Official Statistics

Pension Credit applications and awards: May 2026

Published 28 May 2026

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Introduction

This statistical release provides data on the number of weekly Pension Credit claims received, claims cleared, claims awarded or not awarded, and outstanding Pension Credit claims, between 3 April 2023 and 5 May 2026, in Great Britain only.

Main story

Comparing 2025 to 20 26 (31 March 2025 to 29 March 2026) with 2024 to 2025 (1 April 2024 to 30 March 2025) for Great Britain, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has:

• received 211,125 Pension Credit applications – a 34% decrease or 109,910 fewer applications on 2024 to 2025

• cleared 224,685 Pension Credit claims – a 34% decrease or 115,875 fewer clearances on 2024 to 2025

• cleared and awarded 138,165 Pension Credit claims – a 24% decrease or 42,805 fewer claims awarded on 2024 to 2025

• cleared and did not award 86,520 Pension Credit claims – a 46% decrease or 73,075 fewer claims not awarded on 2024 to 2025

There were 12,770 outstanding Pension Credit claims still to be processed end of week commencing 23 March 2026 in Great Britain.   

Key definitions

Term	Definition
Pension Credit claim applications	An application for Pension Credit made by, or on behalf of, either a single person or a person with a partner in a household.
Pension Credit claims cleared	Pension Credit claims where an outcome decision has been notified to the applicant, recorded in the week it was cleared.
Pension Credit claims cleared – awarded	Where the outcome decision resulted in an award.
Pension Credit claims cleared – not awarded	Where the outcome decision resulted in no award.
Outstanding Pension Credit claims	Pension Credit claims where an outcome decision is still to be determined.

Note: Advanced Pension Credit claims applications have been excluded from outstanding Pension Credit claims figures, as these cannot be processed until the claimant (and their partner if they have one) reaches State Pension age. Advanced claim applications can be started up to 4 months before reaching State Pension age.

Policy context   

For Winter 2024 to 2025, Winter Fuel Payments in England and Wales were linked to receipt of Pension Credit or other qualifying income-related benefits. Pension Credit was the primary route through which pensioners qualified for a Winter Fuel Payment, and therefore this policy change was associated with a significant increase in Pension Credit applications. The Scottish Government introduced similar arrangements for Pension Age Winter Heating Payments for that Winter also.

As of Winter 2025 to 2026, Winter Fuel Payments are made to all pensioners in England and Wales and recovered through the personal tax system from individuals with annual income over £35,000, and not in receipt of Pension Credit or other qualifying benefits. The Scottish Government has introduced similar arrangements for Pension Age Winter Heating Payments.

Results

Applications

In 2025 to 2026 (31 March 2025 to 29 March 2026) for Great Britain, DWP received 211,125 Pension Credit claim applications, a decrease of 34% compared to 321,035 Pension Credit claim applications for 2024 to 2025 (1 April 2024 to 30 March 2025).

Figure 1: Number of weekly Pension Credit applications in Great Britain, week commencing 1 April 2024 to week commencing 23 March 2026

Note to Figure 1:

1. The X-axis tick marks refer to individual weekly data points, starting week commencing 1 April 2024, weeks are shown grouped into quarters (13-week periods) and year for contextual reference.

2. Data is not seasonally adjusted.

3. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5.

4. Advanced pension Credit claims are included in claim application figures.

Claims cleared – awarded, and not awarded

In 2025 to 2026 (31 March 2025 to 29 March 2026) for Great Britain, DWP has cleared 224,685 Pension Credit claims, a decrease of 34% compared to 340,565 Pension Credit claim clearances for 2024 to 2025 (1 April 2024 to 30 March 2025).

In 2025/26 (31 March 2025 to 29 March 2026), of those claims that have been cleared, DWP has awarded 138,165 Pension Credit claim applications, and not awarded 86,520 Pension Credit claim applications. This is a decrease of 24% compared to 180,970 Pension Credit claims awarded, and a decrease of 46% compared to 159,595 Pension Credit claims not awarded, in 2024 to 2025 (1 April 2024 to 30 March 2025).

Figure 2: Number of weekly Pension Credit claims cleared – awarded and cleared – not awarded in Great Britain, week commencing 1 April 2024 to week commencing 23 March 2026

Note to Figure 2:

1. The X-axis tick marks refer to individual weekly data points, starting week commencing 1 April 2024, weeks are shown grouped into quarters (13-week periods) and year for contextual reference.

2. Data is not seasonally adjusted.

3. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5.

Outstanding Pension Credit claims

At the end of the last full week of 2025 to 2026 (week commencing 23 March 2026), there were 12,770 outstanding Pension Credit claims in Great Britain still to be processed. This is a decrease of 13%, or 1,885  fewer outstanding claims, compared to a year previous (week commencing 24 March 2025).

Figure 3: Number of weekly outstanding Pension Credit claims in Great Britain, week commencing 1 April 2024 to week commencing 23 March 2026

Note to Figure 3:

1. The X-axis tick marks refer to individual weekly data points, starting week commencing 1 April 2024, weeks are shown grouped into quarters (13-week periods) and year for contextual reference.

