How rates rise each April: uprating, CPI and past freezes

Most benefits and State Pension payments in the UK rise once a year, in April. The size of the rise is not based on prices in April itself: it is based on inflation measured in the previous September. Current practice, as the House of Commons Library explains, is to "uprate" benefits based on year-to-September inflation figures, with increases implemented the following April¹. So the increase that arrives in April 2026 reflects how much prices rose in the year to September 2025.

The scale of recent rises shows how much this matters. Benefits linked to inflation rose by 10.1% in April 2023, by 6.7% in April 2024 and again by 6.7% in April 2025 in line with the September CPI figures that preceded each date². The State Pension follows a different rule, the triple lock, which can produce a larger rise: in April 2024 the basic and new State Pension increased by 8.5% because earnings growth was the highest of the three measures that year⁵.

Not everything rises. Some benefits are not uprated at all, some are frozen by ministerial choice rather than by rule, and some people, including many living abroad, see their payments stay at the same rate year after year. This page explains how the system works, which payments follow which rule, what happened during the years when benefits were frozen, and what to do if your new rate looks wrong.

Benefits rise each April using September's inflation figure

The annual review of benefit rates, known as uprating, follows a fixed timetable. Inflation is measured over the twelve months to September. The government then decides the new amounts, drafts an up-rating order, and Parliament approves it, so that the new rates can be paid from the start of the benefit year in April. The Commons Library describes this as the current practice: uprating based on year-to-September inflation figures, with increases implemented the following April¹.

The reason for the September reference point is practical. The government needs several months to calculate new rates, publish them and pass the legal order before payments change. A September figure gives roughly six months of lead time. The measure itself has changed over the years: since 2011 the index used has been the increase in the Consumer Prices Index in the year to September², and before 2011-12 most benefits were uprated in line with the Retail Prices Index, an older and usually higher measure of inflation⁹.

The figures that come out of this process are published in official statistics. Inflation-linked benefits and tax credits rose by 6.7% in April 2024, in line with CPI at September 2023⁵, and the same 6.7% figure applied to the Department for Work and Pensions benefits that are linked to inflation³. A year earlier, in April 2023, inflation-linked benefits were uprated by 10.1%, matching the exceptional CPI figure of September 2022³. The Office for National Statistics records that Universal Credit standard allowances, the State Pension and disability benefits all rose by 10.1% in line with the Consumer Prices Index for that year⁴.

The government also publishes estimates of how many people benefit from each uprating. Statistics for the 2024 to 2025 uprating cover families and individuals benefiting from the April 2024 increases¹⁰, and a further set covers the uprating that took effect from April 2025¹¹. These publications are useful if you want to see how widely a particular rise was felt, but the rates themselves are set out in the annual benefit and pension rates booklets described later on this page.

The legal machinery behind this is old and simple in outline. The Social Security Pensions Act 1975 made benefit amounts subject to alteration by up-rating orders made by the Secretary of State from year to year¹². Each spring an order is laid before Parliament, and the new rates take effect in April once it is approved.

Which benefits are uprated, and which are not

Most working-age and disability benefits are uprated in line with the September CPI figure, but the list of exceptions is long and worth knowing, because a payment that never rises falls behind prices every year.

Benefits paid abroad. Some benefits, including some State Pension payments, are payable anywhere abroad but are not normally increased when pension rates go up in the UK¹⁴. The up-rating regulations restrict the increases where the beneficiary is not ordinarily resident in Great Britain¹⁵, and the explanatory memorandum to the 2026 regulations confirms the mechanism: the rules disallow uprating where there is no legal requirement to apply it, through the persons-abroad regulations¹⁶. The practical effect is that someone who retired to a country without a reciprocal uprating agreement can receive the same weekly rate indefinitely, while prices around them rise.

Bereavement Support Payment. The Pensions Act 2014 does not require annual uprating of Bereavement Support Payment¹⁷. Unlike the main benefits, its rates are not automatically reviewed each year.

Deferral and Universal Credit. Separate rules apply to some linked entitlements. Regulations made in 2024 provide that a single person does not accrue deferral benefits while receiving Universal Credit¹⁸, which affects how the extra State Pension for putting off claiming is treated.

Scottish disability payments. Scotland's devolved payments, such as Adult Disability Payment, have their own legislation. Where a change of circumstances increases an entitlement, the rules set out when the higher rate applies from, including from the date of notification of the change in some cases¹⁹.

The up-rating order itself is reviewed annually through the same process each year: the 2026 regulations are monitored through an annual up-rating order in accordance with the 1992 Act, and the instrument does not include a separate statutory review clause¹⁶. In other words, the check on these rules is the uprating cycle itself.

