Can I get a Blue Badge for my child on DLA?

Yes, if your child is 3 or over and gets the higher rate of the DLA mobility component. That qualifies automatically, so the council doesn’t assess them, though you may be asked for the most recent DWP letter showing the mobility rate. If your child gets the lower rate of mobility or only the care component, you can still apply through the assessed route.

Can you get a Blue Badge on middle rate DLA?

Not automatically. The middle rate is part of the DLA care component, and only the higher rate of the mobility component gives automatic entitlement. Your child can still apply through the assessed route, where the council looks at evidence of what happens on journeys, and you can upload the DLA letter as supporting evidence.

Can my autistic child get a Blue Badge?

They can if their autism means that, during journeys, they have very considerable difficulty walking (which can include very considerable psychological distress) or they’re at risk of serious harm when walking or a risk to other people, for example near traffic. The council decides on evidence of what happens on journeys, not on the diagnosis. If your child already gets the higher rate of DLA mobility, they qualify automatically.

How much does a Blue Badge cost in England?

Up to £10. How you pay depends on your council, and DfT guidance says only successful applicants should be asked to pay.

How long does a Blue Badge application take?

Councils usually decide within 12 weeks. An application that needs assessing can take 12 weeks or longer, because the council can’t start the assessment until it has all the evidence, so upload everything with the application if you can.

How long does a child’s Blue Badge last?

Usually up to 3 years. A badge issued on DLA ends when the DLA award ends, if that’s sooner, and a badge issued to a child under 3 ends on the day after their third birthday. You have to reapply before it expires.

How to apply for a Blue Badge for a child

Q: Can I appeal a Blue Badge refusal?

There’s no statutory appeal or tribunal. The council must give you its reasons in writing. You can ask it to reconsider, reapply if your child’s needs increase, and complain through the council’s complaints process and then to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

If your child is 3 or over and gets the higher rate of the DLA mobility component, they qualify for a Blue Badge automatically, and the application is mostly uploading documents. Every other child is assessed by the council, which decides on the evidence you send and on how you describe what happens between the car and where you’re going. You start on GOV.UK, which either takes the application for your council or sends you to the council’s own online form.

Blue BadgeApply for or renew a Blue Badge (GOV.UK online service)

Deadline: No deadline to apply. To renew, reapply before the current badge expires
Time to complete: No time limit, but unsaved answers are cleared after 2 hours without activity, so save as you go
Who it’s for: Parents and carers applying for, or renewing, a Blue Badge for a child in England.
Where it applies: England

This guide covers the rules in England. Scotland and Wales use the same GOV.UK service but publish their own guidance and charge different fees. In Northern Ireland you apply through nidirect.

Get free help with this form The official form on GOV.UK

Who qualifies without an assessment

From age 3, your child qualifies automatically if they get the higher rate of the DLA mobility component or are registered severely sight impaired (blind). Over 16, a young person claims PIP instead of DLA, and the PIP points decide it. The online service asks about these first. If one applies, it skips the questions about walking and journeys.

DLA: the higher rate of the mobility component

What they’re really asking: Whether your child’s DLA includes the higher rate of the mobility component, and whether the award is ongoing or has an end date.
How to answer it well: Have the most recent DWP letter to hand. If you’re asked for proof, it should clearly show the mobility rate, your child’s entitlement to DLA and the date of the letter. The service asks when the award ends because a badge issued on DLA ends when the award does, if that’s sooner than 3 years. The higher mobility rate can only be paid from age 3, so this route starts at 3.
Common mistake: Sending a letter that only shows the care component. Middle or highest rate care doesn’t qualify on its own. If that’s your child’s award, apply through the assessed route and upload the letter as supporting evidence.

PIP at 16 and over: the mobility points

What they’re really asking: Which points your young person scored on the PIP mobility activities, not only the rate they were awarded.
How to answer it well: 8 or more points on “moving around” qualifies automatically. So does exactly 10 points for descriptor E on “planning and following journeys”, awarded when someone can’t undertake any journey because it would cause them overwhelming psychological distress. Upload the three pages of the DWP letter that show the entitlement, the assessment scores and the mobility scores.
Common mistake: Assuming a higher score on “planning and following journeys” counts. Any score other than 10 points under descriptor E, including 12, means the council assesses the application instead.

Children under 3: medical equipment or staying near the car

A child under 3 can get a badge if, because of a medical condition, they must always be accompanied by bulky medical equipment that can’t be carried around with them without great difficulty, or must always be kept near a vehicle so they can be treated in it or taken quickly to treatment. The badge ends on the day after their third birthday, so plan to reapply before then.

