Council Tax

Each local authority will decide what evidence of student status it needs. If you are required to provide evidence of your status, your institution must provide you with a Council Tax certificate (usually a printed statement), free of charge, confirming that you are a full-time student or student nurse. The local authority will usually accept this. 

You may be refused a certificate if you ask more than one year after you have finished your course, as there is no legal duty for your institution to supply such a certificate, although many will continue to do so. 

Some local authorities have online forms for you to complete, and may have arrangements with local colleges and universities to verify a student’s status directly, rather than relying on the provision of a certificate, so it is advisable to check your local authority’s website for its procedure. Find your local authority. 

Although your institution may be required by law to provide you with a certificate, a student certificate is not required in order for you to qualify for a discount, and information in an alternative form from your college or university should be deemed to be satisfactory evidence. However, if you do not provide information in the format of a certificate, your local authority may not accept this and you may need to challenge this by appealing. 

If you are a foreign language assistant and therefore not following a course of study, the fact that you are registered with the British Council and are appointed to an institution should be sufficient evidence of your status. 

If you live with adults who are not students, there will be a bill for the dwelling.  In this case, only the non-students are liable to pay the bill, even if you are joint tenants.  For example, if you are a joint tenant with the non-student(s). However, you may still be liable for a bill if you are the only liable person, or if all the jointly liable people are students. 

If you are living with someone who has immigration permission as a Student (including a Tier 4 (General) student), because they are a sabbatical officer, or are a postgraduate doctor or dentist, then they may not be considered to be a 'student' for Council Tax purposes, even though they are sponsored under the Student route (see Who is a "student"). You will need to seek advice from your institution's advice service or Students' Union to find out what their status is in relation to Council Tax, and whether they will be considered to be 'disregarded' for the purpose of the bill. 

If the only non-student adult in your dwelling is your spouse (husband or wife), civil partner or an adult dependant, the dwelling may still be exempt. The dwelling should still be exempt if your spouse, civil partner or dependant is not a British citizen, and has been given immigration permission to be in the UK with a ‘no recourse to public funds’ condition, or a prohibition on employment endorsed in their passport, on their Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) or eVisa. Your dwelling may also be exempt if you, your spouse, civil partner or adult dependant live with someone who has been granted permission under the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme.  

A Council Tax bill is calculated according to two main elements: 

1. the value of the dwelling, and 

1. the number of adult residents aged 18 or over who are solely or mainly resident in the dwelling. 

The local authority assigns the value of each dwelling to one of eight ‘bands’, A-H, with A being the lowest value band, H the highest.  Each local authority sets the amount of tax payable for each band for its own area, so Council Tax rates vary across the country. 

In order to establish how much of the full council tax charge needs to be paid, the local authority will count the number of adults who are living in the dwelling. However, they will ‘disregard’ certain resident adults, including: 

• those exempt as they meet the Council Tax definition for 'student' 

• student nurses on registered courses who are not deemed to be ‘full-time students’ under the Council Tax legislation 

• recent school leavers under 20 years old, who left school after 30 April (eligible to be disregarded only until 1 November of the same year) 

• spouses or civil partners or dependants of students who hold immigration permission for a limited period of time (known as 'limited leave to remain') and who are prevented from taking employment or claiming public funds as a condition of their permission. 

For other categories of disregarded adults, contact your local authority. If there are two or more resident adults who are not ‘disregarded’ a bill will be issued for the full amount according to the dwelling’s ‘band’. However, a discount is applied to dwellings with less than two resident adults. For more information on these discounts, and for guidance on reductions for those with a disability, see Council Tax information available on Gov.uk. 

Local authorities in England and Wales have discretionary powers to reduce council tax in an individual case, for example on grounds of hardship or as a result of misfortune such as flooding of a property. For further information contact your local authority. 

If you are liable but fail to pay the bill, the local authority will usually start legal proceedings to recover the money. If you disagree with the bill, have difficulty paying, and owe a lot of money, or have allowed arrears to build up you should seek specialist advice. 

If the bill is wrong, the local authority may agree that you can delay payment until the bill is corrected. However, if you are in dispute about the bill, the local authority may expect you to make some payments while the dispute is in the process of being resolved. You should keep in contact with the local authority about this, and it is usually best to seek independent advice. 

You should contact your local authority immediately if you have received a bill and think that: 

• you should not be the person responsible for paying the bill, or 

• your home should be exempt, or 

• the amount of your bill is incorrect, for example, a discount is not applied. 

The bill should provide you with instructions of how to notify your local authority and how to notify them of any information that you believe is incorrect. The authority has two months to make a decision about your appeal. If it fails to do so within that time or if you disagree with its decision, then you can appeal to an Independent Valuation Tribunal.  

If your circumstances change and you no longer qualify for an exemption, you must let your local authority know, else you may face a penalty: 

The liable person(s) is responsible for informing the local authority of any changes in residence that may affect liability or the amount of the bill, and could be charged a penalty if he or she fails to do so. 

If you have immigration permission to be in the UK and a condition of your visa is that you have ‘no recourse to public funds’ (this includes everyone that has a Student or Tier 4 visa), you are not entitled to receive public funds.  

If your dwelling is 'exempt' from Council Tax, or you are 'disregarded' for the purpose of Council Tax, you are not deemed to be receiving public funds and are not breaching this condition of your immigration permission.