Employed Person's Allowance

Basic qualifying conditions

Employed Person’s Allowance (EPA) is available to certain people who work and who have a low to moderate income.

It is available to:

• Lone parents – who must be responsible for at least one child and work for at least 16 hours a week.
• Couples who are responsible for a child or children – one or both partners must work for at least 30 hour a week.
• Couples who don’t have children – one or both partners must be severely disabled or care for a severely disabled person, and one or both partners must work for at least 16 hours a week
• People classed as 'Disabled Workers' (see below) – who must work for at least 16 hours a week.

Where a person’s hours of work fluctuate an average is taken.

Disabled Workers

You qualify as a 'Disabled worker' if you:

• have an illness or disability which puts you at a disadvantage in getting a job; and
• are getting, or you recently stopped getting, certain incapacity or disability benefits.

Isle of Man residential condition

To qualify for EPA you must satisfy the Isle of Man residential condition (though in exceptional circumstances you may get EPA even if you don’t satisfy the Isle of Man residential condition). 

You will satisfy the Isle of Man residential condition if:

• You were born in the Isle of Man (IoM); or
• You have been ordinarily resident in the IoM for a continuous period of 5 years at any time; or
• You have been ordinarily resident in the IoM for a number of separate periods which, when added together, amount to at least 10 years; or
• You are married to or a civil partner of a person who meets any of the above.  

You may qualify for EPA if you are a member of a couple and either or both of you satisfy the residential condition.

For more information

Read Leaflet EPA5 'A Guide to Employed Person’s Allowance' which can be downloaded from this page.

How to claim EPA

Download and print a claim form EPA1 from this page. Or you can get one from a Social Security office.

Complete the claim form carefully in ink, using CAPITAL LETTERS, and sign it. If you are a couple you must provide the required information about both of you and both of you must sign it.

Take or send your completed claim form to the address at the top of this page. Please don’t scan it and send it to us electronically; we can’t accept scanned images or photocopies.

Supply with your completed claim:

• your payslips – if you are paid weekly your payslips for the last 5 weeks, or if you are paid monthly, 4-weekly or fortnightly your payslips for the last 2 pay periods;
• up to date proof of the amount of any rent or mortgage you have to pay;
• bank and building society statements covering the last month. 

If you pay for child care

Download and print a claim form EPA4 from this page. Or you can get one from a Social Security office.

Awards and payments

EPA is awarded for a period of between 4 and 26 weeks at a time.

It is normally awarded from the Tuesday following the day we receive your claim, unless we receive it on a Tuesday in which case EPA will be awarded from that day.

EPA will be paid to you either:

• Weekly at a post office using a MiCard; or
• Fortnightly directly into your bank or building society account.

There is a section in the claim form which asks you how you want to be paid.

Subsequent awards of EPA

If you want to continue claiming EPA after your initial award you’ll need to make another claim using form EPA1 within 2 weeks of your last award of EPA ending. You’ll need to supply your payslips as above. We won’t normally need to see proof of the amount of any rent or mortgage you have to pay.

Changes to the minimum work requirements

The Treasury Minister announced on 4 November 2021 that he will ask Tynwald (at its January 2022 sitting) to approve a further 6 months delay to the changes which had been intended to come into effect in April 2022. Those changes are described below. The 6 months delay will enable the Treasury to re-assess the position and consider the impact these changes may have on vulnerable working families, having regard to the fact the world is a very different place to when these changes were originally approved by Tynwald in May 2019. If the delay is approved the changes will come into effect on 18 October 2022.

Those changes mean that, in particular:

• Lone parents whose youngest child is aged 13 or over will have to work at least 24 hours a week.
• Couples whose youngest or only child is aged under 6 will have to work for at least 35 hours a week whilst couples whose youngest or only child is aged 6 or over will have to work for at least 48 hours a week. But they will be able to make up these hours in whatever combination they choose. So, for example, one partner may work 40 hours a week whilst the other partner works for 8 hours a week.  Or they may both work 24 hours a week.

There will be exceptions to the new minimum work requirements where, for example, an adult in the family is sick, disabled, is at least 6 months pregnant or is getting a bereavement support payment.

In certain circumstances hours spent in work-related training or education may be counted as if they are hours spent in work.

There will be no change to the minimum work requirements for disabled workers and couples where one or both partners is/are a severely disabled person or cares for a severely disabled person. The minimum work requirement will continue to be 16 hours a week.