Who Can Claim Guardian's Allowance? Kinship Carers, Relatives and Family Friends

People assume Guardian's Allowance is only for grandparents. It is not. HMRC does not restrict the benefit to blood relatives, and there is no requirement for a formal court order or legal guardianship. If you are raising a child whose parents have died — or where one parent has died and the surviving parent meets one of the statutory exceptions — you may qualify regardless of your relationship to the child.

The Eligibility Test Is About Care, Not Relationship

In Great Britain, Section 77 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 requires the claimant to be "responsible for" the child. Northern Ireland has a parallel provision in Section 77 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992. HMRC uses the same test as Child Benefit: the child must either live with you, or you must be contributing to the cost of the child's upkeep at a rate not less than the weekly Child Benefit amount.

That means any of these people can claim:

• Grandparents — the most common claimants, often on a State Pension or low income
• Aunts and uncles
• Older siblings — provided they are over 16 and the child lives with them
• Step-parents — if the biological parent has died and the step-parent continues raising the child
• Family friends — no blood or legal relationship is required at all
• Approved foster carers — an approved foster carer looking after a local-authority "Looked After" child cannot claim Guardian's Allowance for that child

You do not need a Special Guardianship Order, Child Arrangements Order, Kinship Care Order or any other court order. You do not need to be the child's legal guardian in the formal sense. Day-to-day physical care is what counts.

The Parental Conditions Must Also Be Met

Being responsible for the child is necessary but not sufficient. The parental conditions must also apply:

Both parents deceased is the standard route. If both of the child's legal parents have died, you qualify as long as you are caring for the child and have active Child Benefit entitlement.

One parent deceased, one surviving requires one of five statutory exceptions:

1. At the date the other parent died, you did not know where the surviving parent was and you have made reasonable documented efforts to find them
2. The surviving parent is in prison serving a sentence of at least 2 years from the date of the other parent's death
3. The surviving parent is detained in hospital under a qualifying court order that will continue for at least 2 years (specific sections of the Mental Health Act 1983, Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964, Criminal Appeal Act 1968 or Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 — voluntary admissions do not count)
4. The parents were unmarried when the child was born, the mother has died, and paternity was never legally established (no father on the birth certificate)
5. The parents were divorced or had their civil partnership dissolved before the death, and the surviving parent has no custody, is not maintaining the child and is not subject to a court order to pay maintenance

If both parents are alive — even if both have abandoned the child, are untraceable or are incarcerated — Guardian's Allowance cannot be awarded. The statute requires at least one parent to be deceased.

You Must Also Have Child Benefit

This trips up many carers. Guardian's Allowance is legally conditional on Child Benefit entitlement for the child. The entitlement must be established before Guardian's Allowance can be paid, but you can submit Form CH2 and BG1 together.

If you earn over £60,000 and have opted out of receiving Child Benefit payments to avoid the High Income Child Benefit Charge, you are still entitled to Guardian's Allowance. Opting out of payments preserves the underlying entitlement, and Guardian's Allowance is exempt from HICBC.

Competing Claims

If two people both care for the child — for example, the child splits time between grandparents — HMRC applies statutory priority rules. The person the child physically lives with takes precedence over someone who contributes financially. Only one person can receive Guardian's Allowance for the same child at the same time.

What You Actually Need to Do

The claim process is the same regardless of your relationship to the child. You fill in Form BG1, attach the child's birth certificate and the parents' death certificates (or evidence of the surviving parent exception), and post everything to HMRC in Newcastle. The benefit is £22.95 per week per child for 2026/27, paid every four weeks into your bank account alongside Child Benefit.

Our Guardian's Allowance guide covers the full BG1 process, the document checklist and the surviving parent exception rules step by step — whether you are a grandparent, an aunt, a sibling or a family friend who stepped in when a child needed someone.

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