Not eligible new style esa, gap between benefit year and tax year

wilsh
wilsh Online Community Member Posts: 1 Listener
edited February 2025 in Employment & Support Allowance (ESA)

hi,
I recently became ill due to a disability and then got made redundant from work. I seem to have slipped through the net for benefits and curious if anyone knows any alternatives or work arounds. I have worked the last two years, and prior to that was a PhD student for years (with minimal NI contribution made). However, DWP only look at the last two complete tax years before the current benefit year, which means 2024-2025 does not get taken into account. So basically an 8 month period of work from April (tax year) to January (benefits year) that will not be considered till 2026. What other alternatives are there? I am not eligible for universal credit. And why can you only make voluntary NI contributions that count towards the ESA if you were self employed?

Comments

  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Online Community Member Posts: 64,456 Championing

    Unfortunately that’s how contributions based benefits work. It’s always been the previous 2 tax years that count. A claim now would be 2022/23 and 2023/24. The tax years for benefits change on the first Sunday in January. Before that the years were 2021/22 and 2022/23.

    The reason why is because if you weren’t self employed then you need class 1 and part of the eligibility criteria is you need to have worked and earned a certain amount of money in those tax years.

    There’s no way around this until the tax year changes again in January 2026. Then the tax years will be 2023/24 and 2024/25.

    You can claim NsESA as NI credits only if found to have Limited Capability for work.

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