What If I Am Self-Employed?

For self-employed claimants, net earnings are calculated by using gross income over an appropriate period (usually the preceding 6 or 12 months), deducting allowable expenses, and calculating the notional Income Tax and National Insurance which would be payable on the resultant gross profit.

You should note that some types of business expense are allowable by the HM Revenues and Custom but not for Housing and Council Tax Benefit purposes, e.g. depreciation.

If you have been working as a self-employed person for twelve complete calendar months or more, please provide details of your income and expenses for your last financial year. If you have been working as a self-employed person for less than one financial year, please provide details of your income and expenses for as many complete calendar months as you can.

If you have been working as a self employed person for less than one month please provide details of your estimated income and expenses for the first three months of trading. This process of providing estimated income and expenses will be repeated until a year is reached.

If you are unable to provide accounts, please complete our Self-employed form. Please contact the Benefits Section for a Self-employed form or download the form below.

Registered Child Minder
If you are a registered child minder, you may be able to claim Housing/Council Tax Benefit.

You will be treated as self employed, but we will not take your actual expenses into account when we calculate your earnings. Instead, we will use one third of your gross income from childminding, less notional Income Tax and National Insurance contributions if applicable, and half of any actual pension contributions.

Downloads:

File format	File title	File size / Download time
	Self Employed Supplementary Form	44K 56Kbps Modem: 6 Seconds Broadband: 1 Second