The State Pension and the triple lock

The State Pension does not simply follow inflation. Since the June 2010 Budget, governments have guaranteed that the basic State Pension rises by the highest of CPI inflation, average earnings growth, or 2.5%²⁰. This is the triple lock. The Commons Library describes it as going beyond the ordinary uprating rules: the commitment is to uprate the basic and new State Pension every year by the highest of earnings growth, inflation, or 2.5%⁶, and there is a statutory requirement to uprate both the basic and new State Pension every year at least in line with earnings⁶.

Pension Wise sets out the three measures in plain terms: the increase matches one of three percentages, with the government choosing the highest of inflation (the previous September's CPI), the average wage increase between May and July of the previous year, or 2.5%²¹. Which measure wins varies from year to year. In April 2024 the basic and new State Pension increased by 8.5%, in line with the earnings growth measure used in the triple lock, because earnings growth that year exceeded both inflation and the 2.5% floor⁵.

The rest of the pension system follows the up-rating order rather than the triple lock. The additional pension element (the earnings-related part of the State Pension) was increased by 1.70% for 2025/26²² and by 3.80% for 2026/27²³. The 2026 up-rating order applies a 3.8% increase to additional pensions, deferred pension increases and related lump sums²⁴. Earlier orders used different figures: the 2001 order increased additional pensions and deferred retirement pension increases by 3.3%²⁵.

Deferring the State Pension has its own arithmetic. For people reaching State Pension age on or after 6 April 2016, the extra amount from deferral usually increases each year based on the Consumer Prices Index, though it will not increase for some people who live abroad²⁶. In Northern Ireland, the guidance states that for every nine weeks you defer, you get one per cent added to your regular weekly pension payment for life²⁷. Amounts that exceeded the full rate of the State Pension on 6 April 2016 are revalued in line with increases in the general level of prices²⁸.

Some occupational and armed forces schemes sit outside the DWP system but have their own uprating rules. The Armed Forces Pension Scheme 15 Early Departure Payment is paid at a flat rate until age 55, when it is increased to take account of CPI growth since the date of exit and then increased annually by CPI²⁹. The Pension Protection Fund, which pays compensation when a defined benefit scheme fails, generally rises in line with inflation each year subject to a maximum of 2.5% for pensionable service after 5 April 1997³⁰, and the Work and Pensions Committee has considered raising that cap above 2.5%³¹. Limits on dependants' scheme pensions are uprated by the highest of 5%, CPI and RPI, rounded up to the nearest multiple of £100³².

When uprating fell behind prices: the 3.1% rise of April 2022

Uprating does not always keep pace with prices, and the years when it fell behind are a useful warning about how the system behaves. The most striking recent example came in April 2022. Carers eligible for Carer's Allowance received only a 3.1% uprating that April³³, because the rise was based on the September 2021 inflation figure. Inflation then surged well past 7%, so by the time the rise arrived it was already far below the rate at which prices were increasing. The following year's 10.1% uprating³ only caught up with the September 2022 spike, not with the shortfall claimants had experienced in between.

Longer freezes did more lasting damage. Analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility shows that child benefit, measured by the first child amount, increased by only 2.0% across 2010-11 to 2015-16, leaving it down 13.2% relative to CPI uprating, and that the freeze reduced awards by a further 11.1% by 2014-15 relative to what CPI uprating would have given³⁴. A later four-year freeze cut the real value of the affected benefit rates by 6.1% by 2019-20, more than the 4.6% originally planned³⁵. The OBR also noted that State Pension uprating produced a cumulative surprise of -1.6 percentage points relative to its July 2015 forecast by 2018-19³⁵.

The lesson from these episodes is that the September rule cuts both ways. When inflation is falling, the April rise can be generous relative to current prices. When inflation is rising fast, the rise is locked in at an outdated figure and claimants spend months losing ground. The index choice matters too: the shift from the Retail Prices Index to CPI in 2011-12⁹ itself reduced the rises most benefits received, because RPI has historically run higher than CPI.

How uprating interacts with the £6,000 and £16,000 savings limits

Means-tested benefits do not just depend on rates: they depend on capital limits, and those limits are not uprated. For most means-tested benefits, the first £6,000 of capital is ignored and does not affect the award, and no benefit is payable if total capital exceeds £16,000⁷. For Housing Benefit claimants above the qualifying age for Pension Credit, the upper capital limit of £16,000 beyond which no benefit is payable still applies⁷. For working-age Housing Benefit customers the lower limit is £6,000³⁶.

Because these thresholds are fixed, inflation erodes them in real terms. A useful comparison comes from banking: the £85,000 deposit protection limit, set in January 2017, would be worth £116,770 in real terms based on September 2025 CPI, and the £1 million temporary high balance limit from July 2015 would be worth £1,393,000³⁷. The same arithmetic applies in reverse to benefit capital limits: £6,000 and £16,000 buy less each year, and savings that once sat comfortably below the threshold creep closer to affecting or ending a claim without the claimant doing anything.

