What is Bereavement Support Payment?

Bereavement Support Payment, usually shortened to BSP, is the main bereavement benefit for working-age people in the United Kingdom whose spouse, civil partner, or partner they lived with as if married has died. It is paid by the Department for Work and Pensions. It replaced three older benefits for deaths on or after 6 April 2017: Widowed Parent's Allowance, Bereavement Allowance (previously Widow's Pension), and the one-off Bereavement Payment. If you already receive Widowed Parent's Allowance because your partner died before 6 April 2017, those payments continue under the old rules for as long as you remain eligible; this site is about the newer payment, not about changing an existing award.

The design is deliberately simple, and that simplicity is worth understanding before the detail. There is a one-off lump sum, paid early in the claim, and then monthly payments for up to 18 months. There are only two rates. There is no assessment of your income, your savings, or your household spending, and there is no requirement to look for work attached to this payment itself. The payment is tax-free. In that sense it is quite different from means-tested benefits such as Universal Credit, where income and capital are examined closely, and from contribution-based benefits where the amount depends on a longer contribution record. Here the contribution test is a gateway, not a scale: your late partner either meets the National Insurance condition or, in the case of a death caused by work, the condition is met another way, and the amount then depends on your family circumstances and on when you claim.

Why the benefit is shaped this way

The older system paid some bereaved parents for many years, until they stopped receiving Child Benefit, and paid bereaved spouses without children for a year. The reform that created Bereavement Support Payment moved support towards the period immediately after the death, on the reasoning that the sharpest financial disruption happens then: a second income stops, rent or a mortgage still has to be paid, and funeral and administrative costs arrive at once. The trade-off is real and should be stated plainly. A household that receives the higher rate gets substantial help for 18 months and then nothing further from this benefit. It is a bridge, not a long-term income. Planning for month 19 matters, and the other benefits page explains which longer-term benefits may be available once this payment ends.

What it is not

Bereavement Support Payment is not a funeral payment. It is not tied to funeral costs, it does not have to be spent on a funeral, and claiming it does not affect whether you can also seek help with funeral costs, although the two schemes have separate rules. The funeral costs page explains the separate Funeral Expenses Payment. It is also not a pension, not a lump sum from a private pension scheme, and not compensation for a death at work, although a death caused by work can satisfy the contribution condition. It does not replace life insurance, and it does not depend on whether your partner had life insurance. Finally, it is not the same as a bereavement grant from a charity or an employer, which may exist alongside it.

The four facts that define the payment

Two further points complete the picture. First, remarrying or forming a new partnership does not end Bereavement Support Payment, unlike the older bereavement benefits. Second, the payment is normally paid into a bank, building society or credit union account of your choice. It is not paid in cash and it is not paid to a funeral director. If someone offers to claim it on your behalf for a fee, treat that offer with great caution and read the scams section of the if refused page first.

Sources: GOV.UK, Bereavement Support Payment (eligibility, what you will get, how to claim), checked 25 October 2026; DWP Bereavement Support Payment claim notes; House of Commons Library, Bereavement Support Payment (CBP-7887).