How much do you get for fostering a child uk

How Much Do Foster Parents Get Paid?

Fostering a child can be a truly rewarding experience, enabling you to change a child or young person’s life for the better. But of course, choosing whether to foster is an important decision – and one of the common questions that gets asked is, how much do foster parents get paid? Find out whether foster care pay is enough to make fostering a viable career choice for your family now.

Fostering Allowance 

So, how much do you get paid for fostering? Fostering a child who desperately needs your help not only has emotional rewards, but financial benefits, too. As a foster carer, there is rarely time away from the job – which is why a fostering allowance is provided in order to support you.

How much foster carers are paid per week depends on a number of factors. These factors can include:

• Child’s needs - the needs of the child or young person in your care
• Age - the age of your foster placement
• Location - the geographical area you are fostering in.
• Local authority or independent fostering agency - it can also depend on whether you are fostering with a local authority or an independent fostering agency – as the latter can often afford to pay its foster carers a larger weekly amount than local authorities can.

So, how much do foster carers get paid?

Here at Capstone Foster Care, as an independent agency, we offer competitive fostering rates for our fostering placements.

The demand for therapeutic fostering placements has grown over the last year and, as a result, Capstone Foster Care has introduced a programme to provide the extra training and resources required to carers to enable them to provide therapeutic placements. Fostering allowances for these placements is between £515 and £650. Most of our carers are able to offer this service. If you look after a child in a therapeutic placement for a whole year, your total income will be over £26,780 (and £23,000 of this will be tax-free).

The fostering allowance for parent and child placements is from £570 per week and the demand for this service is always strong.

Total allowances for most of our standard placements including respite payments is around £400 per week, which would work out to be around £1,700 a month.

Foster Care Pay Scale – Broken Down

The weekly allowance paid to carers is made up of two parts:

• Money to cover the costs of looking after a child - this can include household expenses, food, clothing, mileage, school meals and more
• A reward to the carer for your time and skill - this is based on the age of the foster child, the type of fostering placement and whether or not this is specialist fostering.

There are standards set by the government that independent agencies, such as Capstone Foster Care, use as a guideline for the compensation paid to their foster carers. There is a minimum basic fostering allowance per child in care to cover the costs of looking after the child based on the child’s age and geographic location and this ranges from approximately £130 to £200 per week. As part of the weekly fostering pay, the allowance would cover general household expenses, mileage, food, school meals, pocket money and the child’s clothing.

The other part of the fostering allowance rewards you for the time and energy involved in providing the kind of home that gives the child a chance of a brighter future.

Do foster carers pay tax?

As well as the income, foster carers benefit from special tax rules. This means that in practice, a foster carer with one child during the year will pay no tax – and only small amounts of tax are paid by carers with more than one child in placement. However, it should be noted that as a foster carer, you will not be able to claim Child Benefit for a foster child or Child Tax Credit.

Once you are an approved foster parent and registered with the HMRC, you will be classed as self-employed – and will need to keep a record of the ages and dates of when you foster children for a tax return form you’ll need to complete each year.

Can foster parents receive benefits?

While there are some tax benefits you cannot claim, as a foster parent, you may be able to claim any of the following benefits:

• Income support
• Council tax reduction
• Income-based job seeker’s allowance
• Disability living allowance
• Working tax credits
• Housing benefit

Ready to apply for your career in foster care? Learn more about how to apply to become a foster parent now. Alternatively, if you want to know more about fostering pay or advice on how much foster parents get paid, contact Capstone Foster Care on 0800 012 4004.

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Fostering Allowances | How much do foster parents get paid

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Foster carers and prospective foster carers sometimes say they feel uncomfortable asking about money. But we’d like to reassure you that it’s fine to ask about pay and allowances – in fact, it is very important.

Navigate to sectionFoster care pay and allowancesPay and the different types of foster careBridging Retainer PaymentsTax and foster careBeing a self-employed foster carerFoster carers, state benefits & pensionsWhat carers say about our fostering allowance

Pay & allowances

How much do foster carers get paid?

Once we’ve approved you to provide paid foster care, you will receive foster care pay (known as a fostering allowance) in the region of £22,000 a year (around £1,800 on average per month). For most foster carers, this will be tax free and will not affect benefits you’re currently receiving. You will also be eligible for our Bridging Retainer Payments.

Examples of foster care payments

• Emma

  Fosters one child, aged six. Emma receives £345.00 per week.

• Tom and Sarah

  Foster a young unaccompanied asylum seeker, aged 15. They receive £407.50 per week.

• Dev

  Fosters a mum and her baby girl, aged three months. Dev receives £783.74 per week.

