What Might I Not Have to Pay?
Council tax discounts, disregards, exemptions and support in Wigan — answer three questions about who lives in your home and see what you may be able to apply for.
What might you not have to pay?
Answer three quick questions about who lives in your home. Nothing you pick is saved or sent anywhere — it stays on your device.
What you may be able to apply for
A 25% discount
Only one adult in your home counts for council tax. A home with one counted adult gets a quarter off — the same discount as living alone, even if other people live there.
Children under 18 do not count, so a parent living with children counts as one adult.
Roughly what that means
Pick your band to see roughly what that is worth.
Nothing you type here is saved, sent or shared.
These are the charges for most of the borough. Homes in Haigh and Shevington parishes pay a little more, because those parish councils add their own precept.
Wigan Council publishes its discounts in one list and its 25% discount in another place, described as being for people who live alone. Those two pages together are the answer for a lot of households, and joining them up is fiddly — so this page does it for you. It works out how many adults in your home actually count, and tells you what that means. It is not a decision and it does not send anything anywhere; it just does the sum the council leaves to you.
This is not a decision
Who does not count for council tax
These are the people the council does not count when it works out your bill. They still live there — they just are not counted. Two adults where one of these applies to one of them is treated as one adult.
Full-time student or student nurse
Full-time students and student nurses are not counted. If everyone in the home is a student, the home is exempt and there is nothing to pay.
Someone severely mentally impaired
Someone with a severe and apparently permanent impairment of intelligence and social functioning is not counted. If everyone in the home is in this position, the home is exempt. This one is missed more often than any other, and it can be backdated.
What they ask for: A doctor's confirmation, and proof of one of the qualifying benefits — among them Attendance Allowance, PIP daily living, the middle or highest rate care component of DLA, Employment and Support Allowance, Severe Disablement Allowance, or the limited capability for work element of Universal Credit.
Apprentice or youth trainee
Apprentices and Youth Training trainees are not counted.
Someone Child Benefit is paid for, or a school leaver under 20
Anyone Child Benefit is still paid for is not counted. Nor is an 18 or 19 year old who left school after 30 April — they stay uncounted until 1 November that year.
A carer living in the home
Someone who lives with the person they care for, gives at least 35 hours of care a week on average, and is not that person's partner (or their parent, if the person is under 18). The person cared for must get Attendance Allowance, the higher or middle rate care component of DLA, the daily living part of PIP, Armed Forces Independence Payment, or an equivalent increase in a disablement pension. A care worker employed by a charity, paid no more than £44 a week and working at least 24 hours a week, also counts.
A care leaver aged 18 to 24
Wigan does not count care leavers until their 25th birthday. If a care leaver is the only person named on the bill, or the only other person named is their partner, the council reduces the bill to nothing after any other discount and support. This applies whichever borough they were in care in, as long as they live in Wigan now.
What they ask for: Nothing to gather — the council checks it against its own records.
Someone living in hospital or a care home
A patient living in a hospital, a nursing home or a care home is not counted at their old address.
Someone away giving or receiving care
Someone who has moved out to give care, or to receive it somewhere else, is not counted.
Someone in prison or detention
Someone held in prison or detention is not counted — unless they are inside for not paying a fine or their council tax.
A member of a recognised religious community
Members of a recognised religious community are not counted.
A foreign diplomat
Foreign diplomats, and staff of international organisations headquartered in the UK, are not counted — nor are their non-British husbands or wives.
If someone in the home is disabled
Disabled band reduction
If someone with a permanent and substantial disability lives in the home, and the home has a room other than a bathroom or kitchen used mainly for their needs, or a second bathroom or kitchen they need, or enough floor space for them to use a wheelchair indoors, the bill is charged at the band below. A home already in band A has one ninth of the band D charge taken off instead. The disabled person does not have to be the person who pays the bill, and there is no age limit. It stacks with the discounts above and with Council Tax Reduction.
What they ask for: The council will normally visit to confirm the room or the wheelchair space.
When a home pays nothing at all
Everyone living there is a student
No charge at all while it is true. Halls of residence are exempt too.
Everyone living there is severely mentally impaired
No charge at all. This is separate from the disregard above, and it is the one most often missed.
Everyone living there is under 18
No charge at all.
Empty after a death
No charge while the home stands empty after the death of the person who paid the bill, and for six months after probate or letters of administration are granted.
Empty because the bill payer has gone into hospital or care
No charge while the home is empty because the person who pays the bill is living in a hospital, nursing home or care home — or has moved elsewhere to give or receive care.
Empty because the bill payer is in prison
No charge while the home is empty for that reason.
Repossessed, or the owner is bankrupt
No charge while the home is empty because it has been repossessed, or because the owner is bankrupt.
Nobody is allowed to live there by law
No charge where occupation is forbidden by law, or the home is empty and waiting for a minister of religion to move in.
