Checking the status of your student finance application
Track the status and progress of your student finance application using your online account to make sure your money is ready for starting your course.
Applies to England
Check your online account
There’s no need to call us if you want to check your application status, instead you can sign into your online account.
Use this guide to understand what the different application status’ means, and what the next steps are to ensure your money is ready for starting your course.
Watch our step-by-step tutorial on how to check the status of your student finance application online!
How to check the status of your student finance application
It’s quick and easy to use your student finance account, watch our other ‘How to’ films for step-by-step tutorials.
Find out below what each application status means and the next steps:
Incomplete application
This stage means you’ve not completed your student finance application, sign into your online account and select ‘Complete application’. For extra help applying for student finance, visit our campaign page.
Check out our film to find out how and when to apply for student finance!
If you’ve applied late, you may receive the minimum amount of student finance to ensure you have some money for the start of your course. Find out more about applying late.
Before you can track your application, you must submit your application and complete any outstanding actions to complete using your online account.
Processing application
At this stage, we’re processing your application. We’ll keep you up to date by email and through your online account.
What happens next
- We’re checking your application – we’ll email you if we need anything else from you.
- We’ll email you updates about the progress of your application, you can also sign into your online account to check the progress.
- We’ll assess your application and tell you the outcome.
You’ll only see a date for next expected update if you’ve submitted evidence.
It can take up to 6 weeks to review your application in full.
Please don’t contact us during this time, to ensure we can process your application as quickly as possible.
Confirming all details
This stage means your application has been approved and we’re just confirming some final details. Once we’ve confirmed all your details, you’ll be ready to receive your payments.
During this stage, we’ll check your National Insurance number (NINO) with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) - if you’ve not provided your NINO, you can provide this using your online account. This process can take around 2 weeks.
Don’t worry if this doesn’t change straight away.
The status ‘confirming all details’ won’t change until you’ve started your course and we’ve received confirmation of your registration/enrolment from your uni or college.
At this stage, your scheduled payments will appear, this will be a summary of your scheduled Maintenance Loan payments. If you’ve not applied for any maintenance loan, this will display a summary of your tuition fees instead.
What happens next
- We’ll email you if we need anything else from you.
- You need to register/enrol on your course.
- Your uni or college will need to confirm your registration/enrolment on the course to us.
Receiving payments
At this stage, we’ve confirmed your NINO with DWP and we’ve received confirmation of registration/enrolment from your uni or college.
We’ll send you an email or text message each time we’re due to make a payment to you.
Using your online account you can click on the ‘View your payments’ link to see a full breakdown of your instalments and as payments are made, the status of each will update.
What happens next
- We’ll make payments to you at the start of each term - we’ll pay these directly into your bank account.
- We’ll pay your tuition fee loan directly to your uni or college.
- You’ll need to re-apply for student finance each academic year.
Prepare for next year
At this stage, all your payments for this year have all been paid. You’ll need to re-apply for student finance for the next academic year of your course.
For a whole range of student finance information, visit our campaign page and follow us on:
Last updated 21 June 2022 + show all updates
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Updated guidance to reflect 2022/23 academic year updates to online account and application status.
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A new image has been added showing a screenshot of an online account.
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First published.