How Foster Carer Pay Works: The Fostering Allowance Explained

Asking about money does not make you any less committed to children. It is one of the most sensible questions you can ask, because nobody looks after a child well while lying awake wondering how to pay for school shoes. Here is what foster carers are actually paid, what that payment has to cover, how the tax works, and what happens to your income when a placement ends.

Please note: This is general information, not personal tax, benefits or financial advice. Tax and allowance figures are correct as at August 2026 and apply to the 2026/27 tax year unless stated otherwise. For your own position, check the HMRC helpsheet on Qualifying Care Relief (HS236) or speak to an accountant.

Two different jobs, one weekly payment

Fostering money normally does two separate things. Part of it is an allowance meant to cover the cost of a child living in your home. Part of it is a fee that pays you for your time, your skill and the fact that you are on duty at three in the morning when a nine-year-old cannot get back to sleep. A lot of agencies keep the two apart, advertise the headline fee and stay vague about the rest, which makes it very hard to work out what you would actually receive. At Greater London Fostering you get one fixed weekly amount per child covering both, so you can do the sums before you commit to anything.

What Greater London Fostering pays

Our rates are published openly rather than saved for a conversation at the end of an assessment. As at August 2026, this is what a GLF foster carer receives:

• £479.50 a week for a child under 11
• £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over
• An enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week more where a child has higher needs, depending on what that care actually involves
• Paid per child, so two children placed with you means two payments
• Paid only while a child is living with you

That is one fixed weekly fee with no separate one-off payments bolted on for birthdays, Christmas or holidays. Some agencies pay those as extras; we build them into the weekly rate instead. You can see the full picture on our page about what we pay foster carers. We would rather you knew exactly what you will receive than found out at the end.

How that compares with the national minimum

The government sets a national minimum allowance that every fostering service in England has to meet, and it rises each year. From April 2026 the London rates went up by 3.35%, to these weekly amounts:

• Age 0 to 2: £205
• Age 3 to 4: £208
• Age 5 to 10: £233
• Age 11 to 15: £266
• Age 16 to 17: £309

Be careful comparing those numbers with ours, because they are not measuring the same thing. The national minimum is what is considered enough to cover a child’s costs, before any payment to you for the work. Our £479.50 for a seven-year-old covers that same ground and pays you on top of it. What the minimum figures are genuinely useful for is a sense of what a child costs to look after in London, which is more than most people guess before they start.

What the money is meant to cover

The allowance part of your payment is there for everything a child in your home needs:

• Food, including the extra shop in the first week when you have no idea yet what they like
• Clothes, shoes, coats and school uniform
• Travel: bus fares, the school run, petrol to family time and back
• Pocket money and savings, at a level agreed with your supervising social worker
• Clubs, hobbies, days out and the things that make a childhood feel normal
• Birthdays, Christmas and religious festivals
• The child’s share of heating, water, broadband and general wear on the house

Because it arrives as one steady weekly figure, the trainers in November come out of the same pot as the swimming lessons in June. Carers who handle the money well tend to move a set amount into a separate account each week, so the expensive months do not come as a shock. Your supervising social worker will talk this through with you rather than leave you to guess.

The honest part: pay stops when a placement ends

This is the bit agency websites tend to skip. Payment is per child and only while that child is placed with you, so if a young person moves on to a permanent family or returns home, the money stops when they do. Gaps happen. They are usually short, but no agency can honestly promise an unbroken income, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling rather than explaining. Ask us directly how often our carers wait between placements. It is a fair question to put to any agency you speak to.

Two things make the gaps easier. The first is not building your whole household budget on fostering income alone, which is one reason a good many of our carers keep some paid work going; we have written separately about whether you can foster while working. The second is being open about the ages and needs you can take, because carers who can say yes to a wider range of children tend to wait less. If you are drawn to the youngest children, we are actively looking for carers for babies and under-twos.

