The Short Answer
A face-to-face PIP assessment can be at an assessment centre or at your home, and usually takes about an hour. The audio is recorded by default. You can bring someone with you, and the professional may ask you to do simple movements. What is recorded includes informal observations as well as your answers, which is why describing the cost of the day matters.
Where It Can Take Place
GOV.UK lists four settings: an assessment centre, your home, the phone or a video call. The provider chooses, and you can ask for a different format using the details in your invitation letter.
A home assessment is the option people most often do not know to ask for. Reasons that carry weight are practical: an inability to travel reliably, a condition better understood in the setting where it affects you, or a need for equipment that cannot be moved.
Last checked: 7 August 2026
What Happens
Questions about the twelve activities, and possibly some movements. GOV.UK states that the professional will ask about "how your condition affects your daily living and mobility tasks" and "any treatments you've had or will have", and that "they might ask you to do some simple movements to show how you manage some activities".
You can decline a movement that would hurt or would be unsafe. Saying why is the useful part: "I could try, but I would not be able to get up afterwards" is a description of function, which is what the assessment is for.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Length | Usually about 1 hour |
| Recording | Audio recorded by default; contact the provider to opt out |
| Company | You can bring someone, for example a friend or support worker |
| Outcome | Not given on the day; a report goes to a DWP decision maker |
Last checked: 7 August 2026
What Gets Recorded Besides Your Answers
Informal observations. How you arrived, whether you were accompanied, how you sat, whether you made eye contact, how you handled the conversation — all of it can appear in the report and can drive a descriptor choice.
That is why the sentence worth saying out loud is the one about cost. Arriving on time and sitting through an hour is not evidence of managing a week, and the reliability criteria require an activity to be repeatable "within a reasonable period of time and to the same standard". Saying that someone drove you, that you will sleep for the rest of the day, or that you took extra medication to get there puts the context in the record.
If You Cannot Attend
Contact the provider before the appointment, using the details in the invitation letter. A rearranged appointment delays a claim; a missed appointment without contact can end it.
That distinction is the single most consequential thing on this page. The call takes minutes and protects the claim. The provider's number is in the invitation letter, and the PIP enquiry line on 0800 121 4433, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, can confirm which provider holds the appointment.
Last checked: 7 August 2026
Afterwards
A report goes to a DWP decision maker, who decides. Nothing is decided on the day, and the professional will not tell you the outcome.
The decision follows the report rather than the appointment. The DWP's published median at January 2026 was 15 weeks from referral to the assessment provider to the decision, within a 20-week median end to end.
Last checked: 7 August 2026
You can ask for a copy of the report, and for the audio recording. Both are useful where the decision does not match your account, because they show precisely where the record and your evidence diverge.
Preparing
The activities, the reliability criteria and what to bring are the same in every format. Reliability has four statutory elements under regulation 4 of the PIP Regulations 2013 — safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly, and within a reasonable time period — and they apply identically at a centre, at home, on the phone and on video.
The full preparation guidance is on The PIP Assessment.