Room for one more?
Fostering Allowances
There are may benefits to become a Foster Carer. Finance isn’t the reason people foster, our Foster Parents come to the role because they really want to make a difference to the lives of children.
This page is designed to help you better understand how much you’ll receive for fostering a child and whether foster care is a financially viable option for you.
What you can expect...
- Being a self employed carer
- Council Tax reductions and housing benefits
- Home Insurance
- Carers fees and sibling payments
- Additional payments
- Recommended bonus
- Respite payment charts
- About respite payments
- Travel allowance
- Clothing and equipment
- Child allowance guide
- Household and personal allowance
- Pocket money
- Savings
- Family holidays - Complaints/Allegations
The full guide will give you advise and expertise on each of the areas displayed above
Being a self employed carer
Working as a Foster Carer means you are classed as self employed. Thich means you will receive all payments with no deductions for national insurance or income tax. You will need to register as self employed with HMRC and complete a tax return each year.
For more information about self assessment visit the HMRC website:
www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns.
It Is Important that you keep records of the weeks when you are caring for children and when you have no foster children.
Recording all fostering allowance payments will make completing your tax return much easier at the end of the financial year.
There is a £10,000 tax exemption and a weekly tax relief of £250 per week for every week that there is a child in your home and in turn, claiming the fostering allowance or fee.
Council Tax Reduction
Alongside the fostering allowance you may be able to have your council tax bill lowered by up to 100%. This depends on your circumstances and how many people live in your household. Each local council sets its own rules and eligibility criteria for the council tax reduction scheme, speak to your local council to find out if you
qualify for this.
Housing Benefits
Contact your local council to find out about claiming housing benefit for children that you are caring for in your home. This can help to contribute towards your rent (not available if you own a property either living in or renting out). You can also claim for a period of up to 52 weeks for a bedroom that is reserved for a foster child but is currently unoccupied.Â