This has a practical consequence each April. When benefit rates rise, someone with savings between £6,000 and £16,000 may find their award rises by less than the headline percentage, because the tariff income assumed from their capital stays the same while their other income grows. Someone whose savings cross £16,000 during the year, perhaps through an inheritance or a redundancy payment, can lose entitlement entirely regardless of the uprating. The rules on giving away savings to claim explain when reducing capital is and is not accepted by decision makers.

Uprating, the benefit cap and pension income

The benefit cap limits the total amount certain households can receive in specified benefits, and uprating interacts with it in a particular way: as individual rates rise, a capped household can find that the increases are absorbed by the cap rather than reaching them. The cap and its exemptions are covered in detail on the benefit cap page.

Pension income adds another layer. The State Pension itself rises under the triple lock⁶, but private and occupational pensions rise under their own rules, which are often less generous. The Pension Protection Fund caps its inflation-linked increases at 2.5% for service after 5 April 1997³⁰, so in a high-inflation year a PPF compensant's pension can rise by less than the State Pension. The additional pension element of the State Pension rose by 1.70% for 2025/26²² and 3.80% for 2026/27²³, figures that differ from both the triple lock outcome and CPI.

For pensioners on means-tested top-ups, the interaction matters most. Pension Credit, covered on its own page, is uprated alongside other benefits, but the savings and income that reduce it are not adjusted for inflation. A pensioner whose small private pension rises each year may see their Pension Credit fall as the pension rises, leaving their total income broadly flat even in a year of a large State Pension increase.

Checking your new rate and your entitlement

The government publishes the full set of rates each year in a benefit and pension rates booklet. The 2025 to 2026 booklet sets out the rates for that year, including the 1.70% increase for additional pension²², and the 2026 to 2027 booklet sets out the current year's rates, including the 3.80% increase for additional pension²³. These booklets are the reference to check your own payment against: they list every rate, from the main allowances to the smaller additions such as the incapacity benefit age addition, which the 2026 order increased to £15.50 and £8.60 a week for transitional claimants²⁴.

If you are already claiming, the rise is normally applied automatically. What is worth checking each April is not just the new rate but your whole entitlement, because uprating changes the amounts that other rules are tested against. A benefits calculator, as explained on checking what you are entitled to, can show whether a rise in one payment affects another, or whether you are missing something entirely. The government's own uprating statistics estimate the number and type of families benefiting from each year's rise¹⁰, which is a reminder that uprating is not a single payment but a change across dozens of benefits, each with its own claimants.

When your payment looks wrong: underpayments, overpayments and challenges

Payments can go wrong in both directions, and the response differs accordingly. If you are underpaid, the correction usually comes through the review process. For Universal Credit, if a review finds the award was wrong, future payments will be changed and you may get an extra payment to make up what you missed out on, or money taken off your payments if you were overpaid³⁸.

Overpayments usually arise from unreported changes. The guidance on reporting a change of circumstances is blunt: if you do not report a change or a mistake, you might be paid too much, and if you are, you might have to pay some of the money back³⁹. The same principle applies across benefits: an overpayment occurs if you are paid a benefit you are not entitled to, or more benefit than you are entitled to, and the causes include giving wrong information when you apply, not telling the DWP when something changes, or a DWP administrative error. Reporting changes promptly, as set out on reporting a change of circumstances, is the main protection against an overpayment demand later.

The formal route starts with a mandatory reconsideration: asking the department to look at the decision again. The deadline is short. The guidance says to get in touch within 32 days of the date of the letter telling you about the decision⁸. If the reconsideration does not resolve the dispute, an independent tribunal appeal is the next step, covered on challenging a decision and appealing to a tribunal. If you miss the 32 days, late appeals explains when a late request can still be accepted.

Scams around rate changes and cost of living help

Rate rise announcements are a recurring hook for scams. Messages claiming that a cost of living payment or an April increase needs to be "confirmed", or asking for bank details to release an uprating, follow a well-worn pattern: cost of living scams have been seen offering fake discounts, government support for bills, or low-interest loans, including fake loan websites charging an upfront fee. Criminals use official-sounding language about rates and payments to lend their messages credibility, and the same tactics reappear each time an uprating or support payment is announced.

The protections are straightforward habits rather than special rules. An annual uprating is applied automatically to an existing claim, so there is no application to complete and no details to confirm by text or phone. If a message asks you to click a link, share a bank detail, or pay a fee to receive a rise, it is not from the benefits system. The guidance on reporting changes applies here too: genuine contact about your claim comes through official channels, and anything that pressures you to act quickly should be treated with suspicion³⁹. The scams and fraud guide covers the wider warning signs, and anything that looks like a DWP message about rates can be checked against the published rates booklets²³ before you act on it.