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

[Hazelwood1]

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?

There was an option to buy missing years, but I think it may have closed recently.

Check for NI gaps and make voluntary payments

It’s not difficult at all. It’s been a while since I did it, but I think it was just a case of signing up for child benefit then following up with a letter/email/form (can’t remember) to say you were only claiming the NI benefits. Then they send you a letter confirming this. Marginally more complicated than just claiming child benefit, but more straightforward than having to pay it back every year as you only have to do it once and there’s no working out of earnings involved.

I have been aware of this system for a long time, despite not needing to claim personally because I am have never been a SAHP. I assumed that this was the reason why a lot of families continue to claim CB despite being over the threshold.

I'm quite surprised that you and some other posters weren't aware of it if you were hoping to get your contributions covered for the years you were at home. Did it never occur to you that you might need to claim those contributions in some way and to go looking for info?

In the letter from my MP it says that they will backdate NI credits for child benefit until 2013. The ability to apply for this will come into place in April 2026.

I often chat to my colleagues about this and pensions etc (large organisation). It's surprising the amount of female colleagues that don't actually know they should claim cb for the NI contributions. This is despite us only receiving statutory maternity pay after 3 months company pay.

Loads of colleagues seem to think that their husbands/partners earn too much, so they won't be entitled. I don't think the information is openly available as much as it should be. In fact, I'm sure I learned about it all on here.