Universal Credit and Holidays Abroad

geoffhc60

Can someone tell me the current situation regarding holidays abroad and Universal Credit?

My partner is in work part time and I am currently looking for work and we are claiming UC as a couple.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

poppy12345

geoffhc60 wrote: »

Can someone tell me the current situation regarding holidays abroad and Universal Credit?

My partner is in work part time and I am currently looking for work and we are claiming UC as a couple.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can go for up to one month but you still have to meet your claimant commitments.

calcotti

see http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2019-0980/55._Going_Abroad_v3.0.pdf

"For payment purposes, legislation allows claimants to go abroad for any reason for up to one month. Where the claimant is entitled immediately before they go abroad and their absence will not exceed one month they can be treated as in GB. They will still need to satisfy their work related requirements and meet their claimant commitment."

"For labour market conditionality purposes, there is no concept of a holiday either at home or abroad. Being on holiday is not a good reason for not carrying out any work search, preparation or availability requirements."

TELLIT01

From the wording of that it would seem that although in theory it's OK to go abroad on holiday, the reality is that a claimant could be sanctioned if they were in a location without effective internet access, as they would be unable to carry out worksearch etc. They certainly wouldn't be available if worksearch did throw up a potential interview whilst away.

annandale

The legislation says you can be out of the country for up to a month. The reality is it’s up to your work coach if you have one. Some claimants have been denied permission. You would be expected to job search while away and return if a job interview came up while you were away.

My work coach was fine with it. I had holidays booked before I went on Uc but I had to job search as normal.