Pension Age Disability Payment: Rates, Eligibility and How to Apply

Payments are normally made every 4 weeks for the previous 4 week period, into the account you gave in your application. If you are terminally ill you are paid weekly in advance. These are the same two rates as Attendance Allowance in England and Wales.

Pension Age Disability Payment is not means tested. Your income and savings are not taken into account and will not affect any award. You do not need someone caring for you to get it. If someone does care for you, they could get Carer Support Payment.

You can apply if you have both reached State Pension age and had care needs during the day or night for 6 months or more because of a disability or health condition. You can check your State Pension age on GOV.UK, or in our State Pension age guide.

You can still apply if you have not had care needs for 6 months or more, because your award will begin 6 months from when your care needs started. You can also apply while waiting for a diagnosis or without one, and if you are terminally ill there is a separate fast track application.

The legal test: the daytime and night time conditions

You get the lower rate if you meet either condition and the higher rate if you meet both. The regulations define the conditions as follows:

• ✓Yes: The daytime condition: you are so severely disabled physically or mentally that, by day, you require from another person either frequent attention throughout the day in connection with your bodily functions, or continual supervision throughout the day to avoid substantial danger to yourself or others
• ✓Yes: The night time condition: you are so severely disabled physically or mentally that, at night, you require from another person either prolonged or repeated attention in connection with your bodily functions, or for another person to be awake for a prolonged period or at frequent intervals to watch over you to avoid substantial danger to yourself or others

"Attention" means personal care, prompting or motivation in relation to bodily functions, or assistance with communication needs. "Require" means reasonably require, and attention in connection with bodily functions must be given in your physical presence. Care needs include help you need but do not already have, help you only need sometimes, and help from a person or using an aid, tool or adaptation. If you have renal failure and have renal dialysis at least twice a week that normally needs another person to attend or supervise, you are treated as meeting the daytime condition if you dialyse by day and the night time condition if you dialyse by night, but only one of them if you do both. This does not apply to out-patient dialysis in an NHS hospital that is carried out with the help or supervision of hospital staff.

The regulations ask whether you have satisfied, or are likely to satisfy, the condition throughout the 26 weeks before your award would begin. If you had Attendance Allowance or Pension Age Disability Payment that ended not more than 2 years before you apply, the 26 week requirement does not apply, as long as the new award is at the same rate or lower.

Residence

• ✓Yes: You are ordinarily resident in Scotland and habitually resident in the Common Travel Area, and present there now
• ✓Yes: You have been present in the Common Travel Area for at least 26 of the last 52 weeks
• ✓Yes: You are not a person subject to immigration control, apart from the exceptions in the regulations

You can also apply if you live in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or Gibraltar and have a genuine and sufficient link to Scotland, for example because you have spent a significant part of your life in Scotland.

Other benefits and care homes

• ✓Yes: You cannot get Pension Age Disability Payment while you get Attendance Allowance, Adult Disability Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment, Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance or Armed Forces Independence Payment
• ✓Yes: Care home: you can apply if you pay all your own care costs. You cannot usually get it if a local council pays for your care. If a council pays you may apply but you will only get it if you leave the care home
• ✓Yes: After you get it: payment drops to £0 from the day after you have been in a care home for 28 days, unless the full cost is met from your own resources, from another person's or a charity, or a mix of those. It also drops to £0 after 28 days as a hospital in-patient where the costs are met from public funds, and after 28 days in legal detention
• ✓Yes: A hospice stay does not trigger these rules if you are terminally ill

• ✓Yes: Attendance Allowance: if you live in Scotland and already get it you do not need to apply. Social Security Scotland moves you to Pension Age Disability Payment, with no gap in your entitlement or change to your award. DWP keeps paying until Social Security Scotland starts paying you, and you do not need to contact DWP to have your benefit stopped
• ✓Yes: Disability Living Allowance: you do not need to do anything. Your benefit moves to Social Security Scotland, as Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance
• ✓Yes: Adult Disability Payment: if you already get it you stay on it when you reach State Pension age and do not transfer
• ✓Yes: An Attendance Allowance application made by mistake: DWP sends it to Social Security Scotland, who use it as an application for Pension Age Disability Payment and pay from the date of the Attendance Allowance application if it succeeds. If you send an Attendance Allowance or an Adult Disability Payment application to Social Security Scotland when you are over State Pension age, they can use it as an application for Pension Age Disability Payment

Social Security Scotland says it will send you a letter explaining what happens when you transfer. If you get Attendance Allowance in Scotland and have not heard anything, phone 0800 182 2222.

If you move from England or Wales to Scotland while getting Attendance Allowance, tell DWP you have moved and make a new claim for Pension Age Disability Payment. Your Attendance Allowance stops 13 weeks after you move, so apply as soon as possible. If you move the other way, report your move to Social Security Scotland and apply for Attendance Allowance. See our Attendance Allowance guide for the English and Welsh rules.

If you do not submit part 2 within 8 weeks, Social Security Scotland assumes you do not want to complete the application and deletes it within 90 days of the date you started. You can ask for more time before then. There is also a check if you might be eligible tool on mygov.scot, which is not an application.

