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How to find unclaimed money in the UK
Every free, official way to check whether money is sitting somewhere with your name on it — and the things that work differently depending on which UK nation you live in.
Last verified 1 August 2026 · Every link checked against GOV.UK, NS&I, mygov.scot, gov.wales and nidirect
£1.6 billion
sits unclaimed in more than 750,000 Child Trust Funds. The average account holds around £2,200. If you were born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011, one of them may be yours.
Source: GOV.UK, 29 June 2026
Unclaimed money is not a giveaway and it is not a loophole. It is money that already belongs to you but never reached you — usually because you moved, changed your name, switched jobs, or simply forgot an account existed. Nobody is hiding it. There is just no automatic system that finds you.
Everything below is free. If a website asks you to pay a fee to recover your own money, close the tab.
Start here: the six free checks
These take about an hour in total and cover the great majority of unclaimed money in the UK.
| What to check | Official service |
|---|---|
| Child Trust Fund Born 1 Sep 2002 – 2 Jan 2011 | Find a Child Trust Fund — HMRC, free, needs only your National Insurance number. Reply within 3 weeks. |
| Lost workplace pension | Pension Tracing Service — DWP. Gives you the scheme's contact details. |
| Overpaid tax | Check how to claim a tax refund, then your personal tax account. |
| Dormant bank or building society account | My Lost Account — the free official scheme covering banks, building societies and NS&I in one search. |
| Unclaimed Premium Bond prizes | NS&I prize checker. There is no time limit on claiming. |
| National Insurance gaps | Check your National Insurance record and your State Pension forecast. |
Child Trust Funds: the biggest single pot
If you were born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011, the government almost certainly opened an account in your name with a starting voucher. You can take control of it at 16 and withdraw it at 18. Hundreds of thousands of people have turned 18 without ever being told.
You do not need to know the provider, the account number, or anything your parents did. HMRC will find it from your National Insurance number alone, free, through Find a Child Trust Fund. Never pay a company to do this for you.
Lost pensions
The average UK worker changes employer many times. Each job with a pension leaves a pot behind, and those pots keep growing quietly. The Pension Tracing Service is free.
One honest caveat: it only gives you the scheme's contact details. It will not tell you whether you have a pension there or what it is worth — you have to contact the scheme yourself with your dates of employment.
Overpaid tax
You may have paid too much tax if you changed jobs mid-year, stopped working part-way through a tax year, were put on an emergency code, or had the wrong tax code for a period.
Start at Check how to claim a tax refund. Note that this page does not process a claim — it routes you to the right method for your situation, because refunds for PAYE, job expenses, pensions, redundancy and savings interest all work differently.
Never pay a fee for a tax refund
Refund agents charge a percentage of money HMRC would have given you free, and some use assignment forms that divert future refunds to them for years. If you have already had a letter you do not understand, run it through the letter decoder before signing anything.
Money you are entitled to but have not claimed
Unclaimed benefits dwarf every other category on this page. Pension Credit alone goes unclaimed by hundreds of thousands of eligible pensioners, and it is a gateway — getting it can unlock help with council tax, NHS costs and more.
For 2026/27, Pension Credit Guarantee Credit tops your weekly income up to £238.00 if you are single, or £363.25 for a couple. You can claim up to four months before State Pension age, and it can be backdated three months.
To see everything at once, GOV.UK signposts three independent benefits calculators — Policy in Practice, entitledto and Turn2us. All are free and none of them ask for bank details.
Where you live changes the answer
This is the part almost every "unclaimed money" article gets wrong. Several of the schemes people are told to claim do not exist where they live, or go by a different name and a different department. Sending you to the wrong government wastes weeks.
| What is actually true | |
|---|---|
| Northern Ireland | There is no Council Tax, so there is no Council Tax Reduction. You pay domestic rates, and the low-income help is Rate Relief, Rate Rebate or Housing Benefit for rates, plus Lone Pensioner Allowance. PIP, Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance keep their names but are run by the Department for Communities, not the DWP. |
| Scotland | Attendance Allowance no longer exists here. It is Pension Age Disability Payment from Social Security Scotland, since April 2025. PIP is Adult Disability Payment and is closed to new PIP claims. Carer's Allowance is Carer Support Payment, with an automatic Scottish Carer Supplement on top. |
| Wales | Benefits are not devolved, so PIP, Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance follow the England rules. Crisis help is different — see below. |
Emergency help from your council
The Household Support Fund has ended
In England the Household Support Fund closed on 31 March 2026, along with Discretionary Housing Payments. Both were replaced on 1 April 2026 by the Crisis and Resilience Fund, which runs to March 2029. Any guide still telling you to ask your council for the Household Support Fund is out of date.
- England — Crisis and Resilience Fund, through your council. Councils must accept applications all year round and offer at least two ways to apply. Find your council's scheme.
- Scotland — Scottish Welfare Fund: Crisis Grants and Community Care Grants, applied for through your council. Not repayable.
- Wales — Discretionary Assistance Fund. You apply centrally to the Welsh Government, not your council. Both payment types are grants.
- Northern Ireland — Discretionary Support. Important difference: this can be an interest-free loan you repay, not always a grant. Household income cap £29,741.40.
How to spot an unclaimed money scam
Scammers know people search for this. Treat any of the following as a stop sign:
- A fee, deposit or "release payment" before you get your money.
- A guaranteed amount before anyone has checked anything.
- Any request for your online banking password, PIN, or a one-time code.
- Pressure to act today, or a deadline that seems designed to rush you.
- First contact by social media message, WhatsApp or text.
Every service listed on this page is free and reached directly through a government or official website. If you are unsure about a message you have received, run it through the scam checker first.
Frequently asked questions
Is unclaimed money real, or is this a gimmick?
It is real, and the government publishes figures on it. As of June 2026, £1.6 billion sat in unclaimed Child Trust Funds across more than 750,000 accounts. What is a gimmick is any service charging you to find it.
Can I check for free?
Yes — every service on this page is free. HMRC, DWP, NS&I and My Lost Account all charge nothing.
Will I have to pay tax on it?
It depends what it is. A tax refund is money you already paid, so it is not taxed again. Pension income is taxable. Premium Bond prizes are tax free. Child Trust Fund savings are tax free. If your situation is complicated it is worth speaking to a qualified adviser — this page is guidance, not tax advice.
How long does a claim take?
HMRC aims to answer a Child Trust Fund search within three weeks. Pension schemes and dormant account searches vary by provider, and can take several weeks.
What if I have moved or changed my name?
That is the single most common reason money goes unclaimed, and every service above is built to handle it. Keeping your address current with HMRC, your pension providers and your bank is the cheapest thing you can do to stop it happening again.
The honest summary
Most unclaimed money in the UK is not exotic. It is a Child Trust Fund nobody mentioned, a pension from a job you left in 2014, a tax code that was wrong for six months, or a benefit you assumed you would not qualify for. None of it requires a middleman, and all of it can be checked from the six official links near the top of this page.
Set aside an hour. Work down the list. The worst case is that you find nothing and know for certain.
Where next:Money you may be owed · Council Tax Reduction · Universal Credit · National Insurance · Crisis and Resilience Fund · Attendance Allowance
Guidance, not financial or legal advice. Rules and rates change — always confirm on the official page linked before you act. If anything here is out of date, please tell us and we will log it in our corrections log.
Last verified 1 August 2026. Next review due by 1 February 2027.
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