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Who can apply for Carer Support Payment

Carer Support Payment is money you can get if you provide care for someone, and meet certain eligibility criteria. You must:

  • be 16 or over
  • usually live in Scotland
  • provide care for 35 hours or more a week, this includes if you provide care all day every day
  • not earn more than £151 a week after tax, National Insurance and expenses

The person you provide care for must get certain disability benefits.

Read all about eligibility criteria on the rest of this page.

Where you live

You can apply for Carer Support Payment now if you live in:

  • Dundee City
  • Perth and Kinross
  • the Western Isles
  • Angus
  • North Lanarkshire
  • South Lanarkshire

To find out if applications are open in your area, go to the Carer Support Payment postcode checker.

If you live anywhere else, you can apply for Carer Support Payment when applications open in your area. Or you can apply now for Carer's Allowance from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Find out more about Carer's Allowance at GOV.UK.

Carer Support Payment is replacing Carer's Allowance in Scotland. You cannot get Carer Support Payment and Carer's Allowance at the same time.

Carer Support Payment will be available in more areas from August 2024 and across Scotland from November 2024.

If you get Carer's Allowance and live in Scotland, you do not need to apply for Carer Support Payment. Your benefit will move to Carer Support Payment. This is happening between February 2024 and spring 2025. Learn more about moving from Carer's Allowance to Carer Support Payment.

Check if you're eligible for Carer Support Payment

Check if you might be able to get Carer Support Payment by answering a few questions. 

You'll be asked:

  • your age
  • where you live
  • what benefits the person you care for gets
  • how many hours of care you provide
  • if anyone else provides care for the same person
  • if you earn any money

Check if you're eligible

The type of care you provide

To get Carer Support Payment, you must provide care for someone as an unpaid carer for 35 hours or more a week. It cannot be care you provide:

  • as a professional care worker
  • through a volunteering scheme or charity

Even if you do not think of yourself as an unpaid carer, you might be eligible for Carer Support Payment. Examples of caring for someone include supporting them:

  • with their mental health
  • during an illness
  • with a disability
  • if they have an addiction

Supporting someone with their mental health

If you provide care for someone with a mental health condition, you might:

  • comfort them during a panic attack
  • stay close by so they do not feel alone
  • support them through a crisis
  • make sure they're safe
  • keep them company

Supporting someone with an illness or disability

If you provide care for someone with an illness or disability, you might support them with:

  • getting around
  • getting dressed
  • taking medicines
  • using the shower or toilet
  • cooking meals
  • food shopping
  • translating

The person you provide care for

You might provide care for:

  • someone in your family
  • a friend
  • a neighbour

You do not have to live with them or be related to them.

You can only apply for Carer Support Payment for one person. If you provide care for more people, you are not entitled to extra payments.

Benefits the person you care for gets

To be eligible for Carer Support Payment, you must provide care for someone who gets one of these disability benefits:

  • Adult Disability Payment – daily living component
  • Child Disability Payment – middle or highest care rate
  • Attendance Allowance
  • Personal Independence Payment – daily living component
  • Disability Living Allowance – middle or highest care rate
  • Constant Attendance Allowance at or above normal maximum rate with Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
  • Constant Attendance Allowance at or above the basic (full day) rate with a War Disablement Pension
  • Armed Forces Independence Payment

These are sometimes called 'qualifying benefits'.

If you get Carer Support Payment, it will not affect the qualifying benefit the person you care for gets. But it could affect other benefits that you and the person you care for get. If you live with a partner, it could also affect their benefits.

Find out about how Carer Support Payment may affect other benefits.

Which country you live in

If you've recently moved to Scotland

You need to have lived in the Common Travel Area (UK, Ireland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man) for at least 26 of the last 52 weeks, unless:

  • you have refugee status
  • you have certain immigration circumstances
  • you or the person you care for have a terminal illness
  • you’ve been out of the Common Travel Area because you or one of your family are a UK Civil Servant or a serving member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces
  • you’re an aircraft worker, mariner or continental shelf operations worker
  • the person you care for gets Armed Forces Independence Payment or Constant Attendance Allowance

Read more about getting benefits if you’ve recently moved to Scotland. Go to Citizens Advice Scotland.

