How does repaying child benefit

[booisbooming]

I'm going for a couple of jobs paying £50-65k pro rata but they are interim contracts. I may well do something like that for 6 months then take a few months off to do a much-less-lucrative freelance project (reasons: cv-boosting and childcare.)

If I did, say, a 3 month temp contract on an annual salary equiv to £62k, would I be treated as though I'm earning £62k immediately? Or is it done on your overall earnings over the course of a whole tax year, which I'd expect would be more like £40k over the next 12 months.

Never hit the threshold before!

annual earnings

Its based on annual earnings in a tax year

Based on earnings. You can continue to claim it and if your annual earnings were over the limit it'd be recovered once you'd done the requisite Self Assessment Return.

Annual earnings. My DH has calculate using any one off bonuses etc.

Ah that's good - seems fairer. Does that mean you don't pay back until the end of a tax year then?

You'll need to sort it out in your annual tax return each year. You have to submit in January for the 12 month period that ended the previous April so you have plenty of time to get together all your payslips and work out whether you have to repay.

Oh that's brilliant, I'm registered self-employed and usually do a mix of employed and self-employed work so keep all that stuff anyway. Thanks!

You fill in a tax return and they confirm what you owe, then you pay. I seem to remember you can subtract certain things so although I earn over £50k I don’t need to pay back child benefit. I got a small rise so I do need to check this year.

Ugh that seems like a pain in the neck for people who are on PAYE then - luckily for me I would already be doing a self-assessment return anyway so nbd.

On PAYE the self assessment doesn't take long if it's just for child benefit.

If you're already doing self assessment its just an extra box to tick and a few more questions.

But from what you've said, you probably won't have to repay any as you keep it all until you earn over £60k after pension contributions so unless your freelance work earns you quite a lot, you'll keep it all.

Yeah and I don't mind repaying if it means I've earned more than 60k, was just worried they'd take it off me immediately and then it'd turn out I earn 40k over the whole year and I'd have lost out. Sounds OK. Thanks all!

You don't repay until you submit a tax return, deadline which for current tax year is January 2026.

You'd need to earn over £80k to have to pay it all back. Between £60 and £80k you'd only pay a proportion back.

But you wait until after the tax year to complete your self assessment and then you'd know if you owe any money back.

It's also switched to being over £60k, rather than £50k

It's now between £60 and £80k that you pay some back with it all paid back at £80k

I googled after posting as I think my pension contributions took me under last year. As it’s now 60k I won’t need to worry. Thank you for flagging @DarkAndTwisties