2. Data is not seasonally adjusted.

3. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5.

4. Advanced Pension Credit claims are excluded from outstanding Pension Credit claims (as these cannot be processed until an individual or household have research State Pension age). As a result, weekly outstanding claims figures cannot be derived using applications, clearances, and a previous week’s outstanding claims figure.

About these statistics

This release is classed official statistics in development. We continue to develop collection methodology and quality assurance processes throughout the series.

The statistics have undergone thorough quality assurance in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. All types of official statistics should comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics which makes sure official statistics are trustworthy, have public value, and are of high quality. The strengths and limitations of these statistics are explained in the Data strength and limitations section below.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly at rs.serviceanalytics@dwp.gov.uk with any comments about how we meet these standards. Please note: this inbox is for statistical queries only and cannot be used to check progress of an individual Pension Credit claim.

Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the Office for Statistics Regulation website.

This is an update to the series published on 26 February 2026.

From May 2026, the Pension Credit Application and Award publication will reduce in frequency from quarterly to annually. The timeliness of data presented in the publication has also been reduced, with the weekly data being released to the end of the most recent complete financial year only.

Previous publications in this series included a narrative on these statistics relating to the increase Pension Credit applications and awards following the Winter Fuel Payment announcement on 29 July 2024 for Winter 2024 to 2025. Following the subsequent changes for Winter 2025 to 2026 (see the ‘Policy Context’ section above for more detail), statistics in this narrative will be presented in financial years.   

Due to the data being sourced from Management Information (MI), which is subject to retrospective change, figures may have changed in any given week from the previous publication. Please ensure data from the most recent publication is being used.

Since the quarterly publication in August 2025 (initially published as a supplementary release on 16 September 2025), figures have been rounded to the nearest 5. Prior to the August 2025 release, figures are rounded to the nearest 100. Therefore, comparisons with previous releases may result in inaccurate representation of the retrospective changes made in the MI.

Due to these changes, a revision table typically supplied in this series will not be provided for this and future publications. Further detail can be found in the Data strength and limitations section below.

Numbers in this publication are not comparable with the DWP benefit statistics. This is because this publication relates to Pension Credit applications as opposed to those currently in receipt of Pension Credit. 

Data strength and limitations

Figures presented in this release are from DWP’s Pension Credit system which has previously been collected for internal departmental operations use only. They provide the best source of application, clearances and outstanding claims data available for Pension Credit.

Changes to operational and data recording processes, alongside further methodology and quality assurance checks, indicates minor volatility in previous weeks operational data is possible. We believe this does not materially change scale and trends presented in this statistical release, however it is possible future Pension Credit MI data publications will include updated data for previous weeks. Where this occurs, the Department will ensure this is clearly highlighted as per OSR guidance. 

Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) is built around 3 main concepts, or pillars:

• trustworthiness – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics
• quality – is about using data and methods that produce statistics
• value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs

The following explains how we have applied the pillars of the Code in a proportionate way.

Trustworthiness

DWP analysts work to a professional competency framework and Civil Service core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity, and impartiality. The analysis in this release has been scrutinised and received sign off by the expert lead analyst.

We protect the security of our data in order to maintain the privacy of the citizen, fulfil relevant legal obligations and uphold our obligation that no statistics will be produced that are likely to identify an individual, while at the same time taking account of our obligation to obtain maximum value from the data we hold for statistical purposes. All analysts are given security training, and the majority of data accessed by analysts is obfuscated and access is business case controlled based to the minimum data required.

Quality

This publication uses internal management information from DWP’s Pension Credit internal systems and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics publication standards. However, engagement has taken place with data owners to ensure this data is fit-for-purpose and of sufficient quality for publication. Multiple rounds of quality assurance have been applied to ensure the data is as accurate and reliable as possible. During the development various quality assurance activities took place:

• collaboration with data providers to understand the data sources and ensure data is fit-for-purpose and of sufficient quality for publication

• work to match variables in the management information (MI) to variables on the existing system to ensure data was acquired correctly

Checks were performed to assess:

• reliability, completeness and level of disclosure of individual variables

• levels of duplicate, missing or contradictory information

• comparability to related statistics such as the main Pension Credit applications and awards and Winter Fuel Payment statistical series

Value

These statistics were first published given the public interest in Pension Credit claims following the changes which linked Winter Fuel Payments (in England and Wales) and Pension Age Winter Heating Payments (in Scotland) to receipt of Pension Credit or other qualifying benefits for Winter 2024 to 2025. Changes from Winter 2025 2026 mean that Winter Fuel Payments and Pension Age Winter Heating Payments were made to all pensioners and no longer linked to receipt of Pension Credit (see policy context section for more details).

The figures add to the wider set of information on those who are claiming Pension Credit. The figures also help support answering Parliamentary Questions, Freedom of Information requests and other forms of ad hoc enquiry.

Contact information

For media enquiries contact the DWP Press Office.