Accommodation Benefit

Accommodation Benefit is a weekly payment that's paid with your Student Allowance to help with accommodation costs.

If you don’t live with a parent, you may be able to get an Accommodation Benefit if:

you live in a place that is not owned or paid for by your parents
you live in a place your parents own or pay for and either:
- you're paying market rent, or
- you're responsible for the outgoings of the home, or
- you or your partner have a child.

If you live with a parent, you may be able to get an Accommodation Benefit if:

you don’t live in a place that your parents own or pay for, for example you and your parent live in a hostel or boarding house
you live in a place that your parents own or pay for and you or your partner have a child.

If you're a sole parent you also need to:

be paying at least either:
- $160 a week for rent or board, or
- $192 a week for your home ownership costs, for example mortgage, rates, insurance
have cash assets of less than $16,200.

You can't get an Accommodation Benefit if you're:

not getting a Student Allowance
over 24, live with your partner and your joint income is at least $540.20 before tax a week, or
you or your partner have a tenancy agreement with a public housing provider (you may qualify for income-related rent instead).

Accommodation Benefit is paid at $60 per week, unless you're:

If you live in a hostel, you can get as much as $60 a week, depending on what hostel you live in.

We won't pay for your lump sum hostel or hall of residence costs.

If you're a sole parent, we work out how much Accommodation Benefit you can get by using the same calculation we would for Accommodation Supplement.

This is based on:

You also need to be paying at least:

Who can get it