Overview

You may have to pay the High Income Child Benefit Charge if you or your partner have an individual income that’s 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.

This guide is also available in Welsh (Cymraeg).

What counts as income

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

Your adjusted net income is your total taxable income before any allowances and not including things like Gift Aid. Your total taxable income includes interest from savings and dividends.

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

Who pays the tax charge

If your adjusted net income is over £50,000 and so is your partner’s, then whoever has the higher income is responsible for paying the tax charge.

‘Partner’ means someone you’re not permanently separated from who you’re married to, in a civil partnership with or living with as if you were.

If your income is over the threshold

You can choose to either:

  • get Child Benefit payments and pay any tax charge at the end of each tax year
  • opt out of getting payments and not pay the tax charge

If you choose to opt out of getting Child Benefit payments

You should still fill in the Child Benefit claim form. You need to state on the form that you do not want to get payments.

You need to fill in the claim form if you want to:

  • get National Insurance credits, which count towards your State Pension
  • get your child a National Insurance number without them having to apply for one - they’ll usually get the number before they turn 16 years old

If you’re already getting Child Benefit payments

You can choose to either: