI, from which the legal minimum for every standard allowance can be worked out, and which shows whether the health element guarantee bites. Wednesday 28 October 2026: the Budget. Last year DWP's uprating statement came on Budget day and the rates table the day after, so the 2027/28 rates are expected then or during November, including the decisions on Local Housing Allowance and the benefit cap. January 2027 (expected): the order that sets Local Housing Allowance rates for 2027/28. February 2027 (expected): the regulations that set the 2027/28 standard allowance and protected health element, following SI 2026/113, made on 6 February 2026. Early March 2027 (expected): the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2027, which makes the other amounts law and confirms their start date (the 2026 order was made on 2 March and the 2025 order on 12 March). Monday 12 April 2027: the first assessment periods at the new standard allowance begin, and the other amounts too unless the order picks an earlier date. Mid-May to mid-June 2027: the first higher payments arrive, depending on your assessment period.