If you’ve had a letter telling you to claim Universal Credit
What you have to do depends on what’s in the letter.
If the letter gives a deadline for you to claim Universal Credit, it’s a ‘migration notice’. The deadline should be at least 3 months after the date the notice was sent.
If your letter doesn’t have a deadline, you don’t have to claim Universal Credit unless you want to - even if the letter says you’ll have to claim Universal Credit in future. You won’t be able to go back to your old benefits after you claim. Check if you’ll be better off on Universal Credit before you claim.
If you’ve got a migration notice
You should claim Universal Credit by the deadline on the letter.
Your old benefits will stop after the deadline. If you claim Universal Credit before the deadline, the DWP might pay you extra to stop you being worse off. This is called ‘transitional protection’.
This means that if you’d get less on Universal Credit than your old benefits, you’ll get an extra amount to make up the difference. The DWP will reduce the extra amount over time - so you’ll eventually just get what you normally would on Universal Credit.
Transitional protection also means you might be able to get Universal Credit when you wouldn’t usually be entitled to it. If you:
- are a full-time student who wouldn’t usually get Universal Credit, you can usually get it until the end of your course
- get tax credits and have over £16,000 savings, you can get Universal Credit for up to a year - this is a type of transitional protection called a ‘transitional capital disregard’
If you can’t claim by the migration deadline
If the deadline hasn’t passed yet, you can ask the DWP to extend it. You can only ask for this before the original deadline in the letter. If the DWP agree, they’ll send you a new deadline.
If the deadline has passed, you can still get transitional protection if you claim Universal Credit up to a month after the deadline. The end of the month is called the ‘final deadline’.
If you claim after the final deadline, you can still claim Universal Credit - but you can’t get the transitional protection.
If you need help moving on to Universal Credit, you can talk to an adviser.
Claiming Universal Credit
If you claim Universal Credit, you'll usually get one payment each month, although you can ask to be paid more often. You usually have to manage your claim online.
It will usually take 5 weeks to get your first Universal Credit payment - but it could take longer.
Your old benefits might stop before your Universal Credit starts. When they stop depends on which benefits you get, and when you claim Universal Credit.
If you claim before the deadline from the DWP:
- tax credits stop the day before you claim Universal Credit
- Housing Benefit, income-based JSA, income-related ESA and Income Support stop 2 weeks after you claim Universal Credit
If you claim Universal Credit after the deadline from the DWP:
- tax credits stop the day before the deadline from the DWP
- Housing Benefit, income-based JSA, income-related ESA and Income Support stop 2 weeks after the deadline from the DWP
You’ll only get the extra 2 week payments if you’re still eligible for the benefit. You won’t need to pay back the extra payments and they won’t affect how much Universal Credit you’ll get.
If you won’t have enough money to live on while you wait for your first Universal Credit payment, you can ask for an advance payment. The advance payment is a loan - you’ll have to pay it back.