Local Housing Allowance
How Local Housing Allowance rates are set and used to work out Housing Benefit.
Applies to England
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates are used to calculate Housing Benefit for tenants renting from private landlords.
How Local Housing Allowance rates are calculated
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates are decided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) using information based on the list of rents provided by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA).
LHA rates are based on private market rents being paid by tenants in a Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA). This is the area within which a person might reasonably be expected to live.
These rents are being paid by people with the same number of bedrooms as the property where you live, or the number of rooms you and your household needs.
VOA rent officers collect rental data from letting agents, landlords, tenants, and other sources.
This data is then shared with DWP on an annual basis.
You can find the current LHA rates on LHA-Direct by searching by postcode or local authority area.
You can also check how many bedrooms you may be eligible for, based on the number of people in your household.
Updates to this page
Published 22 January 2016Last updated 1 November 2024 + show all updates
-
Adding in a new link to the 'list of rents' information held by the VOA.
-
Body text replaced
-
Link to 'How to claim Housing Benefit' added to page.
-
First published.