Benefits for Students in Scotland Handbook 2023/24Part 1: Benefits and tax credits Chapter 3: Child benefit
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Chapter 3: Child benefit
Basic facts
    •Child benefit is paid to people who are responsible for a child or a ‘qualifying young person’.
    •Both full-time and part-time students can claim child benefit.
    •If you are under 20, someone else may be able to claim child benefit for you if you are studying.
    •Child benefit is not means tested.
1. What is child benefit
Child benefit is paid to people who are responsible for a child or ‘qualifying young person’. You do not have to have paid national insurance contributions to qualify for child benefit. It is not means tested, so the amount you get is not affected by your student loan, grant or other income. If you earn over £60,000 and you or your partner get child benefit, you may have extra income tax to pay (known as the ‘high-income child benefit charge’).
2. Who is eligible
You qualify for child benefit if:1ss141-47 SSCBA 1992
    •you are responsible for a child or ‘qualifying young person’ – ie:
      ◦they live with you; or
      ◦you contribute to the cost of supporting them at a rate of at least the amount of child benefit for them; and
    •you have priority over other potential claimants. Only one person can get child benefit for a particular child. There is an order of priority for who receives it where two or more people would otherwise be entitled; and
    •you are ‘present and ordinarily resident’ in Britain, not a ‘person subject to immigration control’ and have a ‘right to reside’. These terms are explained in CPAG’s Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook.
You do not have to be the child’s parent to claim child benefit for them.
Being a student, whether full or part time, does not affect your entitlement to child benefit.
If you are a ‘qualifying young person’, your parent or someone else who is responsible for you may be able to claim child benefit. You cannot, however, claim child benefit for yourself.
If a qualifying young person gets universal credit, income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, working tax credit or child tax credit in their own right, any child benefit paid for the young person stops.
If a young person lives with a partner, or is married or in a civil partnership, you can get child benefit for them if they live with you or you still contribute to their support, but only if their partner is in ‘relevant education’ or approved training. The young person’s partner cannot be the claimant.
In some circumstances, special rules apply – eg, if your child is being looked after by a local authority or is in prison or a young offenders’ institution.
 
1     ss141-47 SSCBA 1992 »
Who counts as a child
Anyone aged under 16 counts as a ‘child’ for child benefit purposes, whether or not they go to school. Provided you meet the other qualifying conditions, child benefit can be paid for them.1s142(1) SSCBA 1992; reg 4 CB Regs Child benefit can also be paid for a child after they reach 16 until at least 31 August after their 16th birthday, and then for as long as they continue to count as a ‘qualifying young person’.
 
1     s142(1) SSCBA 1992; reg 4 CB Regs »
Who counts as a qualifying young person
A ‘qualifying young person’ is someone who:1s142(2) SSCBA 1992; regs 2-8 CB Regs
    •is aged 16 and has left full-time, non-advanced education (see below) or training. This only applies up to 31 August after their 16th birthday (but see below); or
    •is aged 16 or 17, has left education or training and satisfies the extension period rule (see here); or
    •is aged 16 or over but under 20 and is on a course of full-time, non-advanced education not provided as a result of their employment, or approved training not provided under a contract of employment. ‘Approved training’ is defined as arrangements known as ‘No One Left Behind’.2Reg 1(3) CB Regs The young person must have started the course or training before reaching 19, or have been accepted or enrolled to undertake it before that age; or
    •is aged 16 or over but under 20 and has finished a course of full-time, non-advanced education not provided as a result of their employment, or approved training not provided under a contract of employment, but is accepted or enrolled on another such course. Note: if the course they have finished is an approved training course, this only applies if the following course is also approved training. Although someone must have started, or been accepted or enrolled on, the training or education when they were under 19 to be a qualifying young person once the course begins, the rules do not specify this for the gap between courses.3Reg 3 CB Regs If the young person was accepted or enrolled after reaching age 19, you can argue that they are a qualifying young person from the end of the course until the next course begins; or
    •is aged 16 or over but under 20 and has left full-time, non-advanced education or approved training but has not passed their terminal date (see here).
 
Full-time, non-advanced education
‘Full time’ is more than 12 hours a week of classes and supervised study during term time.
‘Non-advanced education‘ is anything below degree, Higher National Certificate or Higher National Diploma level, and includes school-level courses, Scottish Vocational Qualification levels 1–3, National Certificates, National Progression Awards and Scottish Wider Access Programme courses.
If your child counts as a qualifying young person on more than one of the above grounds, they count as a qualifying young person until the last day that applies.4Reg 2(2) CB Regs
If you stop being entitled to child benefit for your child because they no longer count as a qualifying young person, but they later satisfy one of the above conditions again and so count as a qualifying young person once more, child benefit can again become payable for them. Note: in some cases, you can continue to claim during such an interruption - eg, if the young person is ill or the gap is less than six months. In both cases, the interruption must be accepted as being reasonable.5Reg 6 CB Regs
Note: in the rest of this chapter, the term ‘child’ is used to mean both children under 16 and qualifying young people aged 16 or over.
 
