When child maintenance stops

Child maintenance and child benefit

Child maintenance stops on 31 August on or after your child’s 16th birthday if they leave education or training. It can continue until your child turns 20 if they stay in approved education or training.

Child maintenance is linked to Child Benefit. This means you need to tell HMRC about changes to your child’s education or training, not the Child Maintenance Service.

You only need to tell the HMRC Child Benefit service if your child:

• turns 16 and stays in approved education or training - so child maintenance and Child Benefit continue
• leaves approved education or training later, before they’re 20

If they leave education or training later, child maintenance stops on the last day of February, May, August or November (whichever comes first).

The paying parent may still need to make some payments after regular child maintenance payments stop, for example because they missed payments in the past.

Approved education and training

Education must be full-time (more than an average of 12 hours a week of supervised study or course-related work experience).

This can include:

• A levels or similar, for example Pre-U, International Baccalaureate
• Advanced Technical Awards
• NVQs and most vocational qualifications up to level 3 - excluding intermediate and advanced apprenticeships
• home education - if it started either before your child turned 16 or after 16 if they have special educational needs and disabilities

Your child must be accepted onto the course before they turn 19.

Child Maintenance stops if your child starts studying an ‘advanced’ course, such as a university degree or BTEC Higher National Certificate, or if a course is paid for by an employer.

Approved training should be unpaid and can include:

• in Northern Ireland: PEACE IV Children and Young People 2.1, Training for Success or Skills for Life and Work

Courses that are part of a job contract are not approved.