Apply for a full-time student Council Tax discount

You may qualify for a Council Tax discount if a full time student lives in your home.

If everyone who lives in your home is a student, you may not need to pay anything. In this case, apply for a student household exemption.

About the discount

The rules around which students are eligible for a discount are complex.

Students on full-time courses

Full-time students are not counted as living in your home for Council Tax purposes if they are at a university, polytechnic or college doing a full-time course which:

• Is at least one academic year long - or calendar year if the establishment does not operate within the academic year
• Requires at least 24 weeks of study per year
• Requires an average of 21 hours study per week throughout the 24 week period

For students who are doing teacher training, time spent doing teaching practice is counted as hours of study.

During the holidays we will still disregard a student in their term time address as long as they still have the right to live there, and they have lived there or they intend to live there as their term-time address.

However we will not disregard someone during the holidays if they have finished one course and they intend to enrol on a different course after the holiday.

Students under 20

Students under 20 years old are not counted as living in your home for Council Tax purposes if they are doing a course of further education such as A level, ONC or OND standard which is at least 3 months long, and:

• Involves at least 12 hours instruction, tuition, or supervised study per week
• Is not a correspondence course
• Is not taken as a consequence of their job
• Is not an evening class

School leavers

To be discounted, school leavers must be under the age of 20 and have finished a qualifying or full time course of education between 30 April and 1 November.

We will count them as school leavers until 1 November following the end of their course. If they reach the age of 20 before 1 November we will count them as school leavers up until their birthday.

Partners and dependants

Certain partners or dependants of students are disregarded if they are not British Citizens, and cannot work for money or claim benefits by the terms of their entry into this country.

What you need to apply

You will need:

• Your Council Tax account number
• A student certificate from the student’s college

For students under 20, a certificate from the student’s college confirming:

• The student’s name
• Date of birth
• Course name
• Course start and end dates
• Name and address of school/college

Apply

This form is for new applications only.

Do not complete this form if you:

• Already receive this discount - please reapply when you receive a review letter
• Want to tell us about a change to your circumstances

Start my application

Your personal information provided on this form will be used in accordance with our Personal Information Policy.  

After you apply

We will either reduce the bill or let you know why we have not been able to do so.

If we need more information, we will contact you.

If you are given a discount, it will automatically end when the course you are studying finishes.