How much maintenance loan will you get?

The maintenance loan is the money the government lends you towards living costs at university, and for 2026/27 a student from England can get up to £9,118 a year living at home, £10,830 living away from home outside London and £14,135 living away from home in London. How much of that reaches your account depends on your household income, and the amounts and rules differ again in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

What a maintenance loan is

A maintenance loan covers your living costs while you study: rent, food, travel, course materials and day-to-day spending. Your student maintenance loan is paid to you, unlike the tuition fee loan, which the Student Loans Company pays straight to your university and which you never handle yourself. For 2026/27 the tuition fee cap for most full-time courses in England and Wales is £9,790, and the tuition fee loan covers that in full regardless of household income, so the maintenance loan is the part worth planning around carefully. Northern Ireland and Scotland charge lower fees for students studying at home, and their living-cost support works differently too.

Because the maintenance loan is means-tested, the amount you get depends on your household income. Postgraduates are funded through a separate postgraduate loan; the maintenance loan is for full-time undergraduates.

How much you can get in England in 2026/27

The 2026/27 rates rose by 2.71% on the previous year. If your household income is £25,000 or less you get the maximum: £9,118 living at home, £10,830 living away from home outside London, and £14,135 living away from home in London. If your course includes a year studying overseas, the maximum is £12,403.

Above £25,000 the loan reduces on a sliding scale, by £1 for every £6.54 of household income if you live at home, every £6.47 if you live away outside London and every £6.36 if you live away in London, until it reaches the standard minimum for where you live. For 2026/27 that floor is £4,013 living at home, £5,048 living away outside London and £7,039 in London.

For a student living away from home outside London, a household income of £25,000 or below brings the full £10,830. At £40,000 the loan comes to an estimated £8,512, about 79% of the maximum, and once household income passes £62,410 it settles at the £5,048 minimum. In London, the figures are higher throughout, from £14,135 at the bottom of the income scale down to the £7,039 floor at the top.

For an estimate based on your circumstances, use a maintenance loan calculator. The official student finance calculator on GOV.UK works from the current year’s rules and takes a few minutes.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Which system funds you depends on where you normally live, not where you study, so a Welsh student at an English university still applies to Student Finance Wales.

In Wales, maintenance support includes a non-repayable grant. Every eligible full-time student gets a base grant of £1,020 whatever their income, and for 2026/27 the total maintenance support, grant and loan combined, reaches £10,685 living at home, £12,590 living away outside London and £15,720 in London. The split between grant and loan is what changes with income: students from households earning £18,370 or below get the largest grant, up to £7,020 at home, £8,260 away outside London and £10,325 in London, with the grant tapering to nothing above £59,200. The total in each living category is the same for everyone, so a higher grant simply means a smaller loan and less to repay later. Welsh students can also apply for a one-off partial cancellation of up to £1,500 on their maintenance loan.

In Scotland, the Student Awards Agency for Scotland pays tuition fees in full for eligible Scottish students at Scottish universities, so there is no tuition debt. For living costs, dependent students can borrow up to £9,400 for 2026/27 and independent students up to £10,400, income-assessed. Lower-income students also receive a non-repayable Young Students’ Bursary of up to £2,000 where household income is below £20,999, reducing to £1,125 below £23,999 and £500 below £34,000. Scottish living-cost support is paid monthly rather than in three termly instalments, and students can choose to receive it over term time or spread the payments across the year.

In Northern Ireland, the maintenance loan for 2026/27 is up to £6,471 living at home, £8,352 living away outside London and £11,699 living away in London. Students from lower-income households can also get a non-repayable maintenance grant of up to £3,569, paid in full where household income is £19,203 or less, though receiving the grant reduces the maintenance loan you can borrow. For Northern Irish students studying at a public university or college in Northern Ireland, tuition fees can be up to £4,985 in 2026/27 and can be covered by a tuition fee loan.

The table shows the 2026/27 maximums at the lowest household incomes. The Wales row is the combined grant and loan total.

How your household income is assessed

For most dependent students under 25, household income is based mainly on your parents’ income. Certain taxable income of your own can also count, such as income from savings, investments or property. If your parents are separated, it is the income of the parent you live with plus their partner’s. Students who are 25 or over, married, estranged from their parents or have supported themselves for at least three years are usually assessed as independent, on their own income. From 2026/27, care leavers applying through Student Finance England can choose to take the maximum maintenance loan without household income being used to calculate it.

