Carer Council Tax Disregard: 25% Discount or Full Exemption? 2026

A household where one resident cares for the other can qualify for a 25% council tax discount, a 50% reduction, or — in a narrower set of cases — a full exemption. Which of the three applies depends less on how much care is given than on exactly which legal category each resident falls into, and two outcomes that look similar on paper (two disregarded residents) can differ by hundreds of pounds a year depending on that detail.

One legal test, two different groups of people

The starting point is paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which lets a council disregard someone "engaged in providing care or support" when it counts how many adults live in a property. The detailed conditions sit in secondary legislation — the Council Tax (Additional Provisions for Discount Disregards) Regulations 1992 — and they actually describe two quite different people under one heading.

Part I of the schedule to those regulations covers an employed, live-in care worker: someone engaged or employed by a council, the Crown or a charity for at least 24 hours a week, paid no more than a prescribed weekly sum, and housed in accommodation provided by that employer for the job. Part II covers something more common — an ordinary resident, usually a family member, who personally provides care to someone they live with. That second test requires the person cared for to be separately entitled to a qualifying disability-related benefit (Attendance Allowance, the higher or middle care component of Disability Living Allowance, the standard or enhanced daily living component of Personal Independence Payment, or one of a short list of older war-pension and armed-forces equivalents), the carer to provide at least 35 hours of care a week on average in that same dwelling, and the carer not to be the cared-for person's spouse, civil partner, or the parent of a child they care for who is under 18. Meeting the benefit test alone, or the hours test alone, is not enough — both conditions have to hold at once, and a council will typically ask for the benefit award letter as evidence rather than take a household's word for the hours.

One disregarded resident: the same 25% as any other single-qualifying household

Where a two-adult household has a resident carer who meets that test, and the person they care for does not themselves qualify for any disregard, the arithmetic is identical to the severely mentally impaired disregard this site covered previously: one resident is disregarded, one counts, and section 11(1)(b) of the 1992 Act treats the property as if a single person lived there — the standard 25% Single Person Discount. The legal route to getting there is different (a care test rather than a medical-and-benefit test), but the council tax outcome is exactly the same percentage.

Two disregarded residents: a 50% reduction, not automatically a zero bill

The more interesting case is a household where the carer is disregarded and the person they care for is also disregarded in their own right — because, separately from being cared for, they are certified as severely mentally impaired, or fall into some other disregard category entirely. Section 11(2)(b) of the Act is specific about what happens when every resident of a dwelling is disregarded: the discount doubles, from 25% to 50%, whatever mix of disregard categories produced that result. It does not, on its own, produce a zero bill.

A full exemption is a separate and narrower thing, set out in the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) Order 1992. Class U of that Order exempts a dwelling occupied only by one or more severely mentally impaired people, or by severely mentally impaired people together with a "relevant person" — but the Order defines relevant person tightly, as a student, a student's qualifying spouse or dependant, a school or college leaver, or (where a student is also present) a Ukrainian person admitted under the relevant scheme. A disregarded resident carer does not appear anywhere in that list. The practical result: a household of a disregarded carer and the severely mentally impaired person they care for gets the 50% reduction under section 11(2)(b), not the Class U exemption that applies when both residents are disregarded as severely mentally impaired. Two disregarded residents is not, by itself, a reliable predictor of which of those two outcomes applies — the specific categories involved decide it.

The numbers, band by band

Applying the statutory A–H band ratios (section 5 of the 1992 Act) to the national mean 2026-27 Band D charge of £2,410.97 shows the same gap at every band between the two outcomes above:

The same pattern holds at the extremes of England's council tax range. At Band D, Leicester sits close to the national mean, while Wandsworth — England's cheapest authority for 2026-27 at £1,028.21 — pays £771.16 with one disregarded resident and £514.11 with two disregarded residents but no qualifying exemption. Dorset, the most expensive at £2,765.02, pays £2,073.77 and £1,382.51 respectively. Neither figure is zero, which is the point: a reader comparing their own household to the severely-mentally-impaired pairing in the sibling piece above, where two qualifying residents does reach a zero bill, needs to check which disregard categories actually apply before assuming the same result follows here.

Checking eligibility

Both the single-resident discount and the two-resident reduction have to be applied for — a council does not apply either automatically from a change of circumstances it hasn't been told about. In practice a council tax team will ask for the cared-for person's benefit award letter, confirmation from both residents of the care arrangement and its hours, and evidence that the carer is not the cared-for person's spouse, civil partner, or parent of a child under 18 in their care. How the eight bands themselves are set is covered separately in how council tax bands work. This is general information about how the rules work, not advice on any individual household's position — speak to your local council's council tax team or a qualified welfare rights adviser before applying.

Source data: 2026-27 council tax Band D charges across 296 English local authorities (gov.uk/MHCLG), fetched 19 October 2026. See more Homecost guides.