Child benefit crackdown on claims from abroad after £17m saved

The government is planning a crackdown on people who continue to claim child benefit after leaving the UK, in a move it expects to save £350m over the next five years.

Claimants who are outside the UK for more than eight weeks will generally not be eligible for the benefit unless there are exceptional circumstances.

A new specialist team will use travel data to track if claimants have gone abroad and are no longer entitled to payments.

It follows a pilot which stopped child benefit being incorrectly paid to 2,600 people who had left the UK.

A team of 15 investigators stopped around £17m being incorrectly paid out in less than 12 months.

From next month, more than 200 people will be working on the team.

The government hopes the move will also raise awareness of the rules to avoid people continuing to claim the benefit by mistake when they are abroad for an extended period.

Child benefit is one of the most widely accessed forms of benefit in the UK, paid to more than 6.9 million families.

It is understood the government is now planning to look at other benefits that people are claiming overseas to see if more money can be clawed back.

Overall, benefit fraud has increased since the pandemic, although levels have started to drop in recent years, with renewed efforts by government to tackle the issue.

There was an estimated £6.5bn in benefit overpayments due to fraud in 2024/25, according to figures from the Department for Work and Pensions, equivalent to 2.2% of all benefit expenditure.

Rates of overpayments tend to be higher for means-tested benefits like Universal Credit.

People responsible for children under 16, or under 20 if in approved education or training, can claim child benefit.

It is worth £26.05 a week for the eldest child and £17.25 a week for any younger children.

Claimants must inform HMRC if they go abroad for more than 8 weeks as after this length of time they will no longer be eligible for the benefit, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

The time limit for going abroad for medical treatment or due to the death of a family member is 12 weeks.

Cabinet Office Minister Georgia Gould said: “This government is putting a stop to people claiming benefits when they aren’t eligible to do so.

“From September, we’ll have ten times as many investigators saving hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money.

“If you’re claiming benefits you’re not entitled to, your time is up.”

The pilot, which was carried out by the Public Sector Fraud Authority, the Home Office and HMRC, matched a random sample of 200,000 child benefit records with international travel data.

It was conducted under the Digital Economy Act 2017, which introduced a framework for sharing personal data for specific purposes across parts of the public sector.

Where the data suggested the claimant had left the country, specialist investigators from HMRC performed their own checks before deciding whether benefits were being claimed incorrectly.

The government said every case was reviewed by a human investigator and HMRC would contact families directly as part of any investigation.

It is understood the small amounts involved per individual means it often does not make sense for the government to seek a prosecution if someone is found to be claiming the benefit fraudulently.