CHILD BENEFIT

tdonegan1990

Hey guys,
Just wondering is child benefit paid from date baby is born or date when birth was registered? As our baby was born in november but wasn't registerd until Januaray!

Any info much appreciated

The_Conductor

Child benefit is paid from the first day of the month after the birth of the child is born. Aka- if your child is born in November- you are entitled to Child Benefit for December and subsequent months. The payment is only initiated once you register the birth- which must be done within 3 months of the birth of the child. Part of registering the birth is assigning a PPSN to the child, which is immediately notified to the Department of Social and Family Affairs, who would normally send you a letter at this point automatically, asking for bank details etc (unless you have other children in which case they will add the new child onto your pre-existing claim). Lately they have been randomly sending out letters with details of how to do your child benefit claim online (they have only been doing this with a limited number of customers- testing the systems as it were, before they roll it out to everyone).

Hope this helps.

In your case- as you will not have registered the claim in time for a Dec or Jan payment- you would be entitled to arrears for these two months. How the arrears might be processed or paid- would have to be clarified directly with the DSFA- but it would most probably be included in the Feb payment on the first Tuesday in February (providing you've sent the paperwork back in time- or if you haven't- then its the first Tuesday in March).