• Ann and Selena

  Foster two sisters, aged seven and eight. Ann and Selena receive £833.10 per week.

Start your fostering journey with National Fostering Group

• We have fostering agencies all across the UK
• Over 3,000 carers already part of our family
• Benefit from our local support groups and social workers

Enquire now

Overview of foster care pay

Some of our foster carers give up their jobs to care for children, so the foster care pay they receive is vital to support them and their household. And, while money is not the main motivation for people to become foster carers, nevertheless our foster carers perform a really important role, so it’s right that they are properly remunerated.

If you’re considering going into paid foster care, this section will explain about pay, allowances, tax, National Insurance, state benefits and pensions.

How fostering pay works

We want you to feel financially secure when you’re a foster carer with us, so you can focus your attention on providing great care and enjoying a good quality of life. That’s why foster care pay from National Fostering Group is far higher than the government’s recommended weekly allowance.

We want you to have peace of mind. We recognise that foster caring can sometimes be stressful. It’s important not to have money worries so you can care for the children in the way you’d like to and also look after your own wellbeing.

Here are some important things to remember about foster carer payments:

• You will be paid a generous fostering allowance for each foster child.
• You probably won’t pay any tax on your fostering allowance – see our Tax and Foster Care page.
• You will become eligible for Bridging Retainer Payments.
• Most state benefits are not affected by your fostering allowance – see our Foster Carers, State Benefits and Pensions page.
• You’ll need to register as self-employed and pay National Insurance Contributions – learn how to do this on our Tax and Foster Care page.
• You might also be entitled to Working Tax Credit and other state benefits – see our Foster Carers, State Benefits and Pensions page.

What makes us special?

• Expert support, local to you

• Unique training opportunities

• Over 3,000 foster carers across the country

• Change the life of a child today

When I became self-employed, I was worried I’d have to save every single receipt and pay an accountant to file a complicated tax return every year. But it’s not like that at all. You don’t have to keep receipts and it’s easy to submit your tax return yourself.

Megan, National Fostering Group foster carer

What your foster care pay covers

The fostering allowance you receive has two components – your professional fee and money to cover the child’s needs.

Your professional fee recognises your skills, training and experience as a foster carer. It is the payment we make to you for providing first class care with the National Fostering Group.

It’s important the fostering allowance also covers the foster child’s physical needs, including food, clothing, travel, activities, savings and so on. We provide clear guidance on how best to spend this money so the child has is supported to have a healthy, happy and balanced life.

This is why there is no single, fixed fostering allowance. It differs because foster carers have different skills and different experience. The amount you receive also depends on the type of care provided (for example, if a foster child has complex needs), the child’s age, and whether you are fostering in London and the South East or the rest of the UK.

You don’t have to pay self-employed National Insurance Contributions if you’re a foster carer of retirement age. I mistakenly paid them for two years before I realised!

Jack, National Fostering Group foster carer

Pay and the different types of foster care

Once approved, you’ll receive foster care pay (known as a fostering allowance) in the region of £22,000 a year. For almost all foster carers, this will be tax free and will not affect benefits. However, it’s difficult to estimate an exact figure you’ll get paid for fostering. You might earn more than £22,000 or you might earn less.

Pay and the types of foster care

Tax and foster care pay

In general, foster carers’ pay isn’t subject to Income Tax. For tax purposes, foster carers are regarded as self-employed. If this is all new to you, don’t worry – as a foster carer, your self-assessment tax returns are straightforward. We will offer you all the support you need.

Tax and foster care

Foster carers and National Insurance

All foster carers in the UK must register as self-employed and pay National Insurance Contributions. You do not have to pay National Insurance after you reach State Pension age unless you’re self-employed and paying Class 4 contributions. Don’t worry if you haven’t been self-employed before, as a foster carer it’s very simple and we offer you all the support you need.

Being a Self-employed Foster Carer

Bridging Retainer Payments between foster care placements

We do all we can to provide you with the financial security of a regular income between placements. This is in the form of a weekly Bridging Retainer Payment, plus another payment made at the start of your next placement.

Bridging Retainer Payments

Foster carers, state benefits and pensions

Your fostering allowance won’t affect most state benefit payments. Because fostering counts as self-employment, so you may be entitled to Working Tax Credit and also Child Tax Credit.

Foster Carers, State Benefits & Pensions

Need more information about foster care pay?

If you would like more information, please fill out our enquiry form. If you ask for a call back, a fostering advisor from your local National Fostering Group team will get in touch to explain more about how to become a foster carer, and answer any questions you have about foster care pay.

Start your fostering journey with National Fostering Group

• We have fostering agencies all across the UK
• Over 3,000 carers already part of our family
• Benefit from our local support groups and social workers

Enquire now

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