The UK Family Finances Playbook

Child Benefit is £27.05 a week for your eldest or only child and £17.90 a week for each additional child — around £2,337 a year for two children. It's usually worth claiming even if you'll pay some back through the High Income charge, because it gives a non-working parent National Insurance credits towards their State Pension and registers your child for a National Insurance number. If your income means you'd repay all of it, you can claim but opt out of receiving the payments — keeping the credits without the tax charge.

If you or your partner claim Child Benefit and the higher earner's adjusted net income is over £60,000, some is clawed back: 1% of your Child Benefit for every £200 over £60,000, until at £80,000 you keep none. It's based on the higher earner's income, not household income — so two parents on £59,000 each keep it all, while one parent on £85,000 loses it. Since 2025, employed parents can pay the charge through their PAYE tax code rather than filing Self Assessment.

For a parent of young children, £100,000 of adjusted net income is the sharpest number in the system. Two things happen at once: you start losing your Personal Allowance (a 60% effective tax rate up to £125,140), and you lose Tax-Free Childcare and the funded hours — for every child — because both switch off the moment either parent goes over £100,000. Depending on your childcare use, a pay rise that tips you over can leave you worse off overall. The Playbook works through exactly where this bites.

With Tax-Free Childcare, the government adds 20% to what you pay into an online childcare account — for every £8 you pay in they add £2, up to £2,000 per child per year. Separately, eligible working parents in England can get 30 funded hours a week for children from 9 months to school age. Both require each parent to earn above a minimum and have adjusted net income under £100,000. The Playbook shows how the two stack, using a worked example, and the childcare rules differ across the UK nations.

Child Benefit, childcare support and your Personal Allowance are all measured against the same figure — adjusted net income — which is broadly your taxable income minus pension contributions and Gift Aid. That's the lever: money into a pension reduces the number these thresholds test against. In the Playbook's example, a £96,000 earner contributing £16,000 by salary sacrifice brings adjusted net income to £80,000. One approach worth modelling is to sacrifice just enough to sit under whichever threshold matters most, though the right amount depends on your own income, childcare use and plans.

A Junior ISA is a tax-free account for a child — anyone can pay in up to £9,000 per tax year combined, it grows free of income and capital gains tax, the money belongs to the child, and it becomes theirs at 18. A Junior SIPP is a pension for a child: pay in up to £2,880 a year and 20% tax relief tops it up to £3,600, locked until the child's own pension age. Whether either suits your family depends on your own view of risk and how the money's intended to be used — this is general information, not a recommendation.

No. It's general information for the 2026/27 tax year to help you understand how UK family benefits, childcare support and tax-free saving work — not personal financial or tax advice, and family and childcare rules are detailed and change often. Confirm current figures and your own eligibility at gov.uk, and take qualified advice before acting on anything that matters.

Every WealthR Playbook can be read online in-app with WealthR Pro (£39.99/year), along with all the tools and future editions kept current each tax year. Or buy this Playbook on its own for £19.99 as a PDF that's yours to keep.

The 2026/27 UK tax year, published July 2026. The childcare rules covered are those for England; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own. Figures are checked against gov.uk, and each year a fresh edition is published with a plain-English summary of what changed.