The government opened its Homes for Ukraine scheme on 14 March 2022.
This scheme offers a £350 per month payment to anybody who successfully offers a spare room(s) or empty property to a Ukrainian national to live in for at least six months.
From 12 April 2022, the government changed the law relating to Council Tax. This means that the presence of eligible Ukrainian residents won't affect the Council Tax discounts or exemptions that their host may receive, such as single person discounts, student discounts or annexe discounts.
We also won't take into account the £350 monthly payment to sponsors when we calculate Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support.
Ukraine Permission Extension scheme
The Ukraine Permission Extension (UPE) scheme was announced by the Home Office on 18 February 2024 and came into operation on 4 February 2025.
It allows eligible Ukrainian nationals or their family members already in the UK to continue living here for up to a further 18 months. Eligible people will begin moving to UPE visas from late March 2025 as their original visas begin to expire.
Further information about eligibility and entitlements can be found in Home Office guidance: Applying to the Ukraine Permission Extension scheme.
The 2025 Regulations ensure that persons moving to a UPE visa (“guests”) do not affect the council tax discount or exemption of a person hosting them in connection with the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Where a host continues to be eligible for a thank you payment under guidance published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, on 24 February 2025 , the following will apply:
• the guest is to be disregarded for the purposes of council tax discounts, protecting the hosts’ single person discount (or the 50% discount received by households where all the occupants are already disregarded)
• the bill of guests forming their own household in accommodation provided by the host will be reduced by 50%; and
• the guest will not affect any council tax exemption applying to their accommodation.
Where the guest leaves the sponsorship arrangements, for example moving to their own property, part way through a calendar month, the disregard and protection of exemption applying to them will expire at the end of that month.