Equipment that goes everywhere, or treatment that can’t wait

What they’re really asking: What the condition is, which equipment has to travel with your child or why they must stay near the car, and that this applies every time you go out.
How to answer it well: Name the equipment. The DfT’s examples include ventilators, suction machines, feed pumps, parenteral equipment, syringe drivers, oxygen and oxygen saturation monitoring equipment, and casts or harnesses for hip dysplasia. For staying near the car, its examples include tracheostomies, severe epilepsy and highly unstable diabetes. Ask your child’s paediatrician for a letter describing the condition and the equipment: the DfT tells councils that seeing the child in person shouldn’t be necessary when there is one.
Common mistake: Describing equipment your child needs on some trips. The rule says “always”, so describe what happens on every journey.

The assessed route, including non-visible disabilities

Without one of those benefits, the council assesses your child. Since 30 August 2019 the rules in England cover an enduring and substantial disability that, during a journey, stops a child walking, causes very considerable difficulty walking (which can include very considerable psychological distress), or puts them or other people at risk of serious harm when walking. That change brought non-visible conditions such as autism into the scheme. “Enduring” means expected to last at least 3 years, and the DfT is clear that no diagnosis decides eligibility on its own.

How long the condition is expected to last

What they’re really asking: Which of three descriptions fits: a permanent condition (not expected to improve for at least 3 years), a life-limiting illness, or a condition expected to improve within 3 years.
How to answer it well: Choose the permanent option if the condition isn’t expected to improve within 3 years, even if your child has better and worse spells. The DfT recognises that conditions affecting thinking and behaviour can vary with development or treatment and still endure. If your child has a life-limiting illness and an SR1 form, the service advises contacting your council after you submit so it can fast-track the badge.
Common mistake: Choosing “expected to improve within 3 years” because you hope things will get easier. In the online service that answer ends the application with a not-eligible message, so choose it only if it’s what you’ve been told to expect.

The main reasons your child needs a badge

What they’re really asking: Which reasons apply: they can’t walk at all, walking is very difficult, they experience psychological distress when walking or on journeys, or they’re a risk near vehicles or in traffic.
How to answer it well: Tick every reason that’s true. You can choose more than one, and each opens its own set of questions. The first two lead to questions about walking. The last two lead to questions about what happens between the car and where you’re going.
Common mistake: Ticking only “walking is very difficult” for a child who walks well but is unsafe near traffic. That leads to questions about distance and pain, which don’t describe the real problem.

Describing journeys for a non-visible condition

For distress or risk near traffic, the service asks what affects your child between a vehicle and the destination, how often, and for real examples. Then it asks how a badge would help and what you already do to make journeys safer. Councils are told to weigh what you describe against what’s usual for a child of the same age, so the detail that counts is what goes beyond that.

What affects journeys between the car and the destination

What they’re really asking: Which of five descriptions fit your child, how often each happens, and an example: a risk near vehicles, traffic or car parks; struggling to plan or follow a journey; difficulty controlling their actions without awareness of the effect on others; intense, overwhelming reactions that cause a temporary loss of behavioural control; and extreme anxiety or fear of public or open spaces.
How to answer it well: For each one that fits, pick the frequency that matches recent months (almost never, sometimes, almost every journey, every journey) and use the box for specific incidents: where you were, what your child did and what you had to do. “In the last month he pulled free in the supermarket car park three times and ran between moving cars” gives the council something to assess. “He has no danger awareness” doesn’t. The DfT’s own examples include running off, dropping to the floor or becoming a dead weight, ignoring instructions and lashing out, so name those if they happen. Each box takes up to 3,000 characters.
Common mistake: Writing about the diagnosis instead of the journey. The council needs to know what happens between the car and the destination, and how often.

How a badge would help, and what you do now

What they’re really asking: What parking closer would change, which measures you already use to make journeys safer, and how well they work.
How to answer it well: Say what a closer space changes in practice, such as a shorter walk past fewer moving cars or a quick way back to the car when your child is overwhelmed. List the measures you use now and be honest about their limits. Councils have to be satisfied the difficulty can’t be managed with reasonable coping strategies, and DfT guidance says avoiding journeys doesn’t count as one. If the only thing that works is not going, say so.
Common mistake: Saying that holding your child’s hand solves it. The DfT tells councils that where being with another person removes the difficulty, a badge wouldn’t help, so explain what still happens with an adult beside them.

Stuck on a question? The assistant can help you word it for your child.

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Describing walking difficulties

If your child can’t walk or finds walking very difficult, the service asks which conditions affect their walking, what makes it hard (pain, breathlessness, balance and coordination, danger to their health, or something else), whether it affects them all the time, how long they can walk without stopping, and a real route they can manage.

