Free School Meals

Am I eligible?

If you have children under 19 and in full-time education, you may be able to get free school meals for them.

Universal Credit is a benefit for people of working age on a low income, which is administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). It’s a single monthly payment which will gradually replace the following benefits with a few exceptions:

▪ Income support

▪ Income related job seeker’s allowance

▪ Income related employment support allowance

▪Housing benefit

▪Working tax credit/Child tax credit

Free school meals eligibility checking

New claimants earning under the threshold and receiving Universal Credit, will be eligible for free school meals. New claimants earning above the threshold after April 2018, will not be eligible for free school meals.

Threshold amount

Annual net earned income threshold of £7,400 which equate to total household income after benefits of between £18,000 – £24,000.

Please see the following link for further information https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit

Transitional protection for pupils receiving free school meals

To ensure that existing recipients of free school meals do not lose entitlement. Pupils will be protected until 31 March 2025, because of the change in the qualifying criteria of Universal Credit.

• From April 2018, any pupil eligible for free school meals before 1 April 2018 will keep their entitlement until 31 March 2025, even if their parent’s circumstances changes.

• Due to the Government's change of free school meal entitlement starting in 2026/27, transitional protections have been extended until the end of the 2025/26 school year. All pupils becoming eligible for free school meals under the benefits-based criteria, should continue to receive this entitlement, regardless of any change in household circumstances or phase of education until the end of the 2025/26 school year.

•  From the start of the 2026/27 school year, the Department for Education will introduce new eligibility criteria meaning that all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit will be entitled to receive a free meal. It is the intention to end transitional protections alongside this change in threshold, with eligibility for all pupils reverting to whether they meet the eligibility criteria regardless of whether they were previously protected. Further guidance ahead of September 2026  will be issued.

• Schools should flag pupils as “protected pupils” in their management information systems as this will be needed for school data collections.

All protected pupils will be identified on schools’ free school meals list. Please note due to the transitional protection, eligibility for free school meals will now be pupil based and no longer family based and you may have cases of one sibling entitled to free school meals and the other not.

Please CLICK HERE to apply online for Free School Meals form

For more information please refer to the DfE guidance:  DFE GUIDANCE ON FREE SCHOOL MEALS