Almost everyone who enquires about fostering asks about money at some point, and almost everyone feels slightly awkward doing it. You shouldn’t. Fostering is a serious commitment of time and energy, and wanting to know whether it works financially is a sensible question, not a selfish one. This page sets out what South Coast Fostering actually pays, what the money is for, and why most of our foster carers pay no tax on it at all.

What South Coast Fostering pays

We pay a single weekly amount for each child living with you. It arrives whether it is a quiet week or a hard one. You can see the current rates in full on our fostering pay and allowances page.

• Child aged 10 and under: £479.50 a week
• Child aged 11 and over: £507.50 a week
• Parent and child: £987 a week
• Enhanced fostering: usually £100 to £200 a week on top, and up to around £1,600 where a child needs a great deal of extra support

Those figures are per child, so a carer looking after two children receives both amounts. A word on that £1,600 figure, because you will see numbers like it advertised across the sector and they are often misleading. It is real, but it is the top end, for children who need far more than most, and it is not what a new carer should plan around. Most people reading this will be looking at the first two lines of that list.

There is one thing to flag on parent and child: if the parent receives benefits, a deduction may apply. Your supervising social worker will explain exactly how that works before you agree to anything.

What the money is actually for

The weekly amount does two jobs at once, and it helps to see them separately.

Part of it is an allowance, meant to be spent on the child. Food, clothes, school shoes, bus fares, birthday presents, the swimming lessons they want to try. As a rough guide, around £90 a week goes directly on a younger child and around £100 on a child aged 11 or over. Teenagers cost more, which is why the older rate is higher.

The rest is a professional fee. That part recognises that you are doing skilled work: keeping records, going to meetings, sitting up at two in the morning with a child who cannot sleep, learning things about trauma you did not expect to learn. It is yours.

We pay both as one amount because splitting them into two payments helps nobody. What matters is that the money covers the child properly and still leaves something that reflects the work.

Will you pay tax on it?

Usually not. This surprises people, so it is worth going through slowly.

Foster carers are self-employed as far as HMRC is concerned. You register once, and you file a tax return each year even if you owe nothing. So far, so ordinary. What is not ordinary is qualifying care relief, a tax scheme built specifically for foster carers, which is generous enough that most carers end up with no tax to pay on their fostering income.

It works in two parts. Every fostering household gets a fixed amount of £20,440 for the tax year. On top of that you get a weekly amount for each child in your care: £435 a week for a child under 11, and £515 a week for a child aged 11 or over. Those are the 2026/27 figures, and they rise each year in line with inflation. Add the two together and you have your threshold. Earn less than it from fostering, and there is no taxable profit.

Here is what that looks like with real numbers.

One quirk worth knowing: HMRC counts its tax weeks Monday to Sunday, and a child in your care for any part of a week counts as a full week. Short stays are not penalised.

If fostering is your only income, your personal tax allowance sits on top of all this as well. The practical upshot for most carers is a tax return that takes an evening and a bill of nothing. There are other savings worth knowing about too, including council tax help for foster carers.

Please note: this is general information, not personal tax advice, and everyone’s circumstances differ. The figures given are for the 2026/27 tax year and are uprated each year. The current rules are published on gov.uk under qualifying care relief, and the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group publishes a plain-English guide. If your situation is complicated, talk to an accountant.

Being straight about what it does not cover

Fostering pay is steady, but it is not a salary and it does not behave like one. There are gaps between children moving on and moving in, and during those gaps the weekly amount stops. Some carers keep part-time work going around fostering for exactly that reason. Others build up a buffer during busier periods.

It is also not a pension, and self-employment means nobody is paying into one for you. National Insurance is worth a conversation with an accountant early on, because your contributions affect your state pension later.

We would rather say this plainly at the start than have you find out in year two.

Can you afford to foster?

Most people asking that question are really asking a different one: will I be worse off? For the majority of our carers the honest answer is no, particularly once you understand the tax position. A carer with two children living with them is receiving a little over £51,000 a year, with no tax due on it in most circumstances, for work done at home.

But nobody should foster for the money, and we would be wary of anyone who did. Children who have had a hard start can tell the difference between someone who wants them there and someone counting the weeks. What the money should do is remove a barrier, so that people who would be brilliant at this are not shut out by the sums.

If the numbers are the thing holding you back, have the conversation anyway. It takes twenty minutes and you will know where you stand.

You won’t have to do this alone

Money is one part of a much bigger picture, and it is the part that is easiest to answer. The harder questions, whether you have the patience, whether your own family will cope, whether you are the sort of person who can do this, are the ones we spend real time on with everyone who comes to us.

Foster carers do not wear capes. They are ordinary people from Southampton and Portsmouth and Bournemouth and Brighton, with spare rooms and ordinary lives, who decided a child in their part of the world deserved somewhere safe to land. We stand beside them the whole way: a supervising social worker who knows your household, someone at the end of the phone at any hour, training that is actually useful, and a team small enough that we know your name.

A child isn’t just given a home, they’re given a chance.

Frequently asked questions

How much do foster carers get paid at South Coast Fostering?

£479.50 a week for a child aged 10 and under, and £507.50 a week for a child aged 11 or over, for each child in your care. Parent and child is £987 a week. Enhanced fostering usually adds £100 to £200 a week.

Do foster carers pay tax on their fostering income?

Most do not. Qualifying care relief gives every fostering household £20,440 for the tax year, plus £435 a week for each child under 11 and £515 a week for each child aged 11 or over. Most carers earn less than that threshold and so have no taxable profit, though they still need to file a return.

Do I need to be employed elsewhere to foster?

No. Many of our carers foster full time. Some keep part-time work alongside it, which can help during the gaps between children.

Is the money the same every week?

Yes, while a child is living with you. The weekly amount does not go up and down with how the week has gone. It stops during gaps between children.

Does the allowance cover everything a child needs?

It is intended to. Around £90 a week for a younger child and £100 for an older one is expected to be spent directly on them, with the rest recognising the work you do.