Extra child benefit payment for children with extensive care needs
If your child lives at home and you have received child benefit at twice the basic rate for a full year from 1 January to 31 December because of your child’s extensive care needs, you may be able to get an extra payment. The extra payment is paid once a year.
It is no longer possible to claim an extra child benefit payment for 2023.
The amount of the extra payment
The extra child benefit payment is a fixed amount of €2,634.17 for 2024. You can only get this payment once, even if you have more than 1 child with extensive care needs.
What are the qualifying conditions?
You can qualify for an extra payment under the child benefit scheme if you have received child benefit at twice the basic rate for all 4 quarters of a calendar year, for a child who lives with you and needs extensive care.
We also take into account the income from work and whether you had a tax partner.
If you did not have a tax partner or you had a tax partner for only part of the year, we will not take your income into account.
Important: the conditions concerning income from work for tax partners changed with effect from 2023.
If you are married or in a registered partnership , you are each other’s ‘tax partner’. You can also be tax partners if you live together.
We will assess your situation to determine whether you and your partner are tax partners.
If you had a tax partner for the whole year, you may still qualify for the extra payment if:
- one tax partner’s income from work for 2024 was more than €6,073 gross; and
- the other tax partner had income from work that was no more than €6,073 gross
The income from work we take into account for the extra child benefit payment is different from the ‘total income’ or the ‘registered income’ used by the Belastingdienst. For the extra payment, we look at the following income:
- wages or salary and any other income from paid employment which is subject to tax. You can find your total taxable income on your annual statement under ‘fiscaal loon’ or ‘loon voor de loonheffing’.
- taxable income from work as a freelancer, home help, performing artist or professional sportsperson
- profit from your company that is taxable
- payments you receive from a person’s personal care budget (PGB) because you provide care for that person
If you declare tax-deductible items such as travel expenses, entrepreneur’s allowances or the SME profit exemption, these will be deducted from your income from work.
Important: the following are not regarded as income from work: pensions, income support, AOW pension, Anw survivor benefit, orphan’s benefit, unemployment benefit (WW benefit), WIA incapacity benefit and Wajong incapacity benefits.
Claiming the extra child benefit payment
You can no longer claim the extra child benefit payment for 2023. If you wish to claim the extra child benefit payment for 2024, you can submit a claim as from mid-January 2025. We will send you a letter with more information on how to claim the extra payment by mid-January 2025. You can submit your claim after you have received that letter.