Local Housing Allowance (LHA) Rate Checker for Landlords

The Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is the ceiling, not the rent. For a private tenant on Universal Credit or Housing Benefit, the housing element is worked out from a published LHA rate for the local area and the household’s bedroom entitlement — not from the rent actually being charged. Charge above that rate and the tenant (or you) makes up the difference from elsewhere; charge below it and the LHA figure is irrelevant, since the award can never exceed what’s actually owed. This tool works out the rate for a specific Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA) and household, the monthly and weekly amount, and the shortfall against whatever rent you enter.

How many bedrooms does the household get?

The size criteria comes straight from gov.uk: an adult couple, and any single adult aged 16 or over, are each expected to share (a couple) or get their own room; two children of the same sex under 16 share a bedroom; two children under 10 share regardless of sex. Where a child fits more than one description — an 8-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, say — the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 require the household to be given whichever reading needs the FEWEST bedrooms: those two could share as “two children under 10,” even though a same-sex-only reading would put them in separate rooms. This calculator runs that same optimisation on the ages and sexes entered, not a simpler same-age-band rule. Whatever the total comes to, no household is ever entitled to more than 4 bedrooms under the housing costs element — a fifth bedroom, however large the family, still gets the 4-bed rate.

The shared accommodation rate for under-35s

A single claimant under 35 with no partner and no children living with them is normally restricted to the shared accommodation rate (SAR) — the rate for a room in a shared house — even if they actually rent a self-contained flat. Gov.uk lists specific exemptions that lift a claimant onto the ordinary one-bedroom rate instead: care leavers under 25, claimants who have spent three months or more in a homeless hostel, ex-offenders managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements, claimants receiving a qualifying disability benefit (PIP daily living, the DLA care component, Attendance Allowance or Armed Forces Independence Payment), and victims of domestic abuse or modern slavery. The moment a partner, a child, or another adult (16+) is in the household, the SAR restriction falls away entirely — it only ever applies to someone living alone.

Broad Rental Market Areas, not postcodes

A BRMA is a zone the Valuation Office Agency draws around similar rental markets — it is usually much larger than a single postcode district and can span several council areas or split a city. The rate this tool returns is per BRMA, so if you are not sure which one covers a specific address, use the VOA’s own LHA-Direct postcode lookup rather than guessing from the town name.

What this means for the rent you charge

Because the housing element is capped at the LHA rate for the property’s BRMA and the tenant’s bedroom entitlement, pitching the rent above that figure creates a shortfall the tenant has to cover from other income, and rent arrears are one of the more common reasons a Universal Credit tenancy runs into trouble — see our rent arrears eviction threshold guide for what happens if it isn’t paid. Checking the LHA rate before agreeing the rent, and running it through the rent affordability calculator against the tenant’s total income, catches a mismatch before the tenancy starts rather than three months in.

What this figure is not

The LHA rate is a maximum, not a guarantee. Even where the household qualifies for the full rate shown here, the amount that actually reaches a Universal Credit award can be reduced by advance repayments, other debt deductions, the benefit cap, or simply by the tenant’s rent being lower than the LHA figure — in which case the lower, real rent is what counts, not this rate. This tool covers the private rented sector only; social and council housing uses a separate under-occupation (“bedroom tax”) calculation, not these LHA rates.

LHA rates: DWP, “Universal Credit Local Housing Allowance rates 2026 to 2027,” by Broad Rental Market Area (gov.uk), downloaded 13 September 2026 — frozen at the rate effective 1 April 2024 by the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Functions) (Modification) Order 2026, SI 2026/5 (legislation.gov.uk). Bedroom size criteria: gov.uk, “Housing Benefit: what you’ll get” (gov.uk), and Universal Credit Regulations 2013, Schedule 4 Part 3 para 10 and Part 4 para 26 (legislation.gov.uk). Shared accommodation rate and exemptions: gov.uk, “Renting from a private landlord” (gov.uk). Postcode-to-BRMA lookup: VOA LHA-Direct (lha-direct.voa.gov.uk). All read 13 September 2026. General information, not advice — a Universal Credit award depends on the tenant’s full claim, not on this tool alone.