Income & Tax · Family finance

High Income Child Benefit Charge Calculator 2026/27

If you or your partner has an adjusted net income above £60,000, some of your Child Benefit is clawed back through the High Income Child Benefit Charge — 1% of the benefit for every £200 over the threshold, until it is fully repaid at £80,000. Enter the higher earner's income and your number of children to see the charge, the benefit you actually keep, and whether it is worth keeping the claim or opting out.

7 min read· Updated 19 August 2026· 🇬🇧 UK

Calculator

Core Income

Gross Pay

Per

Tax Year

Annual bonus

Scottish taxpayer

Pension

Type i

None

Sacrifice

Net Pay

Relief at Source

Employee contribution

Unit

£/yr

Gift Aid

Gift Aid donations (£/yr, net) i

Child Benefit

Qualifying children

Partner's income i

Your take-home pay

Where your money goes

Your result

Adjust the inputs above and press Calculate to see your personalised result.

Key takeaways

Key takeaways · 2026/27

The charge starts at £60,000 of adjusted net income and reaches 100% at £80,000.
It claws back 1% of your Child Benefit for every £200 earned above £60,000.
Only the higher earner pays it, assessed on adjusted net income — so pension sacrifice and Gift Aid reduce it.
2026/27 Child Benefit is £27.05/week for the eldest child and £17.90/week for each other child.

How it works

What the High Income Child Benefit Charge is

Child Benefit is paid to anyone raising a child, but once someone in the household earns above £60,000 of adjusted net income, HMRC starts to reclaim it through the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC). The charge is a percentage of the Child Benefit you receive, and it climbs steadily until, at £80,000, it wipes out the benefit entirely.

How the taper works

The formula is one percent per two hundred pounds: for every £200 of adjusted net income above £60,000, you repay 1% of your annual Child Benefit. So:

Adjusted net income	Charge	Benefit kept (2 children)
£60,000 or below	0%	£2,337 / yr (full)
£65,000	25%	£1,753 / yr
£70,000	50%	£1,169 / yr
£75,000	75%	£584 / yr
£80,000 or above	100%	£0

Crucially, it is the higher earner who pays, and it is assessed on adjusted net income — your taxable income minus grossed-up pension contributions and Gift Aid — not your headline salary. That distinction is the whole game.

The lever: a parent on £70,000 with two children loses £1,169 of Child Benefit to the charge. Sacrifice £10,000 into a pension and adjusted net income falls to £60,000 — the charge disappears, the full £2,337 is kept, and the £10,000 escapes 40% income tax. The calculator's solver shows the exact figure for your income.

Keep claiming, or opt out?

There are two decisions, and they are separate:

Should you register a claim? Almost always yes — even if you will repay all of it. Claiming credits you with National Insurance towards your State Pension while you are not working or are low-paid, and it gets your child a National Insurance number automatically at 16.
Should you receive the payments? If your income is £80,000+ the charge takes 100% back, so receiving the money only to repay it through Self Assessment is pure admin — many people opt out of the payments while keeping the claim registered. Below £80,000 you keep part of the benefit, so it is usually worth continuing to receive it and settling the charge through your tax return or PAYE code.

The interaction with the £100k trap

For higher earners with children, two thresholds bite in sequence. The HICBC runs from £60,000 to £80,000; the personal-allowance taper — the 60% effective rate — runs from £100,000 to £125,140. Between £60,000 and £80,000, the HICBC stacks on top of 40% income tax to lift the effective marginal rate by roughly 11–12% for two children. The same tool that escapes the £100k trap — pension salary sacrifice — is also the cleanest way to clear the Child Benefit charge, because both are measured against adjusted net income.

To see the higher earner's full payslip, use the take-home pay calculator. To size a pension sacrifice, the salary sacrifice calculator shows the tax and NI it saves.

Source: GOV.UK — High Income Child Benefit Charge and GOV.UK — Child Benefit rates (weekly rates verified 19 Aug 2026). Estimates only.

Income & Tax

Claim, opt out or reduce your income? Making the Child Benefit charge work for you

By CalculatorDashboard Editorial Team·Updated 3 October 2026·Reviewed 3 October 2026·4 min read

The High Income Child Benefit Charge is easy to describe: once the higher earner in a couple has adjusted net income above £60,000, 1% of the family's Child Benefit is clawed back for every £200 of income above that, until it has all gone at £80,000. Deciding what to do about it is harder. You can keep claiming and pay the charge, stop the payments, or reduce your income so the charge never applies. The right answer depends on more than the size of the charge.

Register even if you don't want the money

The most expensive mistake families make is not claiming at all. Child Benefit is also the route to National Insurance credits for the parent who registers, for each year they look after a child under 12. Those credits count towards the 35 qualifying years needed for a full new State Pension. A parent who steps back from paid work, or earns below the National Insurance threshold, can quietly lose years of State Pension entitlement if nobody in the household has registered.

