The move to apply for Child Benefit online should cut waiting times

New parents can now apply for Child Benefit online, which could cut the waiting time for the first payment.

Child Benefit is paid out to families with a child under 16. Most families get it, apart from those where one parent earns a high amount.

Previously, when we had a baby we had to fill out a paper form and send it away. It could take three to four months to get our first payment.

Now we can apply on the gov.uk website and we could have our first payment a few days later.

How much is Child Benefit?

Once we’re set up on the system we’ll get the payments every four weeks.

Payments are worth £24 a week for our first child. That’s £96 a month or £1,248 a year.

If we have more than one child, it’s £15.90 per child per week. Unlike Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit there’s no two-child cap on Child Benefit.

From April, the rates are going up. We’ll get £25.60 a week for our first child and £15.90 a week for other children.

That works out as £102.40 and £63.60 a month.

What next?

It takes about 10 minutes to fill out the form. We’ll need our child’s birth or adoption certificate, our bank account details, and our National Insurance number. If we have a partner, we should also have their National Insurance number to hand.

It’s also a good idea to have a Government Gateway account set up. We’ll need a couple of bits of ID to do this.

It’s worth remembering that our Child Benefit claim can only be backdated for three months. So if we delay applying until after our baby is three months old we’ll miss out on payments.

And applying for Child Benefit online may not be possible if our baby is older than six months.

Don’t forget – if we’re responsible for a child who is not our own, we can still apply for Child Benefit if we’re their main carer.

Image: Danik Prihodko / Pexels