Part 1: what you need

• ✓Yes: personal details, such as your date of birth and main address
• ✓Yes: your National Insurance number, on your National Insurance card, a social security letter, pension statement, payslip, P60 or P45
• ✓Yes: bank, building society or credit union account details. You can apply without an account and agree how you will be paid if you succeed
• ✓Yes: if you have been outside the Common Travel Area at any time in the last year, when you were away and why

Part 2: the questions

Part 2 asks about the help and support you need, your disability or condition, documents you can provide, contact details of people involved in your care, and any medications, treatments or equipment you need. It asks for a lot of information. You only need to give detailed answers to the questions relevant to you, and do not need to complete it all at once. You are asked about help from a person and aids or adaptations with:

• ✓Yes: getting in and out of bed
• ✓Yes: washing and bathing
• ✓Yes: going to the toilet and managing incontinence
• ✓Yes: moving around indoors
• ✓Yes: dressing and undressing
• ✓Yes: communicating with others
• ✓Yes: eating and drinking
• ✓Yes: staying safe during the day
• ✓Yes: activities at home and outside
• ✓Yes: taking medication, monitoring a health condition and therapy
• ✓Yes: during the night

Social Security Scotland publishes the types of questions for reference only. Do not use them to make an application. It also helps to have information about your condition or symptoms, and contact details for a professional involved in your care, such as a GP, social worker or paid carer, and for someone who could give more information, such as a family member, friend or unpaid carer.

Supporting information and the statement of support

You need to provide one piece of supporting information from a professional that confirms your conditions, disability or needs. It does not need to include a diagnosis. It can be an official document such as a prescription list or care plan, a letter from a professional, or the statement of support completed by a professional. People who cannot get information from a professional should still apply, because Social Security Scotland staff can make an award without it if there is a good reason it is not available and the person meets the eligibility criteria.

You can also give information about how your condition affects you, from someone in your wider support network who knows your needs well, or from a professional. In part 2 you can include a statement of support. It is not compulsory. It can be completed by someone in your wider support network or by a professional, and it should not be completed by you, or by someone with legal power to act for you such as an appointee.

Send supporting information with your application, which can make processing quicker, or within 28 days of submitting part 2. Upload it online or post photocopies. You cannot send it by email. You can ask Social Security Scotland to get it for you, but that can take longer.

Applying for someone else

If someone cannot apply themselves, a family member, friend or carer can help. A third party representative can support an application, ask how it is going, make phone calls, receive copies of notifications, ask for an explanation of the entitlement and help with a determination or appeal, but they need the person's permission. If the person cannot make their own decisions, you can apply to become an appointee, personal or corporate, who takes full responsibility for the payment. You can apply to be a personal appointee when you fill in the application online, by phone or on paper.

Social Security Scotland writes with its decision, called a notice of determination. If you are terminally ill it aims to decide in around 7 working days. It says some processes may take longer because demand is high. The letter says what you will get, or why you were not successful.

If you succeed, the earliest date you can be paid from is when you submitted part 1 online, or when you phoned to start the application. The regulations add that if you apply within 8 weeks of first giving your full name and date of birth, entitlement can start from that day, and Social Security Scotland can treat a late application as in time if there is a good reason. If you would not qualify on the day you applied but are likely to within 26 weeks, it can choose a later date within that 26 weeks.

While you wait, tell Social Security Scotland if anything changes that affects your condition or care needs, if you move house, if you go into or come out of a hospital, care home or legal detention, or if your payment details change. If you no longer want to apply, ask them to withdraw the application, as long as they have not decided.

Social Security Scotland reviews awards. After a review it tells you the rate, whether it will review your award again and the date of your next review. You may be given an indefinite award if your needs are highly unlikely to change. It is not reviewed unless you report a change. If your award changes or stops, tell your local council, HM Revenue and Customs and DWP if you get benefits from them.

You need to tell Social Security Scotland about changes if you already get Pension Age Disability Payment, if you have applied but not had a decision, or if you moved from Attendance Allowance. If you do not tell them about a change that could affect your award you may be committing an offence under section 72 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. If something changes before your Attendance Allowance finishes, call DWP on 0800 731 0122. To stop getting Pension Age Disability Payment, contact Social Security Scotland and ask them to end it.

The challenge process is the same two stages as Adult Disability Payment, and you cannot skip the first. If you appeal without first asking for a re-determination, your appeal will not be accepted.

Late requests can be accepted for a good reason, such as illness and hospitalisation, up to one year after the letter. You can ask online, by phoning 0800 182 2222, or by paper form to Social Security Scotland, PO Box 10303, Dundee, DD1 9FY. If your Pension Age Disability Payment is reduced or stopped and your request is accepted, you can apply for Short-term Assistance, which replaces the amount your award was cut by while you challenge it. You do not repay it, except where the original award was claimed fraudulently or you were overpaid through an error you caused. The full steps, including what happens at the Tribunal, are in our Adult Disability Payment guide.

The equivalent first step for Attendance Allowance in England and Wales is a mandatory reconsideration, see our mandatory reconsideration guide.

If you get Pension Age Disability Payment you may qualify for extra support, called related benefits, with living costs, travel and transport, and low income. It is not added automatically. You, or someone responsible for you, apply for it, and the rates of your payment affect what you can apply for. mygov.scot lists Pension Credit as a related benefit. See our Pension Credit guide, including the extra severe disability amount.

• ✓Yes: Phone: 0800 182 2222, Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, except bank holidays (free)
• ✓Yes: Webchat: Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, except bank holidays, for general enquiries and to check progress
• ✓Yes: Post: Social Security Scotland, General Enquiries, PO Box 10301, Dundee, DD1 9FY
• ✓Yes: From outside the UK: +44 (0)1382 931 000, which is not free, but you can ask them to call you back

One of mygov.scot's Pension Age Disability Payment review pages says the opening hours are 8am to 6pm. The contact page, updated on 27 February 2026, says 8am to 5pm.

Pension Age Disability Payment only exists in Scotland. In England and Wales you claim Attendance Allowance from DWP. In Northern Ireland Attendance Allowance is run by the Department for Communities, as covered in our Attendance Allowance guide. If you are under State Pension age in Scotland, see Adult Disability Payment.