Student Finance Wales 2026/27: What You Get, How to Apply and How You Repay

Student Finance Wales (SFW) assesses and pays student finance for people who live in Wales. The Student Loans Company runs it for the Welsh Government. It is the only route to a Tuition Fee Loan, a Maintenance Loan or a Welsh grant if Wales is your home. You apply to SFW wherever in the UK you study. A Cardiff student going to Manchester still applies to SFW, not Student Finance England.

Who Can Get It

Student Finance Wales lists three residence tests for full-time undergraduates. You can apply if all of these are true:

• you are a UK national, an Irish citizen or have settled status
• you will be living in Wales on the first day of the first academic year of your course
• you have been living in the UK and Islands for 3 years before your course starts

Some other groups can also apply, including refugees and people with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme. There is no age limit for grants or a Tuition Fee Loan. You must be under 60 to get a Maintenance Loan. Funding is usually only for your first higher education course. Source: Student Finance Wales, who qualifies. Our student finance eligibility guide explains residence rules in more detail.

Student Finance Wales at a Glance, 2026/27

Wales works differently from England. England decides how much you can borrow. Wales decides how much you get to live on, then splits it into grant and loan by household income. Two students in the same living arrangement get the same total. The student from the lower-income household gets more of it as grant and less as debt.

Find your household income in the left column. Then read across to where you will live. The grant is yours to keep. The loan is repaid after you leave your course.

Full-time undergraduates who started on or after 1 August 2018, per academic year. Transcribed from tables 1A to 1C of SFWIN 02/2026, Rates of undergraduate student support (2018 cohort) for academic year 2026 to 2027, published by the Welsh Government on 6 January 2026. The notice rounds every figure to the nearest £1, so a grant and a loan may not add exactly to the total. Your own notification of entitlement from SFW is the final word.

On top of this you get the Tuition Fee Loan of up to £9,790, which is the same at every income. Household income usually means your parents' income, or your partner's. Some students are assessed on their own income instead, for example if they are 25 or over or estranged from their parents. See independent and estranged students.

No. Welsh universities charge Welsh students tuition fees, and so do universities in the rest of the UK. In 2026/27 the most an ordinary UK university can charge is £9,790 a year. That is the same cap as England.

You do not pay the fee upfront. Student Finance Wales lends it to you and pays it straight to your university. The loan does not depend on household income. You repay it later on Plan 2, together with your Maintenance Loan. The part that is genuinely free is the grant for living costs.

Source: SFWIN 02/2026, "Full-time fee support" and "Maximum fee support in special cases", read 26 September 2026.

The university grant comes in two parts. Every eligible full-time student gets a base grant of £1,020 in 2026/27, whatever the household income. A means-tested maintenance grant sits on top of it. You never repay either, and no interest is added.

How the Grant Falls as Income Rises

Extra Grants, 2026/27

You may also qualify for these. Every amount is from SFWIN 02/2026:

• Parents' Learning Allowance: £54 to £1,983 a year if you have children
• Childcare Grant: 85% of registered childcare costs, up to £196 a week for one child or £335 a week for two or more
• Adult Dependants' Grant: up to £3,474 if you support a partner or another adult
• Disabled Students' Allowance: up to £34,671 for disability-related study costs, more than the England maximum of £27,783
• Special support: if you get certain benefits, up to £5,181 of your grant is ignored when those benefits are worked out. You can also take a larger total: £11,850 at home, £14,045 away outside London, £17,675 in London. See our special support grant guide.

You apply online at studentfinancewales.co.uk, in Welsh or English. If you cannot apply online, SFW has a paper form. You do not need a confirmed university place. You can apply now and update your course later. SFW says a new application takes around 30 minutes.

2026/27 Dates

The apply-by date is not a cut-off. It is the date that gives SFW time to pay you when term starts. If you apply later, your money may arrive late. Continuing students must reapply every year and should do it as early as possible. SFW has not yet published its 2027/28 dates. Our student finance deadlines page tracks every date for all four UK funding bodies. Sources: SFW news, 23 March, 11 May and 20 July 2026; GOV.UK news, 23 March 2026; SFW "How and when to apply".

The Application, Step by Step

1. Create an account at studentfinancewales.co.uk, or sign in if you are continuing.
2. Enter your course, university and year, and whether you will live at home or away.
3. Apply for the Tuition Fee Loan. It covers fees of up to £9,790 a year.
4. Apply for help with living costs. It is one application: SFW works out the grant and loan split for you.
5. Your parents or partner fill in their own income section. This is the most common cause of delay.
6. Send any evidence SFW asks for. SFW says it takes 4 weeks to review an application or evidence.
7. Read your notification of entitlement. It confirms your grant, loan and payment dates.
8. Register at university. SFW then pays the Tuition Fee Loan to the university and the living-costs money to you.

When Student Finance Wales Pays You

Your Maintenance Loan and grant are paid into your bank account in 3 instalments, usually at the start of each term, once your university confirms you have registered. The Tuition Fee Loan goes straight to the university in 3 instalments. See when student finance comes in and why your student finance payment is late.

