High Income Child Benefit Charge: do you need to pay it?

Child Benefit pays £26.05 per week for your eldest child and £17.25 for each additional child (2025/26 rates). For a family with two children, that's about £2,252 per year.

But if either parent earns over £60,000, the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) starts clawing it back.

How the charge works

The HICBC applies to whichever parent earns more, regardless of who actually claims the benefit.

Earn £60,000 or less: No charge. You keep all of it.
Earn between £60,000 and £80,000: You repay 1% of your Child Benefit for every £200 of income above £60,000.
Earn £80,000 or more: You repay all of it.

The charge is based on your "adjusted net income" — broadly your total taxable income minus pension contributions and Gift Aid donations. More on reducing this below.

Worked example

You earn £70,000 and have two children.

Child Benefit: £26.05 + £17.25 = £43.30 per week = £2,251.60 per year
Income over the threshold: £70,000 − £60,000 = £10,000
Number of £200 chunks: £10,000 ÷ £200 = 50
Charge: 50% of £2,251.60 = £1,125.80

You'd pay that through Self Assessment. Your net benefit is about £1,126 per year — still worth claiming.

At £72,000, the charge rises to 60%. At £76,000, it's 80%. At £80,000 you repay the lot.

What counts as income

"Adjusted net income" includes:

Salary, bonuses, and overtime
Rental income
Savings interest and dividends
Benefits in kind (company car, private medical insurance)

You can reduce it with:

Pension contributions (salary sacrifice or personal)
Gift Aid donations
Trading losses from self-employment

The pension trick

This is the single most effective way to deal with the HICBC, and it's completely legitimate.

Say you earn £70,000. If you increase your pension contributions by £10,000 (through salary sacrifice or a personal pension), your adjusted net income drops to £60,000. The HICBC disappears entirely.

That £10,000 pension contribution:

Eliminates the £1,126 HICBC charge
Saves you £4,000 in income tax (at 40%)
Saves you £200 in employee NI (at 2% above £50,270)
Goes into your retirement pot

Total tax benefit from a £10,000 contribution: roughly £5,326. The effective marginal rate in this income band is eye-watering, which is exactly why pension contributions are so powerful here.

Claim even if you'd repay everything

Always claim Child Benefit, even if your income means you'll hand 100% back through the HICBC.

The reason: claiming gives the lower-earning parent (or the one who stays home) National Insurance credits towards their State Pension. These credits apply for each year a child is under 12. Missing them could mean a lower State Pension, and you can't easily go back and fill the gaps.

Two options if you'd repay most or all of it:

Claim and pay the charge through Self Assessment each year.
Claim but opt out of payments — you won't receive the money, so there's no charge to pay, but you still get the NI credits.

Option 2 is simpler if you'd repay the full amount anyway. You can opt out (and back in again) through your GOV.UK account.

Registering for Self Assessment

If you need to pay the HICBC, register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the end of the relevant tax year. For 2025/26, that deadline is 5 October 2026.

File your return and pay by 31 January 2027. Late filing and late payment both attract penalties — HMRC is not forgiving about this.

Changes in circumstances

The charge is assessed yearly. Things that change your liability:

Income drops below £60,000: No charge. Let HMRC know so you can stop filing Self Assessment for this purpose.
You separate from your partner: The charge applies to the higher earner in the household where the child lives.
Your partner's income rises above yours and exceeds £60,000: The charge shifts to them. They'd need to register for Self Assessment.

Report changes to HMRC promptly to avoid over- or underpayment.

Use our salary calculator to check your adjusted net income and see how pension contributions could reduce or eliminate the HICBC.