Personal Independence Payment

PIP is assessed by an assessment provider commissioned by the DWP. Points are awarded for each activity in the daily living and mobility descriptors, and the total score determines entitlement to each component and rate. The daily living component is £76.70 (standard) or £114.60 (enhanced) per week; the mobility component is £30.30 (standard) or £80.00 (enhanced) per week (2026/27 rates).

What it means in practice. PIP is not awarded for a diagnosis. It is awarded for the functional effect of your condition across 10 daily living activities and 2 mobility activities. Each activity carries descriptors worth between 0 and 12 points. You need at least 8 points in a component to get the standard rate and at least 12 for the enhanced rate. The condition must already have affected you for 3 months and be expected to continue for at least 9 more. Crucially, the assessor must consider whether you can do each activity safely, reliably, repeatedly, and in a reasonable time — not simply whether you could manage it once on a good day.

A worked example. Mark has rheumatoid arthritis. He can dress himself, but only using a long-handled shoehorn and a button hook, and it takes him three times as long as it used to. He can cook, but flare-ups mean that two or three days a week he cannot lift a pan safely. Scored properly, the aids he needs for dressing and washing and the unreliability of his cooking add up to a standard-rate daily living award, even though on the day of his assessment he happened to walk in unaided and appeared to be coping.

Common pitfalls. The single biggest error is describing your best day. The form asks how your condition affects you, and if you answer as though every day were your best day you will be scored on that. The second is leaving out aids and adaptations — a perching stool, a shower seat, a pill organiser all count. The third is missing the deadline: around half of claims are refused at first, and a refusal you do not challenge stands forever even though tribunals overturn a large share of PIP decisions.

How it relates to other terms. PIP is the working-age equivalent of Attendance Allowance, which takes over from State Pension age and has no mobility component. It is not means-tested and does not reduce Universal Credit — in fact receiving it can exempt your household from the Benefit Cap. Receiving the enhanced daily living component also triggers automatic limited capability for work-related activity without a separate Work Capability Assessment. To challenge a PIP decision you must first request a Mandatory Reconsideration before you can appeal to a tribunal.

What to do next. Read our PIP guide before you fill in form PIP2, and use gathering disability evidence to build the medical support that decides most claims. If you have been refused or awarded a lower rate than expected, go straight to Mandatory Reconsideration — you have one month from the decision letter.