If you are working you cannot get Carer’s Allowance if you earn more than a set amount which is known as the earnings limit. The earnings limit is £151 a week after tax, National Insurance and other allowable expenses. If your earnings fluctuate they can be averaged out over a period of time. If you have a set pattern of work they will be averaged out over one complete cycle of work, otherwise they will be averaged over 5 weeks or whatever period enables your average earnings to be assessed most accurately.

The following expenses can be deducted from your earnings in addition to tax and National Insurance:

• 50% of pension contributions you pay
• equipment you need to do your job
• travel costs between different workplaces that are not met by your employer
• business costs if you are self-employed

If you pay a carer to look after the disabled person (or a child under 16 for whom either you or your partner get Child Benefit) to enable you to work, you can treat care costs that are less than or equal to 50% of your earnings as an expense. However, the care cannot be provided by a close relative which means a parent, child, sibling or partner of the disabled person.

Only one person can claim Carer’s Allowance in respect of a disabled child or adult, no matter how many people are actually providing care. For example, if you have a disabled child and both you and your partner provide at least 35 hours of care each per week for your child, only one of you can claim Carer’s Allowance.

If you are caring for more than one disabled child or adult you can only qualify for one award of Carer’s Allowance. For example, if you are caring for a disabled child and a disabled older relative, you can only claim Carer’s Allowance for one of them not both.

You cannot add together hours spent caring for more than one disabled child or adult to make up the 35 hours to qualify for Carer’s Allowance. For example, if you spend 25 hours a week caring for a disabled child and 10 hours a week caring for a disabled older relative you cannot add these hours together to qualify for Carer’s Allowance. You must provide at least 35 hours of care each week in respect of a single disabled child or adult.

You must provide 35 hours of care each week to qualify for Carer’s Allowance. You cannot average these hours over different weeks. For example, if you provide 25 hours of care one week and 40 hours of care the next week, you will only qualify for Carer’s Allowance in the week you provide the 40 hours of care and not the week you provide 25 hours of care.

The 35 hours of care can include providing physical assistance, supervision or prompting and can also include time spent preparing for the disabled person to come and stay with you and time spent cleaning up after their visit. Any physical help you give, time spent keeping an eye on the person, time spent providing encouragement and reassurance and time spent doing practical tasks for the person all count as caring.

It can be easy to underestimate the amount of care you are providing, particularly if you’re caring for a child or somebody with cognitive or mental health needs. With children, if the support you are providing is substantially in excess of the support a child of the same age without a disability would need, then it probably counts as caring for Carer’s Allowance.

Sometimes you can continue to qualify for Carer’s Allowance during temporary breaks in caring.

If you have been providing at least 35 hours of care a week for 22 of the last 26 weeks you can take a 4 week break from caring without it affecting your Carer’s Allowance entitlement. If the person you care for has been in hospital, up to 8 weeks of the hospital stay can be included in the 22 weeks. However, if the disability benefit for the person you are caring for stops because they are in hospital your Carer’s Allowance will also stop.

If you go into hospital yourself you can continue to get Carer’s Allowance for up to 12 weeks provided you have been caring at least 35 hours a week in 14 of the last 26 weeks and the person you care for has continued to receive their disability benefit.

If the person you are caring for dies you will continue to receive Carer’s Allowance for 8 weeks, provided they were still getting a disability benefit and you met the other conditions of entitlement at the time they died.

Claiming Carer’s Allowance can affect the benefits of the disabled person you are caring for. It won’t affect their disability benefit, but if they are on any means tested benefits which include a ‘severe disability premium’ (or ‘severe disability addition’ in Pension Credit) they will lose this part of their benefit.

If the person you are caring for gets any of the following benefits and they are getting a ‘severe disability premium’ (or ‘severe disability addition’ in Pension Credit) you should get further advice before claiming Carer’s Allowance:

• Income Support
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Housing Benefit
• Pension Credit

If the person you are caring for is getting Universal Credit it will not be affected if you claim Carer’s Allowance for them. This is true even if the person you are caring for is getting a severe disability premium transitional element included in their Universal Credit.

