Moving back to contributions based ESA.

Have recently been placed in esa support group
. currently on receipt of esa income related payment. Is there a way to move back to the contributions based payment in esa that I was on previously? As I'm considering moving abroad and I believe this benefit is exportable.whereas the income related paent isn't

Thanks in advance.

PaulG wrote: Have recently been placed in esa support group
. currently on receipt of esa income related payment. Is there a way to move back to the contributions based payment in esa that I was on previously? As I'm considering moving abroad and I believe this benefit is exportable.whereas the income related paent isn't

Thanks in advance.

Hi PG,

Welcome to Benefits and Work

Whether you are paid CB ESA or IR ESA is not a matter of choice !!

However, if entitled, payment of CB ESA will always take precedence over payment of IR ESA.

From the little information that you have given, if you were originally in The WRAG, and exhausted your 365 days payment of CB ESA ("Whilst not in The SG")

See : 12 Month Limit for ESA(CB)

and you were then financially assessed for entitlement to payment of IR ESA, passed the IR ESA means test and started to receive IR ESA when your CB ESA ceased, you should now revert back to payment of CB ESA if you have been placed into The SG as a result of a natural periodic reassessment, or a review due to you reporting a change or deterioration in your medical conditions and resulting limitations.

In the case of a natural reassessment, CB ESA payments in The SG should start from the active date of the SG decision.

In the case of you requesting a review, payment of CB ESA payments in The SG should start from the date of your letter requesting the review.

Payments of CB ESA would continue for as long as you remained in The SG.

However, if at some future periodic reassessment you were again placed into The WRAG, your CB ESA payments would cease, as you only get the 365 days of payment of CB ESA whilst not in The SG once.

You would therefore have to be assessed for payment of IR ESA once more, and as you correctly state, you cannot receive payment of IR ESA whilst living abroad.

You therefore have a lot to consider before making a decision on moving abroad and how it may affect your current and future benefit entitlement.

I am afraid we cannot advise on receiving benefits abroad other than in very basic terms :

Claiming benefits if you live, move or travel abroad. Gov.UK

bro58

Being in receipt of IR or CB ESA does not permit a move abroad with this benefit to live. Be it in EU or elsewhere.
The exportability of this benefit to live abroad has been suspended.

For example if you think it is cheaper to live in Spain and that you could manage to do so on your ESA SG money for the period until a re assessment, it is not permissible to move there and claim ESA.
You cannot do so any more either with ESA or DLA/PIP.

Those who are already living abroad and claiming under the old system whereby they had a notice from the Secretary of State permitting you to live abroad and claim UK benefits as a UK resident; have found it increasingly difficult to do so as they are subject to the country they are residing in equivalent benefits since 2012 changes and this includes EU.

We were due to move abroad with an agreement from the Secretary of State in 2009 and were permitted to export IB/IIB/DLA care only component. However we changed our mind.

Since the Benefit changes to ESA/PIP this is no longer a possibility.