For academic year 2026/27, Student Finance England usually looks at your parents’ household income for the 2024 to 2025 tax year. If they expect their income for the current tax year to be at least 15% lower, and £58,387 or less in total, they can ask for a current year income assessment instead, based on their likely income for that year, which can lift your loan. Ask for one if a parent has lost work or taken a pay cut. If your parents will not share their income details, you can still get the non-means-tested part of the loan, but not the full amount, so it is worth sorting this out early.

Final-year students receive slightly less, because student finance normally covers the gap between academic years, and there is no gap to cover after your course ends.

When the maintenance loan is paid

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the maintenance loan arrives in three instalments, one near the start of each term, paid into your own bank account once your university confirms you have enrolled. For 2026/27 in England, expect the first instalment around late September or early October 2026, the second at the start of January 2027 and the third at the start of April 2027. It can take a few working days to land after your university confirms registration, so make sure you have enough money to cover the first few weeks.

Scotland works differently: living-cost support arrives monthly, and when you apply you choose whether to take the payments over term time or spread across the full year, so there is no large lump sum at the start of each term.

Applications for 2026/27 opened in spring 2026, with on-time deadlines that have now passed: 15 May for Student Finance England, 29 May for Wales, 30 April for Northern Ireland and 30 June for Scotland. Applications stay open after these dates, but the later you apply, the more likely your first payment lands after term starts, so apply as soon as you can.

How far the maintenance loan goes after rent

What you have left after rent is your real budget for the rest of the year, and that gap varies a lot from city to city. Research by the Higher Education Policy Institute has found the maintenance loan covers only about half of what students need for a minimum socially acceptable standard of living. Compare the 2026/27 loan with real weekly rents before you choose a room.

Take the £10,830 maximum for a student living away from home outside London. In Sheffield, a room on Mystudenthalls.com starts from £75.05/week, which over a 44-week contract comes to about £3,302 and leaves roughly £7,528 of the loan for food, travel and everything else. Sheffield currently has 25 properties listed. In Nottingham, where 23 properties are listed, a room from £97.00/week works out at about £4,268 across 44 weeks, leaving around £6,562. Most of these rooms come with bills included, so heating, water and broadband sit inside the weekly figure rather than on top of it.

In London the maximum is higher at £14,135, and with 71 properties listed, a room from £179.00/week is about £7,876 across a 44-week contract. That leaves about £6,259 for other costs, despite London’s higher weekly rent.

For a dependent Scottish student receiving the £9,400 maximum living-cost loan, the same calculation leaves a smaller amount after rent. In Glasgow, with 21 properties listed, a room from £149.00/week is about £6,556 over 44 weeks, leaving roughly £2,844 before any bursary is added. You can weigh up live rooms and weekly rents on the student accommodation search, read our guide to how much student accommodation costs across UK cities, and see how and when to book so your room lines up with your first instalment. Property counts and from-prices change as rooms sell, and contract lengths vary by property, so the 44-week sums are illustrative and the figures a snapshot.

Repaying your maintenance loan

You repay the maintenance loan together with your tuition fee loan as a single balance, and only once you are earning above your plan’s threshold. Most students starting in England from 2023 onward are on Plan 5, repaying 9% of income above £25,000 a year, with anything left written off 40 years after repayments are due to start. Welsh students are on Plan 2 with a £29,385 threshold, Northern Irish students on Plan 1 at £26,900, and Scottish students on Plan 4 at £33,795. Repayments come straight out of your pay before you see it, and stop automatically if your income drops below the threshold. For the full picture, including the different plans and timelines, read our guide to when student loans are written off.

Sources

• GOV.UK, student finance: how you’re assessed and paid
• GOV.UK, student finance for undergraduates
• GOV.UK, student finance: how to apply, household income
• GOV.UK, support your child or partner’s student finance application, current year income
• Welsh Government, rates of undergraduate student support for 2026 to 2027 (SFWIN 02/2026)
• SAAS, student funding key facts
• Student Finance NI, how you are paid 2026/27
• nidirect, income assessment for full-time students
• GOV.UK, student loans: a guide to terms and conditions 2026 to 2027
• HEPI, A Minimum Income Standard for Students
• Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, student finance applications
• Student Loans Company practitioners’ guidance, full-time maintenance loan

This guide is updated for the 2026/27 academic year. Figures are drawn from the named sources and can change, so check the latest before acting.