Claim or opt out of Child Benefit payments?
Every family faces the same choice, but high earners face it most sharply: should you claim Child Benefit at all, if the High Income Charge is going to take the money straight back? GOV.UK's answer is clear, and it is the single most valuable sentence on this site: if you choose not to get Child Benefit payments, you should still make a claim to get the other advantages. Claiming and receiving payments are two different things, and you can have the first without the second.
What a claim gives you, even with no payments
| Advantage | What it means |
|---|---|
| National Insurance credits | Automatic Class 3 credits for a child under 12, counting towards your State Pension. They protect your record if you are not working or do not earn enough to pay National Insurance contributions. |
| Your child's National Insurance number | Your child gets a National Insurance number automatically shortly before turning 16, without having to apply — needed for a first job, a driving test, and university finance. |
| The option to restart | You can restart payments at any time if your income falls or your circumstances change. |
How opting out works
You claim in the normal way, then opt out of receiving the payments. The claim stays live, the credits keep building, and the child's National Insurance number is still issued automatically. No High Income Charge arises on payments you do not receive, so there is no Self Assessment bill to worry about for the charge itself. If your income later drops below £60,000, or you simply change your mind, you can restart the payments at any time. The opt-out is reversible, and it costs nothing to maintain.
Who should be the claimant?
The National Insurance credits go to the claimant. So in a couple where one partner is not working, or earns too little to pay National Insurance contributions, the claim should usually be in that partner's name — that is where the credits do the most good. If the claimant does not need the credits, the family may still be able to use them another way: a partner can apply to transfer the credits, and a different family member who provides care for the child can apply for Specified Adult Childcare credits. The choice of claimant is therefore a small decision with a long tail, worth making deliberately rather than by habit.
Who should NOT opt out?
If the higher earner's adjusted net income is below £60,000, there is no charge at all, so opting out gains nothing — take the payments. Between £60,000 and £80,000, the taper means you keep part of the payment, so the choice is genuinely yours: take the reduced cash and pay the charge, or opt out and keep the credits. At £80,000 and above, the charge repays everything, so opting out of payments while keeping the claim is usually the cleanest answer — but it is still a claim, not a refusal to claim, and that distinction is the whole point.