You don't have to receive the payments to get the credits. You can fill in the claim and then opt out of payment, which keeps the credits and the child's National Insurance number arrangements in place, with no charge to pay. If your income later falls, you can restart payments. Make sure the claim is in the name of the parent who needs the credits, usually the lower earner.

Keep the money, or opt out?

If you claim the payments, the higher earner pays the charge, through Self Assessment or, for many employees, through an adjustment to their PAYE tax code. For incomes between £60,000 and £80,000 you always keep some of the benefit, so claiming and paying the charge leaves you better off than opting out. Above £80,000 the charge equals the benefit, and opting out simply saves paperwork. The calculator above shows where your own income falls.

The test uses the individual income of whichever partner earns more, whether you are married or not. A couple earning £55,000 each pays nothing; a single earner on £75,000 loses most of it. That asymmetry is worth knowing if you are deciding which partner should take extra hours or a pay rise.

Reducing the charge with pension contributions

The charge is based on adjusted net income, so the tools that reduce it are the same ones that work at the £100,000 threshold: pension contributions and Gift Aid. In the £60,000 to £80,000 band they are unusually effective, because every £200 you contribute removes 1% of the charge on top of the normal 40% tax relief.

Take Sam, who earns £72,000 and has two children. Their Child Benefit is £2,337.40 a year, and at £72,000 the charge takes 60% of it, about £1,402. If Sam sacrifices £12,000 of salary into their pension, adjusted net income falls to £60,000 and the charge disappears. Sam's take-home pay after the charge falls by only about £5,558, yet £12,000 goes into the pension. Put another way, each pound in the pension costs Sam about 46p. That is better value than the usual higher-rate relief alone, because the recovered Child Benefit is effectively a bonus on top.

A smaller contribution helps too. There's no need to get all the way to £60,000: every £1,000 below £80,000 recovers 5% of the benefit.

Common mistakes

People often assume the charge is based on household income, or that it only applies to married couples. Neither is true. Another common error is forgetting to register for Self Assessment, or to set up PAYE collection, in the first year the charge applies, which can lead to penalties as well as the charge itself. Finally, if you opt out of payments and your income then falls below £60,000, payments don't restart automatically. You have to ask.

Next steps

Enter your income above to see the charge and what you keep. If your income is also approaching £100,000, the £100k tax trap calculator shows how one pension contribution can fix both problems at once, and the salary sacrifice calculator shows the full saving on each pound you redirect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who pays the High Income Child Benefit Charge?

The charge falls on whoever has the higher adjusted net income in the household, provided it is over £60,000 — regardless of who actually receives the Child Benefit. If both partners are over £60,000, only the higher earner pays. It does not matter whether you are married; what matters is whether you live together as partners. The higher earner reports and pays the charge through Self Assessment.

What is the HICBC threshold for 2026/27?

The charge begins once adjusted net income exceeds £60,000 and rises to a full 100% clawback at £80,000. Between those figures you repay 1% of your Child Benefit for every £200 of income over £60,000. So at £70,000 the charge is 50% of the benefit; at £75,000 it is 75%; at £80,000 or above the whole benefit is clawed back.

Should I opt out of Child Benefit?

If your adjusted net income is £80,000 or more the charge repays 100% of the benefit, so receiving it only to hand it back through Self Assessment is admin for no gain — many people in that position opt out of the payments. But you should still register a claim and tick the opt-out box, because claiming protects your State Pension National Insurance credits and gives your child a National Insurance number automatically. Below £80,000 you keep part of the benefit, so it is usually worth continuing to receive it.

How can I reduce or avoid the charge?

Because the charge is based on adjusted net income, anything that legally lowers that figure reduces the charge pound for pound. Pension contributions (especially salary sacrifice) and Gift Aid donations are the main levers. If your income is, say, £70,000, a £10,000 pension contribution brings adjusted net income to £60,000 and removes the charge entirely — while also saving income tax and, with sacrifice, National Insurance. The calculator shows the exact amount needed.

Does the Child Benefit charge interact with the £100k tax trap?

Yes, and painfully. The HICBC taper runs from £60,000 to £80,000; the personal-allowance taper (the 60% effective rate) runs from £100,000 to £125,140. A parent earning between £100,000 and £125,140 faces both the tail of neither — the HICBC is already fully clawed back by £80,000 — but between £60,000 and £80,000 the HICBC adds an effective extra marginal rate on top of 40% tax. For two children the HICBC alone adds roughly 11–12% to the marginal rate across that band. Pension sacrifice addresses both traps at once.

What are the 2026/27 Child Benefit rates?

From April 2026, Child Benefit is £27.05 a week for the eldest or only child and £17.90 a week for each additional child — a 3.8% CPI uprating of the previous year's rates. For two children that is £44.95 a week, or about £2,337 a year, which is the amount the charge is measured against.

Disclaimer: Figures are estimates based on 2026/27 rates and rules and may change. Verify with HMRC or a qualified adviser before making financial decisions.