Guidance

Residential Bursary Fund: 2026 to 2027

Updated 30 March 2026

Applies to England

Important points       

The Residential Bursary Fund (RBF) provides financial help towards the costs of accommodation for students attending one of the designated institutions delivering specialist provision. For RBF purposes, we define specialist provision as either:

• not being available locally
• requiring the student’s regular attendance at unsociable hours

Consequently, the student must live away from home.

RBF is intended to support students who are participating in a designated specialist subject area for a substantial qualification. Mostly, but not exclusively, this is land-based provision.

References to ‘we’ or ‘us’ in this guidance are to the Department for Education (DfE). Where we refer to ‘you’, this means education institutions – for example, colleges, schools or academies.

We expect that most students receiving RBF will study the designated specialist subject area for which your institution was awarded RBF. We do not expect you to use RBF funding to support students to:

• participate in general further education (FE) provision that is widely available – for example, A levels
• participate in additional activities – for example, sports
• enable students to study at a preferred institution on a course that is widely available

Any such use should be a genuine exception based on individual student circumstances.

RBF is designed to provide a contribution to an eligible student’s accommodation costs. We expect most of your RBF allocation to be used for this purpose. RBF can help with travel costs between the student’s term-time lodgings, if they are not on campus, and the institution, where appropriate. RBF cannot be used for travel costs for non-residential students – for example, home to institution travel.

Your spend on travel costs for residential students living off campus between term-time lodgings and the institution:

• must not exceed 15% of your total RBF allocation
• is capped at £25,000

This means that if 15% of your allocation would be greater than £25,000, the maximum you can spend is £25,000. This ensures that RBF’s primary focus is residential support.

You should target RBF support at students who face the most significant financial barriers to participation. RBF is not intended to provide support to all students on residentially delivered provision, or to necessarily cover the full costs for each student.

Eligibility criteria

Age

For the 2026 to 2027 academic year, students must be aged 16 or over, but aged under 19 on 31 August 2026.

Students aged 19 or over on 31 August 2026 are only eligible for RBF if they either:

• are continuing a study programme they began aged 16 to 18 (‘19+ continuers’)
• have an education, health, and care (EHC) plan

Residency

Students must meet the residency criteria in the DfE funding rules for post-16 provision. The DfE funding rules specify the evidence you must check and retain for audit to confirm eligibility.

Household income

While you have the discretion to set your own RBF policies, these must ensure RBF is targeted to students facing the most significant financial barriers to participation.

You must assess the student’s actual need for help with residential costs, taking into account their household income. Household income must be verified by evidence – for example:

• an award notice showing receipt of benefits
• a P60
• a tax credit award notice
• evidence of self-employment income

Eligible education provision

RBF is intended to support students who are participating in a designated specialist subject area for a substantial qualification. Mostly, but not exclusively, this is land-based provision. We expect that most students receiving RBF will be studying in the designated specialist subject area for which you were awarded RBF.

Any use of RBF to support students enrolled in widely available general FE provision must be a genuine exception based on individual student circumstances. You must not award RBF simply to enable a student to:

• participate in additional activity (for example, to take part in a specific sport)
• attend a particular institution when the qualification they are studying is widely available

Students on any paid education, training or apprenticeship programmes are not eligible for RBF support.

Applications and assessment

Students apply to their chosen institution using your own RBF application form. It is your responsibility to decide which individual students receive RBF and how much they receive. You must manage the number and size of RBF awards and ensure you are within your budget.

You must publish an RBF policy statement setting out your assessment criteria, so students understand how you make decisions. You should publish the statement early enough for them to be able to use the information when deciding which post-16 institution to attend. Your policy must be clear and available to students and DfE.

You should take account of equalities legislation in your RBF policies. This means you must not discriminate against your students based on protected characteristics. You are also subject to the public sector equality duty in section 149 (1) of the Equality Act 2010.

Students must meet all the eligibility criteria to be eligible. You must base your decision on their household income and their actual need.

If student accommodation is off campus, you may use RBF to help with the cost of travel from term-time lodgings to site (up to a maximum of 15% of your allocation, capped at £25,000). The use of RBF for travel costs does not replace the statutory duty on local authorities to set out, in an annually published transport statement, the arrangements they will make to facilitate students’ participation in education or training.

Payments

You must make RBF payments for accommodation directly to the student’s landlord. The landlord may be you (if you provide accommodation directly) or a private landlord. You must not make payments directly to the student, as these payments would be subject to the Social Security Amendment (Students and Income-related Benefits) Regulations 2000.

What RBF cannot be used for

You must not use RBF for any purpose designed to give you a competitive advantage over other institutions. RBF should not be used for:

• fees for access to college facilities
• block subsidy of transport
• costs that are in the scope of the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund
• childcare costs that are in the scope of the Care to Learn scheme

When RBF should not be awarded

You should not award RBF:

• simply because a student is enrolled in residentially delivered provision
• to students studying programmes that are widely available, unless there are genuinely exceptional circumstances that make this appropriate for an individual student
• to enable students to access additional activities, such as participating in a specific sport
• to enable a student to attend a particular institution in cases where the provision they are studying is widely available

In-year changes

You may wish to keep a contingency fund to respond to needs that come up later in the academic year – for example, a change in a student’s circumstances, rather than allocating all funds at the start of the year.

