The charge is on the higher earner alone, not on the household and not on whoever receives the money. Two people earning £55,000 each pay nothing; one earning £65,000 with a partner earning nothing pays the charge.

Above the threshold you repay 1% of your Child Benefit for every £200 of income over it, so it is gone entirely by £80,000. That percentage is a whole number — gov.uk's own example takes £7,600 over the threshold, divides by 200, and charges 38%.

Between the two figures every extra £200 you earn takes a slice of the benefit with it. That sits on top of 40% Income Tax and 2% National Insurance, which is why a pay rise in this band can feel like it barely arrives — and why the pension figure above is the number most people actually came for.

Adjusted net income is not your salary

It is your taxable income after pension contributions made before tax and after Gift Aid donations, and it includes savings interest, dividends and rental profit. Because pension contributions reduce it, paying into a pension is the usual way people bring themselves back under the threshold. Salary sacrifice and net-pay contributions both work; a relief-at-source contribution reduces it too, at the gross amount.

Claiming and not taking the money

You can keep the claim and opt out of the payments. It is worth doing even when the charge would take all of it back, because the claim itself protects your National Insurance record and gets the child a National Insurance number. This calculator does not model that choice, only what the charge costs.

What this does not cover

It assumes you claim for the whole tax year, that circumstances do not change part-way through it, and that you are the higher earner. It does not handle a family splitting or joining part-way through a year, or shared claims where children live in different households.

Where these rates come from

Every figure above is read from a dated rate file rather than written into the page, and each entry records the gov.uk page it came from. See High Income Child Benefit Charge and Child Benefit rates on gov.uk.