High Income Child Benefit Tax Charge

Overview

You may have to pay a tax charge, known as the ‘High Income Child Benefit Charge’, if you have an individual income over £50,000 and either:

you or your partner get Child Benefit
someone else gets Child Benefit for a child living with you and they contribute at least an equal amount towards the child’s upkeep

It does not matter if the child living with you is not your own child.

If you are affected by the tax charge

You can choose not to get Child Benefit payments, but you should still fill in the Child Benefit claim form. This will help you get National Insurance credits which count towards your State Pension.

Claiming Child Benefit also means your child will get their National Insurance number automatically shortly before they are 16. They will not have to apply for one themselves.

Already getting Child Benefit

You can either:

stop getting Child Benefit - sometimes known as ‘opting out’.
carry on getting Child Benefit and pay any tax charge at the end of each tax year.

What counts as income

To work out if your income is over the threshold, you will need to work out your ‘adjusted net income’.

Your adjusted net income is your total taxable income before any personal allowances and fewer things like Gift Aid.

Use the Child Benefit tax calculator to get an estimate of your adjusted net income.