Getting your first student finance payment
Expecting your first student finance payment? Weâve got you covered!
Applies to England
If youâre starting or returning to a course soon, youâll be looking forward to your first student finance payment. You can check your payment schedule and status by signing in to your online account.
Follow our 3 easy steps to help you get paid on time:
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Make sure youâve submitted your application and given us any evidence we need. Sign in to your online account and check your application tracker in case you still have anything to do.
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Check your bank details are correct in your online account. To do this, select âYour personal detailsâ in your account. If you need to update them, make sure to do this at least 4 working days before your payment date.
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Register on your course. You might be able to do this online through your university or collegeâs website. We canât make payments to you until your university or college confirm that youâve registered. Youâll be invited to do this by your university or college closer to your course start date.
If youâre a part-time or distance learning student and youâre getting a Maintenance Loan, your course provider will typically confirm your registration 2 weeks after the start of your course. Your payment schedule wonât update until youâve attended your course for 2 weeks and weâve got confirmation of your registration from your course provider.
Where to find your payment status
To get ready for your next payment, you should check your payment status in case thereâs anything you still need to do before you get paid. Itâs easy to check your payment status, just follow these steps:
- Sign in to your online account at www.gov.uk/student-finance-register-login.
- Select âUndergraduate student finance applicationsâ.
- Select the application for the payments you wish to check.
- Under the heading âManage your student financeâ, select âView your paymentsâ.
What your payment status means
Check what your payment status means in the table below:
| Payment status | What this means for you |
|---|---|
| Checking details | We need to check your National Insurance number before we can pay you. Go to âYour actions to completeâ to enter it. |
| Scheduled | Weâve scheduled your payments. Before we can pay you, your university or college will need to tell us that youâve registered with them. Theyâll do this when you start your course. |
| Awaiting confirmation | Your university or college need to tell us that youâve registered on your course. Theyâll do this when you start your course. Weâll pay you after we get this. |
| Ready to be paid | We donât need anything else from you. Your payment will be made on the date shown. |
| Payment in progress | Your payment is on its way. It can take up to three working days for it to appear in your bank account. |
| Paid | Weâve made a payment to your bank account. |
| Blocked | We canât pay you. You should already know about this. If you donât, we have different ways to contact us. |
| Failed | Your payment has been returned to us. Go to âYour personal detailsâ to check your bank details. |
Checking if weâve got confirmation of your registration
You donât need to call us to check, the quickest and easiest way to find out if weâve got confirmation of your registration is by checking your application status and payment status.
Use the table below to understand what each status means:
| Application status | Payment status | What this means |
|---|---|---|
| Course registration | Awaiting confirmation | Weâve not had confirmation of your registration |
| Registration confirmed | Ready to be paid | Weâve had confirmation of your registration |
If your university or college have told you theyâve sent confirmation of registration to us, you should allow time for the status in your online account to be updated as this can take up to 48 hours. Weâll send you a text when your payment is on its way to your bank account.
Visit our application status page for more information on what your status means.
If youâre getting less student finance than you expected
If youâve applied late or havenât given us the household income details we need yet, you may get a smaller amount of student finance to begin with. This is to make sure you have some money in time for starting your course.
Once weâve got your household income details and processed them, weâll adjust how much youâll get and send you a top up payment as soon as we can.
for a whole range of student finance information, and follow us on:
Updates to this page
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Removed 'withdrawn' and 'suspended' payment statuses as these are no longer live.
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Added additional payment statuses and updated section 'what this means for you'.
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Included payment information for part-time and distance learning students.
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YouTube film has been added to the page
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Guidance has been updated to reflect changes to online accounts ahead of the 2022/23 academic year
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Updated guidance on what the payment status 'awaiting confirmation' means.
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Updated embedded films to the latest versions.
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Embedded a second guidance film, "How to view your payment dates and status".
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First published.