Tax: why the headline figure is usually what you keep

Foster carers are treated as self-employed by HMRC, so you register, you file a tax return every year and you keep records. What surprises most people is how rarely there is any tax to pay. Alongside the standard personal allowance of £12,570, foster carers get a separate relief called Qualifying Care Relief, made up of a fixed amount for the household plus a weekly amount for each child. For the 2026/27 tax year those are:

• A fixed amount of £20,440 per household for the full tax year
• Plus £435 a week for each child under 11
• Plus £515 a week for each child aged 11 or over
• Any part of a week with a child placed counts as a whole week, running Monday to Sunday

Put real numbers through it. Say you care for an eight-year-old for a full year at our under-11 rate. Your fostering income is £24,934. Your Qualifying Care Relief threshold is £20,440 plus 52 weeks at £435, which comes to £43,060. That is well above your income, so your taxable profit from fostering is nil and there is nothing to pay. The same holds with two children, because the weekly amount is per child. Most GLF carers never pay tax on their fostering income, though the return still has to be filed. Our article on whether foster carers pay tax goes through Qualifying Care Relief in more detail.

National Insurance and your state pension

There is a catch in all that good news, and carers often find out about it too late. If your taxable profit is nil, you are not paying National Insurance through your fostering, and a year with no contributions is a year that does not count towards your state pension. The fix is simple: approved foster carers can apply for Class 3 National Insurance credits for each tax year they foster, which protect the record and cost nothing. Check your record on gov.uk every few years so nothing quietly slips.

Registering with HMRC and the dates that matter

The admin is lighter than people fear, but the deadlines are real and the penalties for missing them are automatic. Taking the 2025/26 tax year as the example:

• 5 October 2026: tell HMRC you need to file a return, if you have not filed one before
• 31 October 2026: deadline for a paper tax return
• 31 January 2027: deadline for an online return, and for paying anything you owe

You register as self-employed once, online, and HMRC sends you a Unique Taxpayer Reference. Keep that number somewhere you will find it again. If you already file a return for other work, you just add the fostering.

You won’t have to do this alone

Nobody expects you to arrive knowing any of this. Working out what a child costs, keeping records HMRC would be happy with, budgeting across a gap between placements: your supervising social worker goes through all of it with you, and it is covered during Skills to Foster training before you ever go to fostering panel. GLF is a small agency, so the person you ring about money already knows your household. We were inspected by Ofsted in July 2025 and rated Outstanding in all three judgements. If something about the money is worrying you, say so early. It is a completely normal thing to ask about.

Frequently asked questions

How much do Greater London Fostering carers get paid?

As at August 2026, £479.50 a week for a child under 11 and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over, paid per child while that child is placed with you. Where a child has higher needs there is an enhanced fee of roughly £100 to £200 a week on top. It is one fixed weekly amount covering both the child’s costs and your fee.

Do you still get paid between placements?

No. Payment runs per child and only while a child is living with you, so there is no fostering income during a gap. Gaps are usually short and good matching keeps them shorter, but it is sensible to plan your household budget on the assumption that they will happen.

Do foster carers pay tax on the fostering allowance?

Most do not. Qualifying Care Relief gives you a fixed amount of £20,440 for the 2026/27 tax year plus £435 a week for each child under 11, or £515 a week for each child aged 11 or over. For most carers that threshold is comfortably above their fostering income, so the taxable profit is nil. You still have to register as self-employed and file a return each year, even when there is no tax to pay.

Will fostering affect my benefits?

Fostering payments are generally disregarded as income for Universal Credit, and carers looking after a child under 16 are usually not subject to the normal work search requirements, according to Fosterline, the government-funded advice service for foster carers. The rules depend on your circumstances, and gov.uk is clear that you must tell whoever pays your benefit that you are getting a fostering allowance. Check your own position with them before making any decisions.

Do I need a spare bedroom to be paid as a foster carer?

Not always. A baby under two can sleep in a cot in your own room, and we are actively recruiting baby-only carers, so a spare bedroom is not always required. We go into this properly in our article on whether you need a spare bedroom to foster. The pay rate is the same whichever way your home is arranged.