An annexe lived in by a dependent relative
No charge on an annexe or self-contained part of another home lived in by a dependent relative who is 65 or over, or disabled. An empty annexe is exempt too.
Empty and owned by a charity
No charge for up to six months from the last time it was used for the charity's purposes.
There are more
The council lists around twenty exempt cases, including armed-forces accommodation, visiting forces, diplomats, unused caravan pitches and moorings, and homes last lived in by a student. If your home is empty for a reason not listed here, read the council's own list before you assume there is a charge.
When a home is charged more
An empty home is not always cheaper, and after a year it gets a great deal more expensive. Wigan gives a full discount for the first month a home stands empty and unfurnished, then 25% off for a few months after that — the council's web page words that second stretch as up to six months and its own information sheet as a maximum of five, so confirm your dates with them. A home undergoing major repairs to make it habitable can get 75% off for up to a year, but you have to apply with a schedule of works, and that time still counts towards the one-year clock below. From six months to a year there is no discount and no premium. After that: These charges follow the property, not the owner, so a home you have just bought may already be part-way through them. Only being lived in again for six weeks or more resets the clock.
- Empty and unfurnished for 1 to 5 yearsdouble the bill
A 100% premium on top of the ordinary charge, since 1 April 2024.
- Empty and unfurnished for 5 to 10 yearstriple the bill
A 200% premium on top of the ordinary charge.
- Empty and unfurnished for more than 10 yearsfour times the bill
A 300% premium on top of the ordinary charge. On a band A home that is about £5,700 a year.
- A furnished home nobody's main home — a second homedouble the bill
A 100% premium from the day it becomes a second home, since 1 April 2025. It only stops when the home is lived in again for six weeks or more.
- When a premium should not be chargedno premium
There are exceptions: a home empty because someone is in armed forces accommodation, an annexe, a home genuinely on the market to sell or let (12 months), a home going through probate (12 months), a job-related home, an occupied caravan pitch or mooring, a home a planning condition stops anyone living in, and major repairs. These are not applied automatically — you have to write to the council with your council tax reference and your circumstances, at Revenues@wigan.gov.uk or Wigan Council, Resident Services - Customer Support, P.O. Box 100, Wigan, WN1 3DS. Keep paying while it is being looked at.
If money is tight
Council Tax Reduction
This is the means-tested one, and it is separate from everything above — you can get it as well as a discount, not instead of it. It depends on your income, your savings and who else lives with you, so no page can work it out for you. It is worth applying if you are on Universal Credit, Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit, or if you are working on a low wage, including self-employed. Apply as soon as you can: Wigan does not backdate it at all — it runs from the day the council receives a valid claim, so a month's delay is a month's money. And if you are turned down the council will not write to tell you; your bill simply stays the same, so chase it if you hear nothing.
- If you are working age
- Up to 80% of the bill. Households with a child under 5 can get up to 100%.
- If you are pension age
- Up to 100% of the bill.
- Savings
- Savings over £12,000 stop a working-age claim — £16,000 if you have a child under 5, or if you are pension age. Savings over £6,000 start to reduce what you get.
Other help
Discretionary reduction, if you are in real hardship
A last-resort reduction the council can give on top of everything else. You are expected to have claimed Council Tax Reduction first. Bring two months of bank statements for every account you and your partner hold. Decisions take about ten working days. Applying does not let you stop paying in the meantime. Ring 01942 705221, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, or email welfaresupport@wigan.gov.uk.
Crisis and Resilience Fund
The fund that replaced the Household Support Fund on 1 April 2026, running to March 2029. Help with a sudden expense or a sudden drop in income, and with housing costs. Apply at welfaresupport.wigan.gov.uk or ring 01942 705221.
Spread the bill over 12 months instead of 10
The bill normally comes in ten instalments from April to January. You can ask to pay over twelve instead. It does not change the total, only the size of each payment. If you are already behind, ask about a payment plan before the reminders start.
An annexe lived in by a relative
If your home has an annexe with its own council tax band and a relative lives in it, the council says there may be a reduction — but it does not publish a figure or a form for it anywhere. Ring the council tax line on 01942 489001 and ask.
A second home you have to live in for work
Wigan gives a 50% discount on a job-related dwelling. It is mentioned only inside the council's empty-property policy, not on any of its discount pages, so you will probably have to ask for it by name.
Check your band is right
The band itself is set by the Valuation Office Agency, not the council, and it can be challenged. That is a different route from everything on this page, and it is free.
How to apply
Almost everything on this page goes through one online form — the council's combined discount and exemption form. Council Tax Reduction has its own claim form. Premium exceptions have to be applied for in writing to Revenues@wigan.gov.uk. If you would rather talk to someone, the council tax line is 01942 489001 and the benefits line is 01942 489002, both Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 8am to 12.30pm. There is also a WhatsApp channel on 01942 404977, answered 9am to 4pm on weekdays.
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