If you are a student you may be able to claim benefit if you

• are receiving Income Support/Job Seekers Allowance.
• are a student couple with dependant children.
• are a lone parent/foster parent of a child under 18.
• satisfy the conditions for Disability Premium/Severe Disability Premium or Disabled Students Allowance due to deafness.
• have been incapable of work for 28 days.
• are a student aged 60+.
• have a non-student partner (but the claim must be in their name).
• are waiting to return to a course, having taken approved time out due to illness/caring responsibilities that have now ended.

What is not included as rent?

For most students, housing benefit is worked out by looking at the actual rent after the following have been taken off.

• Charges for food
• Charges for heating, hot water, cooking and lighting
• Any optional services included in your rent (for example, TV hire, personal laundry and so on)

If you rent your home from a private landlord we may not be able to use your full rent to calculate housing benefit and you may get less benefit.

The most we can ignore when we work out your student income is £20.

For example, if we have ignored the first £10 of the total student loan, we can only ignore £10 from any charitable or voluntary payments you receive every week.