How long they can walk without stopping, and where to

What they’re really asking: A time band, from “cannot walk at all” to “more than 10 minutes”, and a specific route with place names or house numbers and how long it takes.
How to answer it well: Time your child on an ordinary route before you answer, on a typical day rather than a good one. Name the route the way the service asks, for example “from our front door to No. 12 on our street”, and say what happens at the end of it: stopping, asking to be carried, or needing a long rest.
Common mistake: Answering for a good day when your child’s walking varies. Answer no when asked whether it affects them all the time, and the service then asks how often and for how long, so you can describe the pattern.

Help to get around

What they’re really asking: Any equipment your child uses to get around, and any person whose support they rely on.
How to answer it well: List equipment such as a wheelchair, walking aid or specialist buggy, and say when each is used. The service asks you to list a person’s support too, so include being carried or held up by you.
Common mistake: Leaving out your own help because it isn’t equipment.

Documents and evidence to gather first

Every application needs a recent digital photo of your child’s head and shoulders against a plain, light background, proof of identity and proof of address. For a child, a birth or adoption certificate or a passport proves identity, and a recent letter from their school can prove address if they’re under 16. Photos or scans can be PNG, GIF, JPG or PDF files up to 20MB each. You can submit without uploading, but the council will contact you and the decision will take longer.

Supporting evidence for the assessed route

What they’re really asking: Documents that show the condition, how long it has lasted and how it affects walking or journeys.
How to answer it well: The service’s list includes a recent diagnosis letter, evidence of how the condition has progressed, confirmation of treatment or clinic appointments, prescriptions, specialist letters, a Patient Summary or Summary Care Record, an EHCP, social care plans, letters from other professionals, and PIP or other benefit letters. If your child has an EHCP, send the sections that describe communication, behaviour and safety. Choose the pages that describe what happens on journeys, rather than every report you have.
Common mistake: Sending a diagnosis letter on its own. It tells the council what the condition is, not what happens between the car and the destination.

Professionals, medication and treatments

What they’re really asking: Who could give the council more evidence if it needs it, what medication your child takes for the condition, and any treatments in the last 10 years, ongoing, or booked in the next 3 years.
How to answer it well: Name people who know how your child copes outside. The service’s own examples include consultants, teachers, therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists, so a teacher is a valid choice. You don’t need to list someone whose details are already in a letter you’ve uploaded.

Fee, decision and renewal

A Blue Badge costs up to £10 in England, and how you pay depends on your council. DfT guidance says only successful applicants should be asked to pay. Councils usually decide within 12 weeks. An assessed application can take 12 weeks or longer, because the assessment can’t start until the council has all the evidence.

If the council wants an assessment

What they’re really asking: Whether the evidence you sent makes your child’s eligibility clear, or the council needs an expert to look at it.
How to answer it well: If eligibility isn’t self-evident from what the council has, DfT guidance says it should refer your child to an expert assessor: a professional with relevant qualifications and expertise, who can’t be your child’s own GP. When the evidence already makes the answer clear either way, no referral is needed, so send the strongest evidence you have with the application.

How long the badge lasts and when to renew

What they’re really asking: When the badge ends, and what you need to do before then.
How to answer it well: Most badges last up to 3 years. A badge issued on DLA or PIP ends when the award ends, if that’s sooner, and an under-3 badge ends on the day after the third birthday. Renewal isn’t automatic: you reapply on the same GOV.UK service, giving the current badge number, before the badge expires. With decisions usually taking up to 12 weeks, start well before the expiry date.
Common mistake: Waiting for the badge to run out before reapplying. GOV.UK says to reapply before it expires.

If the council says no

There’s no tribunal or statutory appeal for a Blue Badge. The council must tell you in writing why it refused, and the DfT strongly recommends that councils have an internal procedure for challenging a refusal. You can ask the council to reconsider, reapply if your child’s needs increase, and complain if the council handled the application badly.

Asking the council to reconsider

What they’re really asking: Which important information the council didn’t take into account, set against the reasons in its refusal letter.
How to answer it well: Take each reason in the letter in turn and point to the evidence that answers it, adding anything new. If the refusal says the evidence wasn’t enough, ask whether an expert assessor looked at your child, because the DfT says councils should refer to one when eligibility isn’t self-evident. If your child gets the higher rate of DLA mobility and was still refused, say so plainly: that route involves no assessment.
Common mistake: Resending the same evidence. Add what was missing the first time.

Complaining to the council, then the Ombudsman

What they’re really asking: Whether the council handled your application fairly: for example, whether it ignored evidence you sent, gave no reasons, or took far longer than it said it would.
How to answer it well: Complain to the council first, and usually go through every stage of its complaints process. If you’re still unhappy, or the council hasn’t replied within a reasonable time (up to 16 weeks in most cases, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman says), you can complain to the Ombudsman. It can’t normally look at a complaint made more than 12 months after you first knew about the problem.
Common mistake: Going straight to the Ombudsman. It can’t look at your complaint until the council has had the chance to put things right.

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