Child benefit at twice the basic rate for a child living at home who needs extensive care

If a doctor, specialist or treatment provider has established that your child needs a lot of extra care, for example because of an illness, disorder, condition or disability, you can qualify for child benefit at twice the basic rate. However, your child must also meet all of the following conditions:

• your child is aged 3 to 17
• your child lives at home (sleeps at home at least 4 nights a week)
• Your child has a positive Wlz care indication from the Care Needs Assessment Centre (CIZ )

If your child turns 18, you may still qualify for child benefit at twice the basic rate providing your child meets the following conditions:

• your child is now 18, but on the 1st day of the quarter in which we received your claim, your child was still aged 17
• at that time, your child was living at home (sleeping at home at least 4 nights a week)

If your child meets these conditions, you can apply to us for child benefit at twice the basic rate

If the Care Needs Assessment Centre (CIZ ) gave your child a Wlz care indication on or after 1 July 2024, and you have given the CIZ permission to share your details with us, you do not have to do anything else. We will send you a letter automatically. If your child meets the qualifying conditions, you will automatically get child benefit at twice the basic rate. The qualifying conditions are:

• your child is aged 3 to 17
• your child lives at home (sleeps at home at least 4 nights a week)

If you have refused the CIZ permission to share your details with us, you can still apply for child benefit at twice the basic rate but you will have to send us the application yourself.

If the Care Needs Assessment Centre (CIZ ) gave your child a Wlz care indication before 1 July 2024, and your child meets the following conditions:

• your child is aged 3 to 17
• your child lives at home (sleeps at home at least 4 nights a week)

In that case you can qualify for child benefit at twice the basic rate, but you will have to send us the application yourself.

If your child meets the qualifying conditions, you can apply for child benefit at twice the basic rate. You can find out if your child meets the qualifying conditions by answering the questions further down this page.

We cannot assess your child’s extensive care needs ourselves. That is why we ask the Care Needs Assessment Centre (CIZ ) to give us their medical opinion. The CIZ assesses how much care your child needs and gives us their advice.

The CIZ needs information from you

The CIZ needs information from you in order to establish whether your child needs extensive care. ‘Extensive care’ means that a child needs considerable extra care due to an illness or disorder, which also makes your job as a parent much more difficult. It has also been diagnosed by a doctor, specialist or treatment provider. The CIZ will send you a form asking for details of your child’s illness or disorder.

The CIZ may also have additional questions for care providers, such as support workers, treatment providers or care farms. If so, the CIZ will send you an authorisation form to obtain your permission first.

The information the CIZ gathers will only be used to form the official CIZ opinion that they send to us.

Please return the completed form, all requested medical or other information and the authorisation form to the CIZ on time, so that they can send us their opinion as soon as possible. After we have received the CIZ’s advice, we will decide whether you can receive child benefit at twice the basic rate.

How does the CIZ form its opinion?

The CIZ will make a thorough assessment of your child’s situation based on the information they receive. The assessment consists of 10 areas where your child may need extra care. The CIZ will give points for each of these areas. The total number of points will determine whether their opinion is negative or positive.

If, at the end of the assessment, there are not enough points for the CIZ to give a positive opinion, they will contact you.

If you want to know more about how a child’s care needs are assessed by the CIZ, go to the CIZ website and download the PDF ‘Beoordelingskader’ (only in Dutch).

The CIZ will inform us of their opinion

If their opinion is positive and your child meets all the necessary conditions, you will get child benefit at twice the basic rate. If the opinion is negative, you will not be awarded child benefit at twice the basic rate.

If the Care Needs Assessment Centre (CIZ ) gave your child a Wlz care indication on or after 1 July 2024, or you submitted a claim to us yourself on or after 1 July 2024, we will check whether we can backdate your claim. Child benefit at twice the basic rate can be backdated by a maximum of 2 quarters . How many backdated quarters you can get depends on the date your child met all the necessary conditions, and the date we received your claim.

If you have received child benefit at twice the basic rate for a full year because of your child’s extensive care needs, you may be able to get an extra yearly payment.