The Short Answer
OCD scores PIP points through the activities it limits, not through the diagnosis. The assessment turns on how long routine tasks take. Eight points in a component pays the standard rate and 12 pays the enhanced rate. The calculator above is pre-filtered to the activities whose published guidance names the functions OCD is reported to affect.
How OCD Scores PIP Points
Each activity below is on the list for a stated reason, and the source is quoted beneath the table. Descriptor letters and point values come verbatim from Schedule 1 of the PIP Regulations 2013, and the 8 and 12-point thresholds come from regulations 5(3) and 6(3).
| Activity | What it assesses | Descriptors typically engaged | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily living 4 — Washing and bathing | washing and bathing, including where supervision or prompting is needed | c | 2 |
| Daily living 1 — Preparing food | preparing and cooking a simple meal, including where prompting or supervision is needed | d, e | 2–4 |
| Daily living 9 — Engaging with other people face to face | engaging with other people face to face, including whether prompting or social support is needed | b, c, d | 2–8 |
| Mobility 1 — Planning and following journeys | planning and following journeys, including limitations deriving from mental health and cognitive impairment | b, c, e | 4–10 |
| Daily living 6 — Dressing and undressing | dressing and undressing, including prompting to dress or to select appropriate clothing | c | 2 |
| Daily living 10 — Making budgeting decisions | making simple and complex budgeting decisions, which turns on cognitive function | b, c | 2–4 |
| Daily living 3 — Managing therapy or monitoring a health condition | managing medication and therapy at home, which includes prescribed psychological therapy | b, c | 1–2 |
Last checked: 7 August 2026
Where this mapping comes from
Descriptor letters and point values are reproduced from Schedule 1 of the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013. The activities listed are the ones whose published assessment guidance names the functions this condition is reported to affect. No activity is listed on any other basis.
Activities are numbered as Schedule 1 numbers them, within each component: daily living 1 to 10 and mobility 1 to 2.
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 4: “Consideration should be given to the claimant's functional restrictions to see if they: could reasonably use an aid such as a grab rail to get in or out of an unadapted bath or shower (4B) or whether they require assistance (4E) to get in and out of an unadapted bath or shower.”
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 1: “If an individual cannot cook at all because they have never needed to learn, consider their ability to carry out activities at or above waist height and their cognitive ability to use a stove or microwave if shown how.”
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 9: “This activity is designed for limitations on social engagement deriving from mental health, cognitive and learning impairments.”
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 11: “This activity is designed for limitations on mobility deriving from mental health, cognitive and sensory impairments, whereas activity 12 is generally designed for limitations from physical problems. Cognitive impairment includes orientation (understanding of where, when and who the person is), attention, concentration and memory.”
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 6: “Dressing and undressing may involve stretching, reaching, bending, gripping and other such movements.”
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 10: “The age of the person or whether they have ever done any household budgeting is irrelevant - it is their ability to make budgeting decisions and their level of cognitive function that is relevant.”
- DWP PIP Assessment Guide, activity 3: “Examples of therapy include physiotherapy, home dialysis and special diets where both attention to the nature and timing of food is integral in the management of the diet.”
Points are added within each component, never across the two. The PIP points calculator scores all 12 activities where the picture is wider than the ones above.
Can You Get PIP for OCD?
Yes, where OCD limits the assessed activities on more than half of the days over a 12-month period. No condition qualifies by name, and none is excluded by name either. The two tests are duration — difficulties expected to last at least 12 months from when they started — and frequency, which GOV.UK states as difficulty "more than half of the days over a 12-month period".
What Rate Could OCD Get?
The rate follows the points in each component separately. Daily living pays £76.70 a week at the standard rate and £114.60 at the enhanced rate. Mobility pays £30.30 and £80.00, and the highest combined award is £194.60 a week.
Last checked: 6 August 2026
For this condition the points most often come from the reasonable-time limb of regulation 4, which a ninety-minute wash fails even when it is completed.
The Reasonable Time Limb, and Why It Decides OCD Claims
OCD is the condition where the assessment's four reliability limbs pull hardest apart. Regulation 4 requires an activity to be completed safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly, and within a reasonable time period. A person who washes for ninety minutes has completed the task to an acceptable standard, and has not completed it within a reasonable time. The descriptor still applies, because failing any one limb is enough.
A reasonable time period is commonly understood as no more than twice the time a person without the condition would take. That converts the claim into an arithmetic one rather than a descriptive one, and arithmetic is easier to evidence. Timing five routine tasks over a fortnight — showering, dressing, preparing a meal, locking up before leaving, checking appliances — produces a comparison a decision maker can apply directly.
The second limb OCD engages is repeatability. The guide asks whether an activity can be repeated "within a reasonable period of time and to the same standard", and directs that "the impact of completing one activity on the ability to complete others must also be considered". Where a two-hour morning routine leaves no capacity to cook, that is two activities affected.
Checking behaviour around leaving the house sits under journeys rather than under any daily living activity. Where the checks prevent departure, or require another person to complete them, the journeys descriptors apply. Describing the delay as anxiety scores nothing that describing it as "I cannot leave until the checks are done, which takes forty minutes and on about three days a week means I do not leave" does not.
Evidence That Supports a OCD Claim
Evidence that names the activity beats evidence that names the diagnosis. Every descriptor above 0 points already assumes the condition is present.
- A diagnosis letter from a psychiatrist, psychologist or specialist OCD service
- Records of exposure and response prevention therapy or CBT, with the sessions attended
- A repeat prescription list covering any SSRI or other medication
- A timed record of routine tasks — washing, dressing, leaving the house — kept over one to two weeks
- A note of the checks or rituals that must be completed before a task counts as finished
- A written statement from someone in the household describing what they do to interrupt or complete tasks
Send what you already have rather than waiting for a new report. Evidence describing what you can do on an ordinary day answers the descriptors; the assessment weighs it against the reliability criteria.
Work Out the Full Picture
The tool above is pre-filtered; the assessment is not. All 12 activities are scored — 10 for daily living and 2 for mobility, set out in Schedule 1 of the PIP Regulations 2013 — and points from the two components never combine.
Two tools finish the picture:
- Score every activity in the PIP points calculator, which uses the same verbatim descriptors.
- Compare the pre-filtered tools on the all condition calculators page.
Where an award is already in place and was backdated, the work out your pip back pay tool prices the arrears.
The condition guide, covering evidence and the assessment in full, is on check pip for ocd.