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Guidance

Support for Mortgage Interest statistics: background and methodology

Information about the Support for Mortgage Interest statistics.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Work and Pensions
Published:
13 April 2021
Last updated:
29 September 2026
Show all updates

  1. Updated to reflect small changes in methodology.

  2. Various amendments to the background and methodology. [1] Under 'Background information', clarified Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) contributes towards the interest payments on the claimant’s mortgage and other eligible loans. [2] Under 'Qualifying benefit', clarified a member of the household must be in receipt, or treated as receiving, one of the qualifying benefits. [3] Under 'Geographic information', explained that from March 2026, all new releases of SMI Statistics on Stat-Xplore will use Census Output Area 2021 geographies, replacing 2011 geographies. [4] Under 'Revision', explained that with each publication the previous quarter’s breakdown of qualifying benefits from the latest quarter in the previous release will be revised.

  3. Updated to reflect changes to publication schedule and additional clarity.

  4. Changes have been made to the Disclosure Control and Status of the statistics sections of the background and methodology note. The latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest statistics has been published today (24 June 2025).

  5. Minor changes made to the background and methodology note. The latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics has been published today (25 March 2025).

  6. The information in the document about when loan payments start has been updated. The latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics has been published today (21 January 2025).

  7. Revised the background and methodology note. The table about the interest rate used to calculate the amount of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) paid has been updated. The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today (24 September 2024).

  8. Minor changes made to the background and methodology note. The latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics has been published today (25 June 2024).

  9. Minor changes made to the background and methodology note. The latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics has been published today 26 March 2024.

  10. Updated the interest rate information in section 2 of the document and updated the information about the status of the statistics in section 8. The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today (9 January 2023).

  11. Added a new section (5. Known issues) to the background and methodology document. The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today (26 September 2023).

  12. Added information about changes to SMI eligibility rules for Universal Credit claimants to section 2 (Background information) and updated the information about interest rates in the same section. Updated the information about Households in section 6 (Interpretation of the statistics). The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today, 27 June 2023.

  13. Updated the interest rate information in section 2 of the document. The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today (28 March 2023).

  14. Geography information been added to section 3 of the document. The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today, 10 January 2023.

  15. Updated to support the latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics, this has also been published today (27 September 2022). Minor changes have been made to the document, and the name and contact details of the responsible analyst have been updated in section 10 (Feedback).

  16. Added information about the average Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) payment from April 2021 to section 2 (Background information). The latest release of SMI statistics has been published today, 11 January 2022.

  17. Updated to support the latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics, also published today 28 September 2021.

  18. Updated to support the latest release of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics, also published today 29 June 2021. The main change is to part 5 (about revisions) - updated the section 'Revision of SMI loans in payment statistics' and added a new section 'Change to methodology for backdated payments'.

  19. First published.

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Documents

Support for Mortgage Interest statistics: background and methodology

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Details

This document provides an explanation of the purpose, methodology and data sources of the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) statistics.

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