You can make a claim for Carer’s Allowance online or by post. If you’re claiming by post you can either print the form off or you can contact the Carer’s Allowance Unit to ask for a form to be sent out to you.

You can ask for your claim to be backdated by a maximum of 3 months before the date you make the claim, provided you met the eligibility conditions for this period. The form ask what date you want to claim for and you don’t need to give a reason why you want it backdated.

You can also have Carer’s Allowance backdated further than 3 months if it has taken longer than 3 months for the person you are caring for to get a decision on their disability benefit. In this circumstance your Carer’s Allowance can be backdated to the date the disability benefit of the person you are caring for was awarded from, provided you have met the other eligibility conditions from that date and claim within 3 months of them getting the decision on their disability benefit.

For example, if the person you are caring for makes a claim for a disability benefit at the start of February but does not receive a decision letting them know they have been awarded the benefit until the start of June, the disability benefit will usually be backdated to the date of claim in February. If you have been caring for them since February and meet the eligibility conditions, then provided you make a claim for Carer’s Allowance by the start of September (within 3 months of the disability benefit decision being received in June) you can ask for it to be backdated to February.

You can also make a claim for Carer’s Allowance up to 3 months in advance. This would usually be in cases where you expect to start meeting the eligibility criteria such as if you are planning to stop work or reduce the hours you work to care for a disabled child or adult who is already in receipt of a qualifying disability benefit.

Carer’s Allowance is usually paid into your bank account weekly in advance or 4-weekly in arrears. You can choose how you prefer to be paid.

Carer’s Allowance can be claimed at the same time as other benefits, however, due to the overlapping benefit rules you might not be paid Carer’s Allowance or the amount of Carer’s Allowance you receive could be deducted from your other benefits. You won’t usually be worse off claiming Carer’s Allowance in addition to other benefits. Depending on what other benefits you are claiming you could be better off also claiming Carer’s Allowance or it might not make any difference to the overall amount of benefit income you receive. You can use an online benefits calculator to work out how Carer’s Allowance might affect any other benefits you are claiming.

Carer’s Allowance is counted in full as income for Tax Credits, however, because of the way Tax Credits are worked out getting Carer’s Allowance may not affect the amount of Tax Credits you receive.

Carer’s Allowance is also counted in full as income for Universal Credit, however, unlike Tax Credits, it will always affect the amount of Universal Credit you receive. You will not be worse off claiming Carer’s Allowance and Universal Credit together and having an entitlement to Carer’s Allowance (regardless of whether you claim it) gives you an entitlement to an additional carer element in Universal Credit. Our page on Universal Credit provides more information on the impact of claiming Carer’s Allowance and Universal Credit together.

If you live in Scotland it is always worth claiming Carer’s Allowance and Universal Credit together. This is because you will only qualify for the Carer’s Allowance Supplement in Scotland if you are claiming and being paid Carer’s Allowance.

If you are claiming Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Housing Benefit or Pension Credit and need further advice on how claiming Carer’s Allowance might affect these benefits we suggest you get in touch with Citizens Advice or Carers UK as Working Families only provides detailed advice on in-work benefits.

For more information on benefits you can claim if you are caring for a disabled person see our guide to benefits if you are caring for a disabled child or our guide to benefits if you care for a disabled adult.

Getting Carer’s Allowance may also mean you are eligible for other ‘passported benefits‘.

If you’re not entitled to Carer’s Allowance, for instance because you are earning over the earnings limit, you may be eligible for Carer’s Credit instead. To qualify for Carer’s Credit you must provide at least 20 hours a week of care.

Carer’s Credit is a National Insurance credit that helps with gaps in your National Insurance record, meaning that you can take on further caring responsibilities without affecting your ability to qualify for the State Pension (if you get Carer’s Allowance, these credits will be automatically included). Your income, savings or investments will not affect eligibility. More information is available on gov.uk.