If students leave partway through the year, you must stop their RBF payments in the same way as payments from any other student financial support scheme. If you require a student who leaves early to make a payment to cover the accommodation cost to the end of the term, you must ensure you make this clear to students as part of your RBF application process.

If students change study programme partway through the academic year – for example, they enrolled on a specialist programme, but swap to a general FE programme – you should consider the specific circumstances when deciding whether RBF should continue. You should not automatically continue with RBF payments without review.

Funding and allocations

Allocations

We have calculated RBF allocations for the 2026 to 2027 academic year using the following methodology.  For institutions that spent:

• at least 90% of their 2024 to 2025 allocation, we have added 5% growth to your 2025 to 2026 allocation to generate the 2026 to 2027 allocation
• less than 90% of their 2024 to 2025 allocation, we have applied a 5% reduction to your 2025 to 2026 allocation to generate the 2026 to 2027 allocation

Exceptions

We have made exceptions where the outcome of the calculation generates an allocation that is greater than both 2024 to 2025 actual spend and the 2025 to 2026 allocation. In these instances, the 2026 to 2027 allocation is the same as the 2025 to 2026 allocation.

The allocations methodology disregards any spend by institutions that is outside policy guidelines. For example:

• inappropriate use of RBF for travel for non-resident students
• any administrative spend reported that is more than 5% of the allocation

We may also disregard spend by institutions if RBF is being used to support students on non-specialist provision.

You may use up to 5% of your RBF allocation to cover administrative costs. The 5% must be based on the allocation total. It is not an additional 5% on top of the allocation total. We will disregard any spend above 5% that is reported in the end of year data and management information return.

Payments

We will pay allocations for the academic year to you in 2 parts:

• two thirds in August 2026
• one third in April 2027

You must use the funding allocated to you for RBF solely to support eligible students with residential costs in line with RBF policy. You are not permitted to transfer any funds to or from RBF and any other student support scheme provided by us.

You may top up RBF from your own sources if you choose to do so.

Recovery of unspent funds

If you identify that you will be unable to spend most of your RBF allocation, you should notify us as soon as possible via our customer help portal to arrange repayment of the excess.

We will reconcile RBF funding at the end of the academic year, after we have analysed data returns. We will recover all unspent funds. You cannot carry funding forward to future years.

Individualised learner record and data returns, and management information requirements

It is important that you complete the individualised learner record (ILR) accurately to indicate the numbers of students getting residential support from RBF. More information about student support codes can be found in the ILR specification. We will use this information to inform future allocations.

You must complete a short data and management information return each October to confirm the:

• number of students supported by RBF
• amount spent during the previous academic year

You must explain the reasons for any overspend on the return and can add any additional information if you wish. We will use your data return for reconciliation. We will recover unspent funds.

You must also report the study programme core aims for your RBF supported students in your data return. This should be the aim recorded in the ILR. You must explain any use of RBF for general further education (FE) provision rather than the specialist subject areas.

The requirement to submit information for audit, reconciliation and to support allocation processes forms part of funding agreements. If you fail to complete the return by the deadline specified on the data return form, you will be subject to recovery of RBF funds in full.

If the data return indicates you are routinely awarding RBF to students enrolled in mainstream FE rather than the specialist provision for which you were awarded RBF, we will recover funds and may decide to make no further RBF allocations to you.

If you report an overspend on RBF through the data return, we cannot guarantee any reimbursement as this is dependent on funds becoming available from other institutions for redistribution. We will not reimburse any overspend that is outside the funding rules as set out in this guide.

Audit and assurance

RBF is subject to normal assurance arrangements for 16 to 19 education and training. You must ensure you have appropriate processes in place to record RBF applications and awards. This includes:

• the number, value and purpose whether awarded or not
• a brief justification for the decision

You must ensure you can evidence your application process, including:

• how you assessed the student
• how you made the decision to award the specific amount of RBF
• the funds that you have issued for the student’s costs

Auditors will be looking for evidence that you have:

• applied your RBF eligibility criteria correctly
• used a transparent and consistent application and assessment process for all students

You must:

• retain copies of any documents the student has signed to give formal agreement to their conditions for payment
• retain hard or scanned copies of documentation for 6 years (records can be kept electronically)

Following an audit, we might recover funding if you have not made RBF payments in accordance with this guide.

Institutions’ responsibilities in managing complaints or appeals

Any student or parent who is unhappy with how you have managed their application for RBF should follow your own complaints procedure.

You should explain to them:

• how they can complain about or appeal decisions relating to RBF support
• the way in which their application for RBF support was managed

We do not have a role in the administration of RBF because this is the responsibility of individual institutions. As such, we do not usually get involved with complaints and you must not advise parents and students to contact us instead of managing the complaint internally. However, we may get involved if there is an allegation that the RBF eligibility criteria, or any content within this guide, is being seriously disregarded.

Further information

If you have any questions about the allocation and administration of RBF, use our customer help portal.