New Style JSA calculator

At 25 or over it is £95.55 a week, and under 25 it is £75.65: the age-related amounts for 2026 to 2027 (Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026). The allowance is paid fortnightly, so a full payment comes to £191.10 or £151.30. These rates start with each claimant's first benefit week beginning on or after 6 April 2026; before that they were £92.05 and £72.90. In Northern Ireland the Department for Communities pays the same figures (nidirect). The amount is flat. It does not follow the old salary, and nothing is added for a partner, children or rent. Only part-time earnings, a workplace or private pension and a sanction can lower it. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) runs Jobseeker's Allowance in Great Britain.

The sum paid is the personal rate: the age-related amount less any deduction for earnings or a pension (Jobseekers Act 1995). It is set per benefit week, the claimant's own seven-day payment week. Fractions of a penny round up, and a rate under £0.10 a week is not paid (Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 2013).

Entitlement rests on Class 1 National Insurance contributions paid as an employee, which makes the benefit contribution-based rather than means-tested (Jobseekers Act 1995, section 2). Two conditions must both be met.

• First contribution condition: in one of the two base years, Class 1 actually paid on earnings of at least 26 times the Lower Earnings Limit. Pay above the limit adds nothing, so this means about 26 weeks paid at or above it.
• Second contribution condition: in both base years, earnings of at least 50 times the limit, with contributions paid, treated as paid or credited.

The base years are the last two complete tax years before the benefit year of the claim, and a benefit year starts on the first Sunday in January. A claim in the benefit year from 4 January 2026 uses 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 (GOV.UK). From 3 January 2027 the pair becomes 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026.

Each limit comes from HMRC's rates and thresholds for employers. National Insurance credits can make up one of the two years, and earlier benefit claims may let other years count instead (GOV.UK). Unless the check is switched on, the calculator assumes both conditions are met; with 20 weeks at the limit it reports the first one failed.

Up to 182 days of entitlement, about half a year, for claims resting on the same two base years (Jobseekers Act 1995). Before that, the first 7 days of the jobseeking period, which opens on the day of the claim, are waiting days with nothing paid.

The last day is the first day paid plus 181 days, the count DWP's decision makers' guide uses. Days reduced to nothing by a pension count, and so do days under a sanction; waiting days do not.

A linked claim, made within 12 weeks of an earlier jobseeking period, joins it. No new waiting days are served, and the days already paid come off: with 60 used, 122 days remain. Waiting days are also skipped when entitlement starts within 12 weeks of the end of ESA, Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, Carer's Allowance or Carer Support Payment.

Claimants must be 18 or over and under State Pension age, a date the State Pension age estimate finds; the calculator does not cut a claim short there. Once the days run out, a work coach goes through the options (DWP).

Part-time earnings and pension payments cut the weekly amount pound for pound once they pass a disregard. No other money counts.

Part-time work

Work of 16 hours a week or more normally ends entitlement. Below that, net earnings count: pay less income tax, Class 1 and half of any pension contribution. The earnings disregard is £5 a week, or £20 for part-time firefighters, auxiliary coastguards, lifeboat crew and reserve forces. Monthly amounts are multiplied by 12 and divided by 52.

Net earnings of £40.00 a week take £35.00 off, leaving £60.55. A week with earnings above £100.54, or £80.64 under 25, pays nothing. The calculator assumes steady pay, so earnings above that limit show no entitlement.

Pensions

An occupational pension, a personal pension and Pension Protection Fund or Financial Assistance Scheme payments count above £50 a week together. A pension of £83.50 a week is £33.50 over, so the allowance falls to £62.05. Inherited pensions and the State Pension are left out. A pension large enough to wipe out the allowance still uses up its days.

Savings and capital are ignored at any size, and so are a partner's earnings and savings (GOV.UK).

Money paid when a job ends neither delays nor reduces the allowance. That holds when the job, of 16 hours a week or more, ended before the first day of entitlement (Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 2013, Schedule).

• A statutory redundancy payment is not earnings at all.
• Pay in lieu of notice, severance pay and final wages are disregarded.
• So is holiday pay for leave not taken, the sum a holiday pay estimate works out.

Leaving voluntarily without a good reason, or losing the job through misconduct, is a higher-level failure, even before the claim (Jobseekers Act 1995); voluntary redundancy is not. The sanction's reduction period is 91 days, or 182 days after another such failure within 365 days. The days from the day after leaving to the day before claiming come off it.

During that period the allowance falls by a daily amount: the age-related amount times 52, divided by 365 and rounded down to the nearest £0.10. At 25 or over that is £13.60, so seven days take £95.20 from £95.55 and £0.35 a week remains (£0.75 under 25). In effect the payment stops, and this remainder is the first figure in the result.

Leaving on 30 September 2026 and claiming on 7 October 2026 leaves 85 days of reduction, to 6 January 2027. The full rate then returns, as the personal rate row and the table's second line show. Reduction days use up the 182 days, so the claim still ends on 13 April 2027 and totals £1,328.30.

Missing a step in the Claimant Commitment, the job search agreement made at the first interview, can also reduce or stop the allowance when there is no good reason (DWP). A decision can be challenged through a mandatory reconsideration.

New Style JSA is a taxable benefit paid without tax taken off (HMRC, PAYE Manual), and no National Insurance is charged on it.

DWP settles the tax in one check, at the end of the claim or at 5 April for a claim still running. It adds the allowance to earlier pay in the tax year, repays tax overpaid and reports any shortfall to HMRC. The last job's P45 goes to DWP, which issues a fresh P45 when the claim ends and a P60U when it runs past 5 April.

A full award of £2,484.30 sits inside the Personal Allowance of £12,570 on its own (HMRC, 2026 to 2027). Whether tax is due therefore depends on the rest of the year's income, such as earlier pay.

Universal Credit is a separate, means-tested payment for the household, claimed instead of New Style JSA or alongside it (DWP).

• Basis: JSA rests on the claimant's own Class 1 record; the household payment on income and savings, a partner's included.
• Extras: JSA adds nothing for children or housing costs, which the household payment can cover.
• Together: JSA counts as income for Universal Credit and reduces it, though JSA usually arrives more regularly.
• Credits: JSA brings Class 1 credits, while the other benefit gives a different kind (GOV.UK).

Income-based JSA was the means-tested half of the old benefit. For new claims Universal Credit fills that role, and the contribution-based half that remains is called New Style.

After an online claim, DWP invites the claimant to Jobcentre Plus, where a work coach checks identity and agrees the job search steps. No household amounts appear here: they depend on rent, children and everyone's income.

Someone aged 30 who claims on 7 October 2026, with no earnings or pension and both conditions met, receives £2,484.30 in all. The steps run in this order.

1. Waiting days: 7 days, unpaid.
2. First day paid: 14 October 2026, at £95.55 a week or £191.10 a fortnight.
3. Last day: 13 April 2027, the 182nd day of entitlement.
4. Total: 26 weeks at the full rate (£1,966.90 under 25).
5. Years tested: those starting 6 April 2023 and 6 April 2024.

The last days fall on or after 6 April 2027. Rates from that date were not set when these figures were checked on 7 October 2026. Those days count at the 2026 to 2027 rate, and a row says so.

These cases, with the pension and part-time ones, are among the checked results. The tool keeps one age band for the whole claim and does not ask about the first claim of a linked period. Real benefit weeks follow the payday, so a part week can differ by pence. No new style JSA calculator can promise an award: DWP decides on the record it holds.