Eligibility
Advice
You will typically qualify if you are responsible for a child under 16 or 20 if they stay in approved education or training. You must also be living in the UK. You can claim it as soon as you’ve registered the birth of your child, or they come to live with you. The person who claims will get National Insurance credits towards their state pension if they are unemployed or earn less than £183 per week (as of Nov 2021).
Child Benefit can continue for 20 weeks after a sixteen or seventeen-year-old leaves formal education, armed services (including government-sponsored training). If you are unsure of your eligibility, you can contact the Child Benefit Office.
High Earners
If you or your partner earn an annual salary of over £50,000, you can still claim child benefit but you may be taxed on the benefit itself (this is called the High-Income Child Benefit Tax Charge).
You’ll stop receiving Child Benefit immediately if your child:
- Starts paid work for 24 hours or more a week and are no longer in approved education or training;
- Starts an apprenticeship in England; or
- Starts getting certain benefits in their own right, such as Income Support, Tax Credits or Employment and Support Allowance.
Adding a child to an existing claim
You need to call the child benefit helpline if:
- Your child is under six months old and lives with you;
- Your child was born in the UK, and their birth was registered in the UK more than 24 hours ago; or
- You are a UK, EEA, or Swiss national, who has lived in the UK since the start of your claim.
Claiming
It can take 6 to 12 weeks to process a new claim (or longer if you’re new to the UK) and can be backdated for up to 3 months. To claim for the first time, the claimant needs to fill in form CH2 and send it to the Child Benefit Office. The address is on the form.
Fostering a child
You'll get child benefits if you foster a child, however, the local council must not be paying anything towards their accommodation or maintenance.
Adopting a child
You can apply when any child you're adopting comes to live with you. You don't have to wait until the adoption process is complete as you may be able to get it for a period before the adoption, simply contact the Child Benefit Office to enquire.
Looking after someone else's child
You may be able to get Child benefits if you have an informal arrangement to look after a friend or relative's child, however, you may not qualify if your local council is paying for the child's accommodation or maintenance. For clarification, please contact the Child Benefit Office directly. You may also be entitled to Guardian's Allowance if you're responsible for a child who has lost one or both of their parents.
How we can help
Usually, the claiming process is fairly straightforward, however, if you do have problems our team would be delighted to assist you. To open a case just click the link at the top of this page, you will then need to deposit a sum equal to one hour’s usage, upon receipt of these funds you will be assigned your personal caseworker who will telephone you to discuss the matter and make suggestions on how to proceed.
Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our benefits advisor and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.