DWP publishes Move to UC statistics to end December 2025

The Department for Work and Pensions published its Move to Universal Credit statistics on 17 February 2026, covering migration notices sent between July 2022 and the end of December 2025¹. Over that period, 2,352,886 individuals in 1,821,989 households were sent migration notices, the letter that tells a legacy benefit claimant they must claim Universal Credit instead¹.

Of those sent a notice, 1,985,703 individuals in 1,574,075 households made a claim to Universal Credit¹. A further 356,521 individuals did not claim and have had their legacy benefit claims closed, while 10,667 individuals were still going through the process at the point the data were extracted on 5 January 2026¹. Among the households that claimed, 808,633 were awarded transitional protection, out of 1,523,510 households eligible for it, which the department puts at 53%¹.

The department cautions against reading the cumulative totals as a completion rate, because they include people whose three month claim window has not yet closed¹. It recommends calculating claim and non-claim rates on notices sent up to the end of August 2025, by which point 99.8% of that group had completed the process¹. On that basis, 86% of households and 84% of individuals had claimed Universal Credit, and 13% of households and 15% of individuals had not claimed and had their legacy benefits closed¹.

Source: DWP, data to end of December 2025¹

Couple households accounted for 530,903 of the notices sent, or 29% of the household total¹. The statistics cover England, Scotland and Wales¹.

The department says customers may be sent one or more reminders and that the claim deadline may be extended, and that a claim completed within a month of the deadline can still be considered for transitional protection¹. Transitional protection is awarded on a household basis and can consist of a transitional capital disregard, a transitional element, or both, and eligibility and amounts can change if circumstances change during the claim¹.

Why it matters for households

The figures describe a process that has already reached most of the households it will reach. Anyone sent a migration notice has three months to claim Universal Credit, and the legacy benefits being replaced are Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support and income-based Jobseeker's Allowance¹. A household that does not claim within the deadline has its legacy award stopped, which is what happened to the 356,521 individuals recorded as not claiming¹.

For households that do claim, the practical question is often whether transitional protection applies, since it is designed to stop a household's entitlement falling at the point of the move. Just over half of eligible households received an award, and the department notes that eligibility and amounts can change later in the claim¹. Households moving across may also need to look at how the housing element replaces Housing Benefit, how advance repayments are recovered from monthly awards, and how Pension Credit interacts with Universal Credit for mixed age couples.

What happens next

The statistics are published as an official statistics release, with the next edition covering data to a later month; no date for that publication is given in this release¹. The department invites feedback on the statistics at ucad.briefinganalysis@dwp.gov.uk¹. An ad-hoc release on complaints recorded specifically in relation to Move to UC was published on 14 May 2024, updating an earlier release of 11 March 2024¹.