Hundred SummersChild benefit calculator: and the £60,000–£80,000 clawback
What you claim for your children, what the High Income Child Benefit Charge takes back as the higher partner's income crosses £60,000, and the pension contribution that would restore the lot. The same functions the Hundred Summers engine applies in every projected year. Your figures never leave your browser.
Loading the calculator… (requires JavaScript; your figures never leave your browser)
Worked example
Computed when this page was built by the same engine that runs the calculator above, so the figures below and the live tool can never disagree. Change any input above to see your own.
| Inputs | |
|---|---|
| Children | 2 |
| Higher earner's adjusted net income | £68,000 |
| Results | |
|---|---|
| Child benefit a year | £2,338 |
| High-income charge | £935 |
| Kept after the charge | £1,403 |
| Pension contribution that restores it all | £8,000 |
The next question
What if one of us earns over £100,000? →£100k childcare cliff calculator
Or answer it with everything else: the full Hundred Summers plan connects your pay, pensions, savings, property, tax and spending year by year, and stress-tests them across 500 simulated market histories.
Read the guides
- Benefits and allowances people miss: what to check, and where →The entitlements most often left unclaimed in the UK (Pension Credit, Attendance Allowance, Carer's Allowance, Marriage Allowance, Council Tax Reduction and the help each one unlocks) with 2026/27 rates from gov.uk and the free, independent calculators to check your own. A signpost, not a checker. Education, not advice.
- The £100k childcare cliff: the worst-designed threshold in UK finance →Cross £100,000 of adjusted net income by £1 and you lose all free childcare hours and Tax-Free Childcare: on top of the 60% tax zone. How the cliff works, which parent counts, and the pension escape route.
- Salary sacrifice, properly explained →How giving up pay for a pension contribution saves both income tax and National Insurance, the employer's saving and whether it is passed on, the 60% zone where a contribution costs 38p in the pound, the side effects, and the £2,000 cap announced for 2029.
- Maternity leave and money: what the year really costs, and what to protect →Statutory maternity pay week by week, why the take-home lost is less than the gross gap, the three things to protect while on leave (the child benefit claim, the pension, the State Pension record), and how part-time afterwards prices out.
The one-earner trap
The charge looks only at the higher partner's adjusted net income: a household with two £59,999 earners keeps every penny while a single £81,000 earner loses it all; long criticised, still the law. Inside the £60,000–£80,000 taper, losing 1% of the benefit per £200 adds a hidden marginal rate: for a three-child family it's roughly 12 extra percentage points on top of 40% tax and 2% NI.
The fix is the same lever as every other taper: pension contributions reduce adjusted net income pound for pound, so a contribution back to £60,000 earns 40%+ relief and restores the benefit. And whatever the income: claim (at zero rate if need be); the claim itself earns NI credits toward a non-working parent's State Pension record. The full Hundred Summers plan applies the charge in every year it bites.