Studying Outside Wales

Studying in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland does not change your funding body. You keep the Welsh grant, Plan 2 and the £1,500 cancellation. What does change is covered in our guide for Welsh students at English universities, including London living costs and accelerated degrees.

SFW has separate phone lines for applications, repayments and postgraduate loans. Calls are welcome in Welsh. If you are calling about your child's or partner's application, SFW needs their consent first.

All lines close on bank holidays. Text relay: dial 18001 before the number. Numbers read from the Student Finance Wales contact pages on 26 September 2026. For contact details of the other UK funding bodies, see how to contact student finance.

Part-time students get a similar package: a Tuition Fee Loan, plus a grant and loan for living costs. You must study at 25% of a full-time course or more. The most a part-time course can be is 75%. Everything is scaled to how intensively you study.

Part-Time Tuition Fee Loan, 2026/27

• University or college in Wales, or the Open University: up to £2,875 a year
• Public university or college outside Wales: up to £7,335 a year
• Private university or college outside Wales: up to £4,895 a year

The fee loan does not depend on household income. Part-time fees are not capped, so you pay any amount above the loan yourself.

Part-Time Help With Living Costs, 2026/27

Support is based on a full-time equivalent of £9,285, scaled by intensity. At 75% intensity that gives £6,964, of which up to £4,590 is grant. The full grant goes to households on £25,000 or less. That is a higher income limit than for full-time students.

Source: SFWIN 02/2026, tables 3A to 3C, and Student Finance Wales, part-time "What's available", both read 26 September 2026. Part-time undergraduate loans are repaid on Plan 2, like full-time loans. If your part-time course lasts more than 4 years and started before 1 January 2027, repayments can start in the April 4 years after it began, even while you are still studying (GOV.UK, repaying your student loan). The £1,500 partial cancellation does not apply to part-time loans.

For postgraduate study there is no grant for current starters, only a loan. The loan is larger than England's. It does not depend on household income, it is paid to you rather than the university, and you can spend it on fees, living costs or both.

Master's Funding: Wales vs England, 2026/27

Wales lends £6,429 more than England for a master's course. We have left Scotland out because we could not confirm a 2026/27 SAAS maximum from the source. Call SFW's postgraduate line on 0300 100 0494 with questions about your application.

Which plan you are on depends on when you started. GOV.UK sets it out for Student Finance Wales borrowers:

• started an undergraduate course or PGCE on or after 1 September 2012: Plan 2
• started before 1 September 2012: Plan 1, with a £26,900 threshold in 2026-27
• Master's or Doctoral loan: the Postgraduate Loan plan

Wales did not follow England onto Plan 5, so every Welsh undergraduate starting today is on Plan 2. You repay through your employer's payroll, or through Self Assessment if you are self-employed. The earliest you start repaying is the April after you leave your course, and only when your income is over the threshold. Source: GOV.UK, repaying your student loan.

Plan 2 in 2026-27

What a Welsh Graduate Repays

Worked from the 2026-27 Plan 2 threshold and the capped interest rate. What you repay depends on your salary, not on how much you owe. Payroll deducts against the monthly threshold, so a real payslip can differ by a few pence.

To check your balance or make a voluntary repayment, sign in to your online repayment account through GOV.UK. For repayment questions, call 0300 100 0611. Our Plan 2 guide covers interest and write-off in more depth.

The Welsh Government can cancel up to £1,500 of your Maintenance Loan. No other UK nation does this. It is applied once you start repaying.

How Much Is Cancelled

The amount depends on what is left of your first loan after your first repayment. The cancellation is that balance, up to £1,500. These are the examples GOV.UK gives:

Getting the Full Amount

• Keep the first repayment small. If you pay off your whole first loan in one go, the cancellation is £0 and you cannot claim it again.
• A £5 voluntary repayment is enough. You do not need to be earning over the threshold. You can make a voluntary repayment at any time.
• Mind the timing. The cancellation is worked out on your first loan's balance at the moment you make your first repayment. Do not trigger it before all of that loan has been paid to you.
• If your income stays low, you stay eligible. The cancellation is applied whenever your first repayment happens.

The scheme has no published end date. Its GOV.UK guidance was last updated on 20 July 2023 and was still live on 26 September 2026. It sets no academic-year cut-off beyond starting from 2010/11.

For students from lower-income households, yes: they borrow far less. For higher-income households the answer flips on borrowing, but not on money to live on. Both comparisons below assume a three-year degree, living away from home outside London, taking the full fee loan and the full maintenance loan each year at 2026/27 rates.

Repayments Across the UK at £35,000

Each row is 9% of the amount by which £35,000 exceeds that plan's 2026-27 threshold:

Where Wales Comes Out Ahead

• A £1,020 grant for every eligible student (England: none)
• Up to £8,260 of grant away from home outside London, or £10,325 in London (England: none)
• The £1,500 partial cancellation (unique to Wales)
• A higher repayment threshold than Plan 5 (£29,385 vs £25,000)
• A shorter write-off than Plan 5 (30 vs 40 years)

Where It Does Not

• You still pay tuition fees of up to £9,790 a year, funded by a loan you repay
• Plan 2 interest can reach 6%, while Plan 5 charges RPI only (4.1%)
• The grant falls quickly for middle-income households