Student Loans Company
Your child or partner must apply for student finance that is based on household income before you can support their application.
When the student applies, theyll give us your email address so we can get in touch with you.
You should follow the instructions in the email to support their application online. You should give us your details as soon as possible. If you wait too long, the student might not get all their student finance for the start of their course.
Follow our three easy steps to support an application.
1. Sign in or create your student finance account
Youll need to create your own account, if you dont already have one.
Dont use the students account to give us your details, you must use your own. If you and your partner are supporting your childs application, your partner will also need to create or sign in to their own online account.
If youve supported an application previously or youve applied for student finance in the past, you should sign into your existing online account. Dont worry if youve forgotten your login details, you can reset them on the login page.
2. Give us your income details
Youll be asked to give us your National Insurance number to support an application, so we can get your income details from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Well use your household income for the tax year:
- 2022-23 if youre supporting a students 2024 to 2025 application
- 2021-22 if youre supporting a students 2023 to 2024 application
We use this tax year as its the most up to date information HMRC holds for everyone.
Youll need to let us know if you have:
- paid into private pensions
- made additional voluntary contributions
- children (other than the student) who depend on you financially
If you dont have a National Insurance number, then youll need to complete a paper form and provide supporting documents to show how much youve earned.
Dont send us a P60 instead of giving us your income details.
If you do and we havent asked for this, it will take us longer to process the students application. This means your child or partner might get less money than they were expecting at the start of their course.
What to do if youve not got an email from us
You should still be able to link to the students application and give us your details online by typing in their Customer Reference Number. Follow the instructions on our how to guide for help supporting a student finance application with your household income.
If youre not able to link to the students application online
You can upload a form to your account instead:
Supporting more than one student
If youre supporting more than one student, you only need to give us your details once.
After youve submitted your details online for one student, you should click the link in the email weve sent to support the second student. Well apply your details to their application automatically.
If you didnt get an email for the second student youre supporting, follow the steps in our how to guide for help supporting a student finance application with your household income.
3. After youve supported the application
Once youve given us your details, it can take us 6-8 weeks to get your income from HMRC and work out how much the student can get. As soon as weve done this, well let the student know.
If we need anything else from you, well email you to let you know.
Your child or partner can sign in to their online account and check the progress of their application.
Check out what to do if your income changes later in the year.
Last updated 26 January 2024 +show all updates
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Updated to reference 2024 to 2025 applications
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Changed details in Step 2 as no longer required to type in income details. New process is to give us their NINO and HMRC will give us details of their income.
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Removed information on supporting an application if this has already been approved. Removed further information section as covered on linked page.
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Added guidance for supporting more than one student.
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Added section for sponsors trying to link to application already approved
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Updating information and guidance to support updated supporting process for the academic year 2022 to 2023. This includes advise around evidence requirements.
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Updated guidance to provide more information on how to support an application.
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Reference to deadline removed as these have passed