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School meals and nutritional standards (England)

School meals are free for all children in state-funded schools in England up to year 2. For older years, only pupils whose families receive certain benefits are entitled to free school meals. Free school meals are paid for by the school out of its general funding (or through a specific grant for children up to year 2). Food provided in schools is required to meet statutory standards.

From September 2026, eligibility for free school meals will expand to include all children whose families receive Universal Credit.

Education is a devolved issue and this briefing relates to mainly to England, although it also explains the rules on free school meals in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Free school meals

Free school meals are for children whose parents receive certain benefits (or who are receive those benefits themselves). These are:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided they are not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for four weeks after a person stops qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit (from April 2018 to September 2026, households had to have incomes below £7,400 for their children to receive free school meals)

Since September 2014, free school meals have been provided for all children in reception, year 1 and year 2.

Free school meals may also be available to pre-school children and those in school sixth forms, sixth form colleges, and further education colleges.

How many additional pupils will be eligible in September 2026?

From April 2018 to September 2026, households in receipt of Universal Credit were only eligible if their household income was less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits). From September 2026, it will be available to all households receiving Universal Credit.

The Department for Education estimated that “over half a million more” pupils will be eligible for free school meals once eligibility was expanded.

Constituency or local authority-level estimates of the net effects of the policy change are not available.

How many pupils are currently eligible?

In January 2026, there were around 2.2 million pupils known to be eligible for free school meals (FSM). Since January 2025, there has been a slight increase in the proportion eligible, from 25.7% to 26.5% of state-funded pupils. The rate has increased each year since its low of 13.6% in January 2018.

School breakfast clubs

Schools are not currently required to provide breakfast clubs, although many do. Funding is available for schools in disadvantaged areas to receive a 75% subsidy for the food and delivery costs of providing breakfast clubs.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 requires all state-funded primary schools in England to provide free breakfast clubs before school begins, although the measure is not yet in force and policy is still being rolled out.

An initial 750 schools were chosen to deliver free breakfast clubs under an early adopter scheme beginning in April 2025.  Schools were invited to express an interest in joining the scheme, and a mix of schools was then chosen – from different regions, different school types, schools which did and did not have existing breakfast clubs, and so on.

In September 2025, the government announced that, from April 2026, it intended to add 2,000 new schools to the 750 schools in England that were already part of the scheme, as the first phase of the national rollout. In November 2025, schools with 40% or more pupils eligible for free school meals were invited to apply to join the scheme from April 2026, and the government said that existing National School Breakfast Programme primary schools would join the scheme in September 2026.

A list of schools currently on the programme has been published.

The government has published Free breakfast clubs: guidance for schools and trusts for phase 1 of the national rollout from April 2026.

Nutritional standards

Nutritional standards are in place for state-funded school meals in England. They aim to ensure that the food given to pupils is nutritious and of high quality, and to promote good health and eating behaviour.

Funding for school meals is mostly provided through the Dedicated Schools Grant, the main central government grant to local authorities for school funding.

In April 2026, the government opened a consultation on proposed changes to the school food standards. The proposed changes would further limit the inclusion of unhealthy foods on school menus and introduce a new system to enforce compliance with the standards.

Meals during the school holidays

The Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAFP) provides grants to local authorities to provide free meals during holidays to eligible children. It is funded by the Department for Education. Local authorities are expected to offer the equivalent of six weeks’ holiday food and activities to children each year, focused on those eligible for benefits-based free school meals.