Bereavement Support Payment and Funeral Expenses Payment — What You Can Claim in England

Two government benefits are available to help with the immediate financial fallout of a death in England: Bereavement Support Payment for surviving spouses and civil partners, and Funeral Expenses Payment for low-income families facing funeral costs. Both have strict eligibility criteria and critical deadlines. Missing them costs real money.

Bereavement Support Payment (BSP)

Bereavement Support Payment replaced Bereavement Allowance, Widowed Parent's Allowance, and Bereavement Payment in April 2017. It is available to surviving spouses and civil partners who were under State Pension age when their partner died.

Eligibility

To qualify, at the time of death your partner must have been:

• A UK resident, or
• Working abroad for a UK employer

And they must have paid National Insurance contributions for at least 25 weeks, or died as a result of an accident at work or a disease caused by work.

You must also have been legally married or in a civil partnership (not unmarried cohabiting partners). Unmarried partners do not qualify for BSP regardless of how long the relationship lasted.

Payment Amounts

Standard rate (no dependent children):

• Lump sum: £2,500
• Monthly payments: £100 for up to 18 months

Higher rate (if you were receiving Child Benefit or were pregnant when your partner died):

• Lump sum: £3,500
• Monthly payments: £350 for up to 18 months

The Three-Month Deadline Is Critical

If you claim within 3 months of the death, you receive the full lump sum and all 18 monthly payments backdated to the date of death.

If you claim between 3 and 21 months after the death, you receive the lump sum but lose the monthly payments for the months you delayed claiming.

After 21 months, no payment is made at all.

This is one of the most costly missed deadlines in English bereavement administration. The benefit is not widely publicised, and many surviving spouses only discover it exists several months after the death — by which point they have already lost several hundred pounds in monthly payments.

Claim immediately. Even if you are unsure about eligibility, submit the claim through DWP (by phone or post using form BSP1) within the first weeks, while the estate administration is still getting underway.

Interaction with State Pension

If you have reached State Pension age, you are not eligible for BSP. However, you may be entitled to inherit some or all of your late spouse's State Pension entitlement depending on when they reached pension age and how many National Insurance years they accumulated. Contact the Pension Service to check this.

Funeral Expenses Payment (FEP)

Funeral Expenses Payment is available to people on low incomes who are responsible for arranging a funeral in the UK. It is paid directly to the funeral director rather than to the claimant.

Eligibility

You may be eligible if you receive one of the following qualifying benefits at the time of the application:

• Universal Credit
• Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Income Support
• Pension Credit
• Housing Benefit
• The disability or severe disability element of Working Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit

You must also be the most immediate surviving relative responsible for the funeral or have a close enough relationship to the deceased to justify the claim.

What FEP Covers

• The full cost of burial or cremation (burial plot, grave digging, or cremation fees)
• A coffin if one is needed
• Reasonable costs of transporting the body within the UK
• Up to £1,000 for other funeral expenses (such as funeral director fees, flowers, and catering)

There is no upper limit on burial and cremation fees. The £1,000 cap applies only to the additional discretionary costs.

FEP does not pay for headstones, gravestones, or memorial plaques. These must be funded separately.

How to Apply

Apply online through GOV.UK or by calling the DWP Bereavement Service. Applications can be made from three months before the funeral to six months after. DWP assesses the claim and pays the funeral director directly.

If the estate of the deceased has funds, DWP may recover the payment from those funds before the estate is distributed. The claim is still worth making — the estate funds may take months to access through probate, whereas FEP addresses the immediate cash-flow problem.

Section 46 Public Health Funerals — The Last Resort

If no family member is willing or financially able to make funeral arrangements, the local authority has a legal duty under Section 46 of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to arrange a basic, dignified burial or cremation. This is sometimes called a council funeral or pauper's funeral (though the latter term is outdated and no longer used officially).

The council will arrange the funeral and then act as the first creditor of the estate — it has the legal right to enter the property, conduct a search for assets, and recover the cost of the funeral from whatever the estate holds. This is appropriate as an absolute last resort; Funeral Expenses Payment should be explored first.

The England Estate Settlement Guide covers both these benefits in full, alongside the complete timeline for notifying DWP and managing the estate's interaction with benefit overpayment recovery. Get the guide

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