Attendance Allowance check → Can I get Attendance Allowance? An eligibility check

Can I get Attendance Allowance? An eligibility check

Every condition for Attendance Allowance in plain words, why there is no points calculator or list of 56 illnesses, and a short yes-or-no self-check.

Written and checked by the Attendance Allowance Check team at Virix Ltd. Last reviewed 25 September 2026 against gov.uk.

Most people who ask “can I get Attendance Allowance?” are really asking several questions at once. Am I old enough? Is my illness on the list? Do my savings count against me? Is there a score I need to reach? This page answers each in turn, using the rules on GOV.UK and the guidance the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) gives to the people who decide claims, and ends with a short self-check. Nobody can promise an outcome, including us, but you can see whether a claim is worth making.

The conditions in brief

You can get Attendance Allowance if all of these apply:

• you have reached State Pension age;
• you have a physical or mental disability or health condition — including sight or hearing loss, and memory or learning difficulties;
• it is severe enough that you need help looking after yourself, or someone to keep an eye on you for your own or someone else’s safety;
• you have needed that help for at least six months — unless you are nearing the end of life;
• you meet the rules about living in Great Britain;
• you are not already getting Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or one of the similar Scottish or armed forces payments.

Each condition in plain words

1. You have reached State Pension age

Attendance Allowance is only for people over State Pension age. For most people that is currently 66. It is rising to 67 between 2026 and 2028, so if you were born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961, your State Pension age is 66 plus a number of months; you can check your exact date on GOV.UK. What matters is your age when you claim. If you are younger, the benefit to look at is PIP instead.

2. You need help with personal care, or someone to watch over you

This is the heart of it. The help has to be with looking after yourself: washing and bathing, dressing, eating and drinking, using the toilet, getting in and out of bed or a chair, taking medicines, making yourself understood. Or you need someone to keep an eye on you, because without them you could come to real harm — through falls, confusion, fits, a hob left on — or could harm someone else.

Three points are often misunderstood:

• It is the help you need, not the help you get. You do not need a carer. Someone who lives alone and struggles through without help is judged on the help they reasonably need.
• Housework does not count on its own. Cooking, shopping and cleaning are not generally treated as personal care. Cutting up food, eating and drinking are.
• Walking outdoors does not count. Attendance Allowance has no mobility part. Difficulty getting to the shops is real, but it is not what this benefit pays for.

How much help, and how often, decides whether you qualify and at which rate. Help needed by day or by night can lead to the lower rate; help needed by day and by night can lead to the higher rate. Our guide to what counts as needing help goes through this in everyday terms, and the rates page shows the current amounts.

3. You have needed help for at least six months

Normally the need has to have been there for six months before the allowance can be paid. The six months is about your needs, not a diagnosis: if you have needed help since a fall last winter, the clock started then. If you are not quite at six months yet, the helpline on 0800 731 0122 can tell you when to claim.

4. Special rules if you are nearing the end of life

If a doctor or other medical professional has said you might have 12 months or less to live, different rules apply. There is no six-month wait, you do not need to describe your care needs in the same way, and the allowance is paid at the higher rate. You ask the medical professional for a form called SR1, and make the claim online or by post. Someone else can claim for you, and does not need your permission. It can be hard to know how long someone might live; GOV.UK says you can still ask a medical professional to support a claim under these rules if it has not been discussed.

5. Where you live

You must be in Great Britain when you claim, and have been here for at least two of the last three years. There are exceptions — for example, for refugees and people with humanitarian protection, and for some members of the armed forces and their families. You must also be habitually resident in the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, and not be subject to immigration control, unless you are a sponsored immigrant. Citizens Advice can help if this is unclear.

If you live in Scotland, the equivalent benefit is Pension Age Disability Payment, run by Social Security Scotland. In Northern Ireland, Attendance Allowance is run separately, through nidirect. This site is about the claim in England and Wales.

6. You are not getting PIP, DLA or a similar payment

You cannot get Attendance Allowance at the same time as Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment, Adult Disability Payment, Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance or Armed Forces Independence Payment. If one of those is already paid to you, you normally keep it after State Pension age, and it is usually worth more because it can include a mobility part.

7. Care homes: it depends who pays

Living in a care home does not stop you claiming, but who pays for the place matters. If the local council pays for your care, Attendance Allowance usually cannot be paid, or stops after the first 28 days if you already get it. The same applies if the NHS funds your place. If you pay the whole cost yourself — including with help from family — you can still get it. If the council pays for now and will be repaid later, for example from the sale of a home, ask the helpline or Age UK before assuming either way.

There is no points system

People who have claimed PIP, or helped someone else claim it, often go looking for an Attendance Allowance points calculator. There isn’t one, because Attendance Allowance does not work that way.

