Eligibility for free school meals
Eligibility criteria
The government sets the eligibility criteria for free meals. To find out more, visit Free school meals | East Sussex County Council.
Children must attend school both before and after the lunch period to receive a free meal.
Some pupils who are over 16 may receive a qualifying benefit in their own right. If so, they will qualify to claim free school meals.
Refugee families are not automatically eligible and should apply.
Universal Credit transitional arrangements
In addition to the eligibility criteria, to minimise the impact of the rollout of Universal Credit, pupils are currently protected against losing their benefits-related free school meals. This applies when the parental earnings rise above the threshold of £7400 per year.
Once Universal Credit is fully rolled out (planned for March 2025) any existing pupil whose parent no longer meets the eligibility criteria at that point will continue to receive free school meals until the end of their current phase of education, i.e. primary or secondary.
What about younger siblings?
Protection of school meal eligibility applies to individual children, rather than families.
This means that younger children will not qualify for free school meals simply because their older sibling does. This would be unfair on children without older siblings.
The younger child must be eligible when the application is made.
