All awards of contribution-based ESA will become New-Style ESA from 1st December 2025.
Currently, there are two types of ESA in existence:
- Income-related ESA (IR-ESA) is a means-tested benefit for people who are unable to work for health reasons and otherwise have a low income. It is affected by your income and savings/capital and, if you live with a partner, you claim it as a couple.
- Contributory ESA– this is based on your own personal National Insurance contribution record and is not affected by savings, most forms of income or having a partner.
Under the old ‘legacy benefit’ system, contributory ESA was called ‘contribution-based ESA’ (CB-ESA). You might be in receipt of this if you claimed contributory ESA before UC was rolled out in your area (so roughly around 2017/18 ish, depending on where you live). Within the Universal Credit system, the contributory version of ESA is called ‘New-Style ESA’ (NS-ESA). The rules for both are the same, it’s just a name change.
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