The 53-week rent year in 2024/25

If you pay your rent weekly or monthly but not by Direct Debit or Standing Order

If you’re paying your rent every week or month – reducing the balance to zero – then it won’t be a problem and you won’t be affected.

If you pay your rent every month by calculating:

Weekly rent x 50 (to take into account the two rent free weeks) ÷ 12

You’ll be a day short every year (two days in a leap year) and will have to make up the extra.

If you claim Universal Credit

If you’re on Universal Credit, it’s assessed and paid every month, calculated on a 52-week basis but it only pays 364 days’ rent in a year, so it’s always a day short (two days in a leap year.) This is because when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) works out your monthly rent, it calculates it as:

Weekly rent x 52 (weeks of the year) x 7 (days a week) = 364 ÷ 12 (months)

This would be fine if there were exactly 52 weeks rent in a year – but there aren’t. There’s always an extra day in the year, or two in a leap year such as 2024.

If you don’t pay that extra day yourself, it catches up with you in years when there are 53 Mondays in the financial year – and the financial year 2024/5 is one of those years. The DWP won’t pay any extra Universal Credit to cover it, so the only way to avoid falling into arrears is to pay a bit extra each week to make sure your rent is covered.

If you pay by monthly Direct Debit

You don’t need to do anything. We’ll calculate it for you and automatically adjust your payments accordingly.

If you pay by monthly Standing Order

You need to make an adjustment to your monthly payments yourself. To calculate it:

Weekly rent amount x 51 (minus the two rent free weeks) ÷ 12.

For example, if your rent is £100 a week:

£100 x 51 ÷ 12 = £425

Once you’ve calculated your monthly payments, contact your bank to update your standing order.

If you pay by card each month

You need to make an adjustment to your monthly payments yourself. To calculate it:

Weekly rent amount x 51 (minus the two rent free weeks) ÷ 12.

For example, if your rent is £100 a week:

£100 x 51 ÷ 12 = £425

If you pay weekly

There’s no change. Please just continue to pay your new weekly rent from in advance every Monday.

If you claim Housing Benefit

You don’t need to do anything, as it’ll be covered.

Non-charging weeks

Your non-charging weeks will still apply, but this year you’ll have one more weekly rent charge than usual – so if you have two non-charging weeks and you’re normally charged rent 50 times a year, this year you’ll have 51 rent-charging weeks.