1     s142(2) SSCBA 1992; regs 2-8 CB Regs »
2     Reg 1(3) CB Regs »
3     Reg 3 CB Regs »
4     Reg 2(2) CB Regs »
5     Reg 6 CB Regs »
The extension period
If your child is 16 or 17, they continue to count as a qualifying young person, and so child benefit can continue to be paid for them, during an ‘extension period’ if:1Reg 5 CB Regs
    •they have left education or training; and
    •they are registered as available for work, education or training with Skills Development Scotland; and
    •they are not in remunerative work – ie, work of 24 hours a week or more for payment or in expectation of payment; and
    •you were entitled to child benefit for them immediately before the extension period started; and
    •you apply in writing or by telephone within three months of the date your child’s education or training finished.
In this context, ‘education’ and ‘training’ are not defined and so may mean any kind of education or training.
The extension period starts from the Monday after your child’s course of education or training ends and lasts for 20 weeks from that date. If your child reaches 18 during the extension period, unless they count as a qualifying young person on another ground, your child benefit for them ends from the first child benefit payday on or after which they reach 18.2Reg 14 The Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance (Administration) Regulations 2003 No.492; reg 5(3) CB Regs
 
1     Reg 5 CB Regs »
2     Reg 14 The Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance (Administration) Regulations 2003 No.492; reg 5(3) CB Regs »
The terminal date
If your child leaves full-time, non-advanced education (see here) or approved training before reaching 20, they continue to count as a qualifying young person until either:1Reg 7 CB Regs
    •the ‘terminal date’; or
    •their 20th birthday, if this falls before the terminal date.
The general rule means that unless they continue to count as a qualifying young person on another ground or are returning to sit an exam (see below), you stop receiving child benefit for them on that date.
The terminal date
Your child’s ‘terminal date’ is the first of the following dates that falls after the date their full-time, non-advanced education or approved training finishes:
– the last day in February;
– the last day in May;
– the last day in August;
– the last day in November.
If someone is doing a Higher Certificate or Advanced Higher Certificate and leaves full-time, non-advanced education earlier than they would have done if they were doing a comparable course in England and Wales, the terminal date is the one that would have applied had they had been doing the comparable course.2Reg 7(2) case 1.3 CB Regs
A child who returns to sit an external examination in connection with their course of relevant education is treated as still being in relevant education until the date of the last exam.3Reg 7(2) case 2.1 CB Regs
 
1     Reg 7 CB Regs »
2     Reg 7(2) case 1.3 CB Regs »
3     Reg 7(2) case 2.1 CB Regs »
3. Amount of benefit
Weekly rate from April 2024
Child
Payment
Eldest eligible child
£25.60
Other children
£16.95
4. Claiming child benefit
Child benefit is administered by HMRC. You can claim online at tax.service.gov.uk/fill-online/claim-child-benefit, or you can claim on Form CH2, which you can get from the Child Benefit Office on 0300 200 3100, or gov.uk/government/publications/child-benefit-claim-form-ch2. The form can be completed online, but must be printed, signed and sent by post.
You should make a claim within three months of becoming eligible. This is because your claim can usually only be backdated for up to three months. You do not have to show any reasons why your claim was late.
Getting paid
Child benefit is usually paid directly into your bank (or similar) account. Which account it goes into is up to you. If you do not want your benefit to go into an account that is overdrawn, give HMRC details of an alternative account if you have access to, or can open, one.
5. Challenging a decision
If you think a decision about your child benefit is wrong, you can ask HMRC to look at it again. This process is known as a ‘mandatory reconsideration’. Provided you ask within the time limit (usually one month), HMRC notifies you of the decision in a ‘mandatory reconsideration notice’. If you are still not happy when you get this notice, you can appeal to the independent First-tier Tribunal. If it was not possible to ask HMRC to reconsider the decision within a month, you can ask for a late revision (within 13 months), explaining why it is late. You can also ask HMRC to look at a decision again at any time if certain grounds are met – eg, if there has been an official error.
6. Other benefits and tax credits
Child benefit is ignored as income for universal credit, income-related employment and support allowance and housing benefit. If you get child tax credit, child benefit is ignored as income for income support (IS) and income-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA). However, if you have been getting IS or income-based JSA since before 6 April 2004 that includes amounts for your child(ren), child benefit is taken into account as income.
Child benefit is taken into account when calculating whether the benefit cap applies (see here).