Child benefit & tax credits — UK rates and thresholds

Child Benefit and the High Income Charge

Child Benefit is paid to those responsible for a child, but is partly or fully clawed back through the High Income Child Benefit Charge where a parent’s income exceeds a threshold. Above an upper limit the charge cancels the benefit entirely. The tables above show the current figures.

The charge is collected through self-assessment, so it is easy to get caught out. We handle the return and advise on whether to keep claiming.

The high income charge

Child benefit is paid to whoever claims it, but where a claimant or their partner has income above a threshold, a tax charge claws it back — gradually at first, and in full at the upper end. The charge falls on the higher earner, who may not be the person receiving the benefit, and it is collected through self-assessment, which means registering for a return purely because of it.

The income measure used is adjusted net income, and it comes after pension contributions and gift aid. That is the practical lever: a pension contribution can reduce the charge as well as the tax, and for someone just inside the range the combined effect is unusually large.

Claim anyway, even if you opt out of the payments

Making a claim protects National Insurance credits towards the state pension for a parent at home with a child, and it gets the child a National Insurance number automatically. You can claim and elect not to receive the payments, which keeps the credits without triggering the charge. Not claiming at all is the version that costs people, and the gap in a state pension record is often noticed decades later.