Help with funeral costs
Bereavement Support Payment is not a funeral payment, and it is important not to confuse the two schemes. Help with funeral costs comes from a separate payment, the Funeral Expenses Payment, paid from the Social Fund. The two payments have different qualifying conditions, different claim windows, and different rules about repayment. Some people can receive both. Some people can receive one but not the other. This page explains the funeral scheme so that you can check it alongside Bereavement Support Payment, rather than assuming one claim covers both.
How the Funeral Expenses Payment differs
| Question | Bereavement Support Payment | Funeral Expenses Payment |
|---|---|---|
| What is it for? | General support after a partner's death, for 18 months. | Specific help with funeral costs. |
| Means-tested? | No. | Yes, in effect: you must receive a qualifying benefit and meet relationship conditions. |
| Claim window | Usually within 21 months of the death, with falling amounts. | Within 6 months of the funeral. |
| Repayable? | No. | May need to be repaid from the estate if the person who died left money. |
To claim a Funeral Expenses Payment you must be receiving a qualifying benefit, such as Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Housing Benefit, Pension Credit, Universal Credit, or certain tax credits, and you must have a qualifying relationship to the person who died, such as being their spouse, civil partner, cohabiting partner, or a close relative or close friend where it is reasonable for you to accept responsibility for the funeral. Bereavement Support Payment itself does not count as a qualifying benefit for a Funeral Expenses Payment, so receiving one does not automatically open the other. The claim is made by phone through the Bereavement Service or on form SF200, available from GOV.UK.
What it can cover, and repayment
The amount depends on your circumstances and your relationship to the person who died. It can include money towards burial or cremation fees and certain other necessary funeral expenses, within the scheme's rules and limits, which you should confirm on GOV.UK's current funeral costs pages before relying on any figure quoted elsewhere. This guide deliberately does not state a single funeral-costs figure, because the scheme's limits and the split between fee costs and other expenses are the parts most likely to be quoted out of date. If the person who died left money, you will usually need to pay back any Funeral Expenses Payment from the estate. That repayment rule surprises people, so factor it into any decision about which funeral costs to commit to, and take advice from the funeral director and from a free advice service before signing a funeral contract you cannot afford.
Practical points about funerals and money
You do not need to have claimed Bereavement Support Payment before arranging a funeral, and the funeral does not need to have taken place before you claim Bereavement Support Payment. The two processes run separately. Tell Us Once, the service that notifies government departments and some local services about a death, is separate again, and registering the death is a separate legal step with its own deadlines, 5 days in England and Wales and 8 days in Scotland in the usual case. If funeral costs are a worry, ask the funeral director for an itemised estimate in writing, ask what is essential and what is optional, and check whether a charity, a faith community, or a local welfare scheme can help. The cost of a funeral is not a measure of respect, and no one should take on unmanageable debt in the belief that a more expensive funeral is required.
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).