Please find your group below and follow the guidelines. If you meet the criteria and have the details requested, we may be able to help with housing and/or council tax benefit.

A8, A16, A2, EEA, ECSMA, CESCC 

For the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Croatia, Macedonia, Turkey, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia

• you and/or your partner need to be working, or
• are you or your partner actively seeking work, either by claiming jobseekers allowance or income support, or
• are you or your partner actively seeking work, currently just out of work and looking for instant work, (where we can pay on short period reviews)
• you are not required to provide a Workers Registration Document.
• if only one of you are working, the worker needs to make the claim
• you have to be economically active; for example if you are student you will not be entitled to receive help with your rent and council tax benefit
• do you own property abroad, if so do you intend to return there, is it up for sale or being kept for any other reason?
• once you have been in the country legally for five years you are habitually resident. You are then treated in the same way as if you were a UK citizen.

A2

For the following countries: Romania, Bulgaria

• skilled workers who meet the criteria for getting a work permit or lower skilled workers doing approved seasonal agricultural work or working in the food processing sector need an accession work card or a seasonal agricultural workers scheme card
• in order to apply for benefits you must have a valid passport or ID card and a blue accession work card or a purple registration card depending on your workers skill level. After one year you will no longer require the accession work card and will come under the same rules as an A16 country national
• highly skilled workers and those working legally in the UK on 31 December 2006 are exempt from the scheme and receive the same rights as an A16 country
• do you own property abroad, if so do you intend to return there, is it up for sale or been kept for any other reason?
• you have to be economically active for example, if you are a student you will not be entitled to receive help with your rent and council tax benefit.
• those people working under the SAWS scheme will receive seasonal agricultural workers scheme card, however as you can only work for six months and then not work for three months under this scheme you will not be able to complete the full 12 months in order to change your status. So to claim benefits you will always be required to supply a valid passport or ID card, a purple accession card for the sector based scheme or a SAWS card which states the dates of employment and name of the farm employing the A2 national, but you must be in work as you are required to be self sufficient in your three month break from work.

Non EEA nationals

Most non EEA nationals have no recourse to public funds.

There are exceptions through the virtue of marriage, but you may lose this right if the marriage status was to change. Successful Asylum Seekers who have indefinite leave to remain for compassionate reasons or are in the UK as family members of EEA nationals.

Do you have a family permit, residence card or permanent residence Card, which would advise us of your current status as regards to public funds?  Your passport can also advise of your availability to public funds.

There are other tests that you will need to pass, please see the Immigration Office website at the bottom of the page for further details.