On Saturday, the party said it would replace the disability payments system, Pip, if it entered Number 10 at the next election.
The latest proposals would ban foreign nationals from almost all welfare payments including housing benefit, pension credit, jobseeker’s allowance, child benefit, free childcare and disability benefits.
Only a small number of exemptions would apply, including the war widows pension and Armed Forces compensation.
Reform claims that by 2029, around 1.5 million adults who are not British citizens would receive Universal Credit and around 215,000 would receive Pip.
The party had previously pledged to ban foreign nationals from claiming Universal Credit.
Given those affected would include EU nationals with settled status, external who have an indefinite right to live, work and study in the UK – and have usually lived in the UK for a continuous five-year period – the Brexit deal secured under the last Tory government would need to be renegotiated.
It means potentially that British expatriates living in the EU could lose equivalent rights.
Figures published in 2025 showed that more than a million UC claimants were born overseas, including around 700,000 EU citizens who arrived in the UK before Brexit and have the right to live and work in the UK.
The party said it had accounted for a potential £500m cost of British expats returning from the EU to the UK to claim benefits if the EU retaliates.
Reform UK MP Danny Kruger told BBC Breakfast it is a “reasonable principle” that the country to which people are citizens of should be paying their welfare.
He said: “So I’d understand if the Europeans decided to apply the same principle that we are and to deny our nationals access to their welfare system and we will pay for that ourselves.”
Asked what would happen to British people living abroad who claim a disability benefit, Kruger replied: “They would have two options – they can either return to the UK, they might wish to do that if the benefits system is preferable for them, but we’re open to a negotiation that it might mean that we could pay British disability benefits to them, if they qualify under our new scheme.”
Reform’s plans also include making businesses with more than five members of staff paying a “return to work cover” insurance to fund the cost of the first two years after an employee is signed off sick.
The party says this is modelled on the Dutch system and aims to incentivise employers to make adaptions and encourage people back to work, while also reducing the number of people entering the disability benefit system.
Reform adds it would cut the National Insurance contributions paid by employers to offset the cost of this measure.
Pressed about the potential costs for businesses, Jenrick said “nothing that we’ve outlined today will adversely affect businesses”.
