Who is disregarded for council tax

The full list

Schedule 1 of the 1992 Act sets out who is disregarded (Local Government Finance Act 1992, Schedule 1). In plain terms:

1. Young people. Anyone aged 18 for whom child benefit is still paid; 18 and 19 year olds in full-time education up to A level; school and college leavers under 20 between leaving after 30 April and 1 November.
2. Students. Full-time students at university or college, student nurses, foreign language assistants registered with the British Council. The student page has the course tests.
3. Apprentices and trainees. Apprentices working towards a recognised qualification on a low wage, and people under 25 on government funded training.
4. Severe mental impairment. With a doctor's certificate and a qualifying benefit.
5. Carers. Live-in carers providing at least 35 hours a week to someone who is not their partner or their child under 18 and who receives a higher rate disability benefit; and care workers placed by a charity or public body on low pay, living where they work.
6. People away in care. Long-term patients in hospital, and residents of care homes and independent hospitals, at the home they have left.
7. People in detention. In prison or held under mental health or immigration law, other than for unpaid fines or council tax.
8. Some residents of hostels and night shelters, and members of religious communities with no income of their own.
9. Diplomats, members of visiting forces and some international organisations, and the non-British spouses or dependants of students who may not work.

Under-18s are not on the list because they are not adults for council tax at all: a parent living alone with three children of 10, 14 and 17 is the only adult and gets the discount.

Counting the adults

The council takes everyone aged 18 or over who has the home as their main residence, removes the disregarded, and looks at what is left (section 11 of the 1992 Act):

• two or more adults who count: full bill;
• one adult who counts: 25 % off;
• nobody who counts: 50 % off, unless everyone is a student or severely mentally impaired, in which case the home is exempt.

Three, four or six adults who count pay the same as two. The discount is about who is left once the list has been applied, not about how many people share the home. Household bills in five councils for 2026/27:

Severe mental impairment

This is the disregard most often missed. It covers people with a severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning that appears to be permanent, whatever the cause: dementia, a learning disability, a brain injury, a severe stroke, Parkinson's disease in its later stages. Two conditions apply. A registered medical practitioner, usually the GP, signs a certificate, and the person must be entitled to one of a list of benefits, among them Attendance Allowance, the daily living part of Personal Independence Payment, the higher or middle rate care part of Disability Living Allowance, or some elements of Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance (GOV.UK, discounts for disabled people).

The effect is large. A couple where one partner has dementia pays 25 % less. A person with a severe impairment who lives alone, or only with other people who are impaired or students, pays nothing. The disregard can also be backdated to the date the conditions were first met, which in the case of a slow illness can mean several years: councils usually ask the GP for the date the impairment became severe.

Carers

Two groups of carers are disregarded. A resident carer who looks after someone at home for at least 35 hours a week, if the person cared for receives a qualifying benefit at the higher rates and is not the carer's partner or child under 18. And a care worker employed or placed by a charity or a local authority, working at least 24 hours a week for low pay and living in the home of the person cared for, or in accommodation provided for the job. A daughter who moves in to look after her widowed father, who receives the higher rate of Attendance Allowance, is disregarded: her father pays 25 % less.

A partner who cares for their partner is never disregarded as a carer, however many hours they give. The household may still qualify through the impairment disregard or the Disabled Band Reduction.

People who are away

A person who has moved permanently into a care home or hospital is disregarded at their old address. If they lived alone, their home becomes empty and, as long as it stays unoccupied, it is exempt; if a partner or relative stays on, the remaining resident gets the discount. A person in prison is disregarded too, unless they are there for not paying council tax or a fine. Someone who is simply away for work, for months at a time, still counts at the home that remains their main residence.

Short stays elsewhere do not change anything either. A resident who spends a few weeks in hospital and comes home, or a grown-up child away on a summer job, keeps counting as before. The disregard is meant for people whose life has moved somewhere else for the long term, such as a permanent place in a care home, or for the groups the law names.

Telling the council

The council has no way of knowing that a resident is disregarded. You claim the discount, giving the person's name, date of birth, the group they fall into and the date it started, with evidence: a student certificate, a carer's details and the cared-for person's benefit letter, a GP's certificate, an apprenticeship agreement. When the situation ends, tell the council within 21 days: a student who graduates, an apprentice who finishes the scheme, a teenager who turns 18 and stops receiving child benefit for any reason.

Wales and Scotland

The list is essentially the same in all three nations, because it comes from the same 1992 Act. Small differences exist in the detail of the carer and apprentice categories, set by each nation's own orders. In Scotland the discount also applies to the water and waste water charges collected with council tax, so a disregarded resident is worth a little more there.