Supporting your child or partner’s student finance application in 3 easy steps

Before you can support an application, your child or partner must apply for student finance, which is based on household income. You will receive an email asking if you wish to support their application, follow these steps to support your child or partner’s student finance application.

If they apply late, we’ll still process their application, but they might not get all their money in time for starting their course. This means they may have to cover any initial costs themselves.

1. Sign in or create your student finance account

When yourthe child or partner applies for student financeapplies, which is based on household income, they’ll give us your email address so we can sendget youin atouch requestwith to support their application. you.

1. neverSign appliedin foror create your student finance

You’ll need to create an online account for yourself.

If you’ve supported an application previously or you’ve applied for student finance in the past

Signpast, inyou toshould sign into your existing online account.account. Don’t worry if you’ve forgotten your loglogin in details, you can reset them on the loglogin page.

Sign in page.or create an account

If you’re supporting an application that has already been approved

If the student has applied late, we may automatically approve thetheir studentapplication for the minimum amount of student finance, toso ensure they have some money for near to the start of their course. This means you may not be able to link to the student’s application through your online account.

If they still want to apply for the higher amount of Maintenance Loan, you should provide your household income details by uploading a PFF2 form to your online account instead:

• PFF2 Assessment of financial circumstances for parents and partners of students form

If the student is owed any additional Maintenance Loan, we’ll backdate the money from the start of the academic year and update their entitlement. We’ll make the additional payment soon after, so they don’t need to wait until their next instalment date.

What to do if you’ve not received an email from us

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If you’re unable to link to the student’s application online, you can upload a form to your account instead:

• PFF2 Assessment of financial circumstances for parents and partners of students form

2. Type in your income details

It helps to have a few things to hand before supporting an application:

• your National Insurance number
• your income details, such as your P60 or finalised self-assessment tax return

You’ll need to provide your household income for the tax year:

• 2020-212021-22 if you’re supporting a studentsstudent’s 20222023 to 20232024 application
• 2019-202020-21 if you’re supporting a studentsstudent’s 20212022 to 20222023 application

Supporting more than one student

If you’re supporting more than one student, you only need to give us your income details once.

After you’ve submitted your details online for one student, you should click the link in the email we’ve sent to support the second student. We’ll apply your details to their application automatically.

If you’ve not got an email for the second student you’re supporting, follow the steps in our ‘how to’ guide for help supporting a student finance application with your household income.

3. After you’ve supported the application

Once you’ve submitted your income details, it can take us 6 to 8 weeks to process them and calculatework yourout childhow ormuch partner’sthe student finance.can Don’tget. worryAs ifsoon you’veas notwe’ve hearddone this, we’ll let the student know.

If we need anything else from usyou, rightwe’ll away!email you to let you know.

Your child or partner can loginsign in to their online account and check the progress of their application.

Check usingout our newguidance statusfor tracker.more information on supporting a student finance application or what to do if your income changes later in the year.

Further information

You usually don’t need to send us evidence of your household income as we check your details with HRMC. We may contact you to ask for evidence of your:

• marital status – if you’re separated or divorced
• income – if you’re living abroad or finalising your current year income assessment

You can check the progress of any evidence you’ve submitted by checking your online account.

YouFind can find out more about the types of evidence we can accept and how to send it by visiting our Evidence guidance page.

For more information on supporting a student finance application or if your income changes later in the year, visit our page on Gov.uk.