If you live outside of Scotland

You might be able to get Carer Support Payment from November 2024 if either:

  • you live in an EU country, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland or Gibraltar and have a genuine and sufficient link to Scotland
  • you or a family member are posted abroad as a member of the UK Armed Forces, or as a UK Civil Servant

A genuine and sufficient link is where you do not live in Scotland, but have a link to Scotland. For example, you have spent a significant part of your life in Scotland.

If you live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, you can apply for Carer’s Allowance. Read about benefits and support you may be able to get: 

If you get Carer's Allowance

If you already get Carer’s Allowance and live in Scotland, you do not need to apply for Carer Support Payment.

DWP and Social Security Scotland will move you from Carer's Allowance to Carer Support Payment. This is happening between February 2024 and spring 2025. This will happen automatically and you do not need to do anything.

DWP will continue to pay you until Social Security Scotland start to pay you Carer Support Payment.

There'll be no gap in your award and the amount you get will stay the same. 

Read more about moving from DWP to Social Security Scotland.

Your age

To be eligible for Carer Support Payment, you must be aged 16 or older.

If you're aged 16 but have not yet reached the minimum school leaving age, you will not normally be able to get Carer Support Payment. This is because it is not available to people who are aged 16 and in school full time. But you may be able to get Carer Support Payment if you're below the minimum school leaving age and have exceptional circumstances. Continue reading to find out about the exceptional circumstances.

Find out about school leaving age in Scotland at GOV.UK.

If you study

If you study part time

You can get Carer Support Payment if you study any course and spend less than 21 hours a week in class or doing coursework.

If you're aged 20 or older

You can get Carer Support Payment if you study any course and you're aged 20 or older. 

If you're aged 16 to 19

You can get Carer Support Payment if you study full time:

  • at university
  • on a college course such as a Higher National Certificate or Higher National Diploma

You cannot normally get Carer Support Payment if you spend 21 hours or more a week studying for one of the following courses at school or college. This includes home-schooling. By 'studying' we mean in class or doing coursework:

  • National Certificates (NC) levels 1 to 6
  • National Qualifications (NQ) levels 1 to 6
  • Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQ) level 1 or 2
  • Scottish Highers or Advanced Highers
  • a combination of Highers and Advanced Highers, called a Baccalaureate
  • similar courses at school or college, for example A levels

Also you cannot normally get Carer Support Payment if you do one of these training programmes:

  • No One Left Behind
  • another training programme supported by your local council, which are sometimes delivered by third sector organisations

But there are exceptional circumstances where you can get Carer Support Payment when you're doing those courses or training programmes. Since June 2024, you may be eligible in any of these circumstances:

  • you do not get support from your parents or guardians
  • you're responsible for a child or qualifying young person (including being a foster parent)
  • you get a disability benefit and have been assessed or treated as having 'limited capability for work'
  • you're a student and you live with a partner who is not
  • you and a partner you live with are both students, but only your partner meets any of these exceptional circumstances

If you're eligible for Universal Credit or income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Social Security Scotland can take this as evidence that at least one of those exceptional circumstances applies to you. 

More support if you're studying

Find more support if you're studying while providing care.

If you work

To get Carer Support Payment your take home pay cannot be more than £151 a week. This is about the same as £654 a month, or £7852 a year. Your take home pay is what's left after you've paid tax, National Insurance and expenses such as childcare costs while you work.

It’s okay if your take home pay is sometimes more than £151 a week. Social Security Scotland will work out how much your average take home pay is.

Learn about Carer Support Payment if you work.

If someone else provides care for the same person

If you and someone else care for the same person for 35 hours or more a week, only one of you can get Carer Support Payment. So you might want to talk to each other to decide who’ll apply. If you both apply, Social Security Scotland has a process of deciding who’ll be awarded Carer Support Payment.

You can get advice on how your other benefits might be affected so you can both get as much money from benefits as possible. Contact Citizens Advice Scotland.

You cannot get Carer Support Payment if someone else provides care for the same person and already gets any of:

  • Carer Support Payment
  • Carer’s Allowance
  • Universal Credit carer element

You can still get Carer Support Payment if someone else provides care for this person:

  • as a professional care worker
  • through a volunteering scheme or charity

You can also get Carer Support Payment if someone else provides care for this person and gets Young Carer Grant.

If you are not eligible

If you cannot get Carer Support Payment, you might be able to get other benefits and support.

Learn about other support for carers.

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