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Child Benefit is a universal payment for parents of all children under 16 (under 20 if in full-time education). It's up to £26.05/week (£1,355/yr) for your first child and £17.25/wk (£897/yr) for each additional child. This is meant to ensure every child has at least some funds allocated to help them. Here are six key need-to-knows...

1. Always register for Child Benefit (even if you earn too much). When you register, it doesn't just trigger the payment, it's a gateway to other things. Some higher earners don't register (as if you earn over £80,000, the money is clawed back through the tax system), yet that can be a mistake...

- Registering is what triggers your eligibility for National Insurance credits towards the State Pension. The amount of State Pension you will receive is dictated by the number of national insurance (NI) years you've built up. You get NI years by working, or you get NI credits if you're not working and caring for a child under 12 (or older if they have a disability). And it's the act of claiming Child Benefit that triggers this payment. So it's worth registering but then opting out of receiving the benefit, as opposed to just not registering.

- Registering usually means your child will automatically get an NI number before they hit 16 years old. If you don't claim Child Benefit, they'll need to apply for one manually when they turn 16.

2. Are you one of perhaps 200,000 families losing out due to the wrong partner claiming Child Benefit? The person who puts in the Child Benefit application is deemed as the primary applicant, and they are the one that gets the NI years (which you need to qualify for the full State Pension). So if one of you doesn't work or earns under £125/wk, that person should be the applicant to ensure you get the NI credit you wouldn't have otherwise, potentially boosting your future State Pension, which can add up to £10,000s over the years.

If you did it the other way round, you can fill in a form to transfer the credits over to the lower earner. It's also sometimes backdate-able. Jacquie emailed us last year: "Due to my earnings, we received no Child Benefit when the children were little, and my husband was at home looking after them. We were looking at over £6,000 to top up my husband's NI for those missing employment years. We followed your suggestion to transfer them from me to him. A very welcome letter arrived confirming that the years my husband was at home looking after the kids now count towards his NI record, and he now has a full State Pension entitlement. So grateful to you."

3. You still gain from Child Benefit with income up to £80,000. Child Benefit is means-tested, meaning once one parent or guardian earns over £60,000, some of it is clawed back via tax as the High Income Child Benefit Charge, until you hit £80,000 earnings when it is all paid back. So that means at £70,000, you'd still be due over £1,126/yr if you've two children. The lower threshold was increased from £50,000 to £60,000 in 2024, and some parents still don't claim, thinking it isn't worth it. Almost 750,000 families are missing out on some money so, being plain, as long as no parent in the household earns over £80,000, it is worth getting it.

It's worth noting the £60,000 to £80,000 threshold is based on your 'adjusted net income' after pension contributions, charitable donations under Gift Aid and, for the self-employed, trading losses. So it's worth noting that increasing the highest earning parent's pension or charitable contributions can increase the Child Benefit you can keep. See more in minimising the Child Benefit charge.

4. New. There's now an easier way to pay back Child Benefit if you need to. Those who earn over £60,000 and therefore need to repay their Child Benefit have, until now, had to do a self-assessment tax return, which is painful if you're employed and paid via PAYE, as you wouldn't need do it otherwise. Now some in those circumstances can stop doing self-assessment and pay via your tax code.

5. In work? If grandparents look after the kids, they could benefit. If you're registered for Child Benefit, but don't need the NI credit because you (or, if a couple, both of you) earn £125+/wk, so get it anyway, you can transfer the unused Child Benefit NI credits to a relative if they're caring for your under-12-year-old child (eg, after school). While technically it's called the Specified Adult Childcare Credit, for ease, Martin calls it the Grandparents' Childcare Credit (though they must be under 66). The link has more info.

You may also be able to back-claim this, as Andy did: "Following your advice, I claimed NI credits as a grandparent for looking after our grandchildren after I'd retired from work. The application was easy and although it took around 25 weeks to process, I was given four years' worth of NI credits, and my new State Pension will rise from around £173/wk to £221/wk, giving an additional £2,496 per year. I wouldn't have known about this without you and the team."

6. There is no two-child benefit cap. To finish, there's much talk about the 'two-child benefit cap' in the news, and it's causing confusion. Just to be clear, this isn't to do with Child Benefit, it's about Universal Credit and it's actually a limit, not a cap. There is a benefits cap, which is a maximum amount you can receive in benefits, and Child Benefit is part of that. Confused? Watch Martin's 2024 video explainer (some numbers have changed, but the principle remains).