Student loan change of address when you move house

Most people's student loan comes out of their pay packet without them thinking about it, which is exactly why it gets missed on a moving list. Updating your bank or setting up Royal Mail redirection doesn't update it, so it needs doing separately. Which part of this applies depends on whether you're repaying or still studying. They're handled by different people.

If you're repaying: update it in your online account

GOV.UK is plain about it: "If your contact details change, you must update them in your online account." That's the student loan repayment account, run by the Student Loans Company (SLC). It's the same account whichever part of the UK you borrowed from.

1. 1

   Sign in to your repayment account

   You need your customer reference number (or email address), your password and your secret answer. If you've forgotten them, they're reset using the email address you had when you applied for the loan.

2. 2

   Update your contact details

   The account lists "tell the Student Loans Company if you've changed your contact details" among the things you can do there. Your address goes in there.

3. 3

   If your email is changing too, contact SLC

   Moves often come with a new work or broadband email. GOV.UK says to contact SLC if you've changed your email address, rather than leaving it to the reset process, which still points at the old one.

Why the address matters at all

If the money comes out automatically, it's fair to ask why SLC needs to know where you live. The clearest reason GOV.UK gives is the end of the loan. Once it's repaid, HMRC tells your employer to stop the deductions, but "it can take around 4 weeks", so you can end up paying more than you owe. To avoid that, "SLC will contact you in the final year of your loan repayments" to set up a Direct Debit for the last few payments instead. It can only do that if your details are current. You can get a refund of an overpayment, but avoiding it is easier.

If the move is abroad: that's a different form

Moving overseas for more than 3 months isn't a change of contact details as far as SLC is concerned. You have to update your employment details, which is a separate service from the repayment account. You're expected to keep repaying from abroad unless you can show your overseas income is below the threshold for that country. If you don't tell SLC, GOV.UK warns that "you could build up debt ('accrue arrears')", which you then repay on top of your regular payments. The same applies in reverse: come back after more than 3 months away and you must update them again, or you'll keep repaying at the rate for the country you'd been living in.

If you're still studying (England)

A student still on their course doesn't deal with the repayment side at all. For a student from England, it's Student Finance England, and "you're living somewhere new" is one of the changes GOV.UK says you must report. That stays true once the academic year has started. Course and fee changes can go through your university then, but a new address you report yourself.

• Full-time students: report it through your student finance account.
• Part-time students: fill in form CO2, then send it through your student finance account or by post.

It's worth doing promptly for a reason that has nothing to do with post. The Maintenance Loan is set partly by where you live, so moving into or out of your parents' home, or into London, can change the band you're in.

This catches families out when it's the parents who move. If a student lives at home and the family home moves, the student's address has changed as well, even though they never packed a box.

On the full who-to-notify list, the Student Loans Company sits with the money accounts, next to your bank and pension providers. Nobody fines you for leaving it late, but it's dealt with in one sitting and easy to forget, and it's worth doing the same week.