Financial help and benefits for disabled people in Scotland
If you are disabled, you may be entitled to benefits and financial support. This page explains what help is available.
What disability benefits can I claim?
Disability benefits
Disability benefits in Scotland are not means-tested, which means your entitlement isn't affected by how much money you have. Instead, the amount of benefit you receive will depend on how severe your disability is.
If you need help with day-to-day tasks because of a mental illness or physical disability, you may be able to get personal independence payments or attendance allowance (if you're 65 and over).
If you can't work because you are disabled, you may be able to claim employment and support allowance,
If you've been injured in an accident at work, you may be entitled to industrial injuries disablement benefit and constant attendance allowance.
If you were injured and disabled while serving in the army, you may be entitled to war disablement pension/armed forces compensation scheme and constant attendance allowance.
Universal Credit
If you are on a low income, you may be able to claim Universal Credit
Carers
If you have a carer, they may be able to claim carer's allowance. You can find out more about financial help for carers here.
Social fund
You may also be able to get a community care grant, a budgeting loan or a crisis grants from the social fund to help you set up home.
Getting help with benefits
Working out which benefits you can claim can be complicated - and filling in the forms can be worse! So it's a good idea to get some help from a Citizens Advice Bureau, welfare rights agency or a disability advice service.
An adviser can help you:
find out what you're entitled to
fill in the forms
sort out any problems with your benefits.
How to check if you're entitled to benefits
Turn to Us has an online benefit calculator. You can use this to check if you are entitled to any extra money. It can be useful to have information with you about any money you have coming into your household already and what your monthly rent payments are before you use this tool.
Citizens Advice Scotland and Money Advice Scotland can provide money advice and welfare benefit checks and other financial support information.
Scotland’s Financial Health Service Advice offers lots of useful information about money and finances and has helpful links to services by council area.
Financial help and support for disabled people
You may be able to get help to pay for housing support and other care costs, including self-directed support (direct payments), so you can arrange and pay for your own care services. The section on paying for support has more information.
In addition, depending on your situation, you may be entitled to additional financial support, such as:
support from the independent living fund
free NHS prescriptions, dental care and hospital travel costs
blind person's tax allowance and television licence discount
discounts on public transport, hiring or buying a car and parking
car tax exemption.
Visit Gov.uk to find out more.
If you need to talk to someone, we’ll do our best to help. Get Help
Last updated: 16 February 2018
Housing laws differ between Scotland and England.
This content applies to Scotland only.
