Evaluation report on managed migration from tax credits to Universal Credit published

The Department for Work and Pensions published an evaluation on 26 February 2026 of households that were invited to move to Universal Credit from tax credits¹. The report covers households in Great Britain that were receiving tax credits only, meaning Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit or both, and were invited to move through the managed migration process¹. It applies to England, Scotland and Wales¹.

The evaluation follows the cohort of households invited to move from tax credits and covers them up to the closure of the tax credit system in April 2025¹. The department describes the report as summarising the characteristics, behaviours and outcomes of those households¹.

The document carries the reference ISBN 978-1-78659-948-3¹. It is published as an Official Statistics release¹. The publication page lists no further figures, findings or breakdowns beyond the scope described above, and no separate statistics on outcomes such as claim rates, award amounts or employment changes have been reported alongside it¹.

Why it matters for households

Managed migration moved households claiming tax credits only onto Universal Credit by invitation, through a migration notice, rather than by a change in circumstances that would otherwise trigger a move to the newer benefit¹. The evaluation covers that group up to the point the tax credit system closed in April 2025¹, so it relates to households that have already been through the process rather than to any still to be invited.

The report is an evaluation of characteristics, behaviours and outcomes, so it is a record of what happened to those households rather than a statement of new rules¹. Nothing in the published material sets out changes to Universal Credit entitlement, payment rates or conditionality, and no such changes have been reported¹.

For households that moved from tax credits, the practical differences between the two systems remain as they were: tax credits were paid separately for working and child elements, while Universal Credit is paid as a single monthly amount that includes help with rent for most claimants. The evaluation does not report figures on how those differences played out for the cohort¹.

What happens next

No next steps, further publications or follow-up evaluations are set out on the publication page¹. The report itself is available in HTML from the Department for Work and Pensions¹.