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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Have you all been claiming child benefit for the NI credits?

31 replies

Hazelwood1 · 17/08/2025 21:05

I simply thought it was financial so never claimed it as my husband is a relatively high earner. Am I ridiculously out of touch or were others confused that you had to apply for child benefit in order to get NI credits even though you may not be eligible for any actual money? Am I alone in thinking that they could word it differently?

So I wrote to my MP about it... as this year the government said we could backdate our pension contributions, but my only missing years were when I had young kids. I was wary of paying for those years as I was actually eligible for NI credits as my kids were under 12. ANYWAY my MP wrote back and the good news is that from April 2026 they will apparently let people who didn't claim child benefit, claim their NI credits retrospectively. But the letter the MP forwarded from the DWP was extremely patronising about my apparently inability to have worked it out. It said they promote it on social media and through Health and Social Care's Start 4 Life emails as well as pregnancy and parenting organisations they partner with... AIBU and frankly clueless for not having made the link that benefit = NI credits?

OP posts:
MillingAround · 17/08/2025 21:21

Yes, there was a leaflet I was given at some point when I had my first child that explained it. Due to earnings, we haven’t been entitled to child benefit for a while but I still claimed to get the NI credits. There are still some people that aren’t aware so it clearly needs for awareness.

Coffeeandtats · 17/08/2025 21:12

I had no idea until I read your thread!
I got maternity pay and then went back to work the first time, and the second time I didn’t go back to work, but did end up claiming carers allowance (ds 2 is severely disabled) so I do know that I got my NI credits via that.

I’m a former accountant and I’ll be honest even I think it all needs to be more explicit to people and put in simpler terms

lanthanum · 17/08/2025 21:09

I think it's quite a common mistake. I think it may always have been possible to claim the credits separately, but I understood that would be much more difficult to do, so it seemed simpler to claim it and repay. Plus we discovered that with salary sacrifice into pension, we did get to keep some of it, at least to start with.

katmarie · 17/08/2025 21:09

I knew about this, my kids are 7 and 5 now, I think i learned about it on here though.

Zanatdy · 17/08/2025 21:08

I feel that it’s been quite well known for some time now, though clearly it’s still news to some people.

Ballardz · 17/08/2025 21:07

There have been publicity campaigns about it now and then. Applied both times for both my children. Admittedly I’m not sure if I needed to as I was on maternity leave and then returned to work but figured it would be good to cover any potential gaps.