Changes, overpayments and reviews
Child Benefit is not a claim-and-forget benefit. HMRC expects to be told about changes, and it recovers money paid in error. Most overpayments are not fraud: they are the result of a change that was never reported, or reported late. The list below is the one to keep.
Changes you must report to the Child Benefit Office
- Family changes: a split, a joining, a new address, a new bank account, a child moving household.
- A child leaving approved education or training, or finishing it.
- A child starting paid work of 24 hours a week or more.
- A child starting an apprenticeship in England.
- A child claiming benefits in their own right.
- Going abroad, or a change in residence.
- Any change in who is responsible for bringing the child up.
Overpayments
Money paid after entitlement has ended, or paid at the wrong rate, is an overpayment, and HMRC recovers it. The usual cause is a reported change arriving late: a child who left education in June but was reported in October has been overpaid for the intervening months. Reporting promptly is therefore not bureaucracy for its own sake — it is the difference between a clean claim and a debt. If HMRC believes an overpayment has occurred, it will write with the amount and the recovery route; disputing the underlying facts (for example, the date a child left education) is a different matter from disputing that overpayments are recoverable in principle, which they are.
Payment day and weekly payment
Child Benefit is usually paid every four weeks, on a Monday or Tuesday. Weekly payment is available instead for single parents and for people receiving certain other benefits, such as Universal Credit. Weekly payment is a choice to request, not an automatic entitlement for everyone, and it is paid on a Monday or Tuesday each week. GOV.UK does not assign payment days by National Insurance number, and this site does not either.
Reviews
HMRC reviews claims from time to time, and may ask for evidence that a child remains in approved education or training, or that the claimant remains responsible for the child. A review is routine, not an accusation, but it is another reason to keep the claim's facts current: a review that finds an unreported change will produce an overpayment for the whole unreported period, not just from the review date.