PIP is scored. Each everyday activity has a set of statements, each statement carries points, and the points are added up: at least 8 points for the standard rate of the daily living part, at least 12 for the enhanced rate. That is why PIP calculators exist.

Attendance Allowance has no descriptors, no points and no threshold. The law asks, in effect, two questions about the day and two about the night:

• By day: do you need frequent help throughout the day with your bodily functions, or continual supervision throughout the day to avoid substantial danger to yourself or others?
• By night: do you need help that is prolonged or repeated, or someone to be awake for a prolonged period or at frequent intervals to watch over you?

The person deciding reads what you have written and makes a judgement: what help you need, how often and for how long, over a period of time rather than on one good or bad day. The DWP’s guidance says needs that look minor on their own can, combined with others, be enough.

So a website offering to “calculate your points” for Attendance Allowance is guessing, or has borrowed the PIP system. The quiz on our own home page is not a score either. It asks about the same kinds of needs the form asks about, and tells you honestly whether a claim looks worth making.

The “56 conditions” list does not exist

You may have seen articles headed something like “56 conditions that qualify for Attendance Allowance”. There is no such list in the rules. As far as we can tell, lists like these are built from DWP statistics, which record the main condition of people already receiving the allowance. That describes who gets it. It does not decide who can.

The DWP’s guidance is direct about this: the severity of a disability is judged by the needs that arise from it, not by the general nature of the condition. The guidance also says that the absence of a diagnosis does not stop anyone claiming. Two people with the same illness can have very different days, and a condition that appears on no list at all can still qualify.

There are two narrow places where a situation, rather than day-to-day needs, carries weight on its own: the special rules for people nearing the end of life, and regular kidney dialysis, which can meet the day or night condition in its own right when it needs someone else’s help or supervision. Our guide to which conditions qualify looks at the illnesses that often lie behind claims, and what to describe for each.

Income, savings and your pension make no difference

Attendance Allowance is not means-tested. Your savings, your income, your pension and whether you own your home do not affect whether you get it or how much. You do not need to have paid National Insurance contributions. It is tax-free, and it is not deducted from other benefits. If anything it can add to them: it can increase Pension Credit, Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction if you already get those. The one exception: if you also get Constant Attendance Allowance, paid with some industrial injury and war pensions, Attendance Allowance is reduced by that amount.

Working, living with someone, and having no carer

• You can be working. Earnings do not affect it.
• You can live with a husband, wife, partner or family. Nobody else’s income or savings count, and both people in a couple can claim if each of them needs help.
• You can live alone. You do not need anyone caring for you. What counts is the help you need.
• You do not need a doctor’s letter to claim. Medical evidence helps the decision maker, but a claim can be made without it. Most people are not asked to go to an assessment; the DWP only asks when it is unclear how a condition affects someone.

A quick self-check

Take these one at a time, and answer for a typical week, bad days included. There is no score. The questions just show where you stand.

1. Have you reached State Pension age? If no, look at PIP instead.
2. Are you already getting PIP, DLA, Adult Disability Payment or Armed Forces Independence Payment? If yes, you cannot get Attendance Allowance on top.
3. Do you need help, or would it be safer to have help, with washing, dressing, eating, the toilet, getting up or taking medicines? Think about what takes much longer than it used to, what you do in a way that is not safe, and what you have quietly stopped doing.
4. Does someone need to keep an eye on you because of falls, dizziness, confusion or memory problems?
5. Do you need help, or someone to listen out, during the night? For example, to get to the toilet, to turn over, or because you get confused or fall.
6. Has this been going on for six months or more? If no, you may need to wait — unless a medical professional has said you may have 12 months or less to live, in which case the special rules apply now.
7. Is the main difficulty only walking outdoors? If that is the only problem, this benefit is unlikely to be the right one.

If you are over State Pension age, not on PIP or DLA, and answered yes to at least one of questions 3 to 5 and to question 6, a claim is usually worth making.

What to do next

If you would like a second view, the six-question check on our home page takes a couple of minutes and gives a plain answer. If you decide to claim, our guide to filling in the AA1 form goes through it page by page, and common mistakes to avoid lists the small slips that cost people money.

If you would like a hand with it

We are a private company, Virix Ltd, not part of any government department. We fill in the AA1 with you over the telephone, in your own words, then print it and post it to you to check, sign and send. It costs £149, once. If the claim is refused, we help you ask for the decision to be looked at again at no extra cost, and if the answer is still no, we refund the full £149. Or you can choose to pay £249 only if the claim is awarded. Equally, the claim is free to make yourself, and Age UK and Citizens Advice help at no charge where they have capacity. How the options compare.