Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance: HMRC Manuals

Child Benefit Technical Manual

Often referred to as the CBTM for short, this manual sets out how HMRC interpret the law relating to child benefit and guardian’s allowance.

The manual is updated at various periods throughout the year as changes to the law are made. A full list of updates can be found on the GOV.UK website.

The manual is split into thirteen sections. The first eleven relate to child benefit with the twelfth covering guardian’s allowance. The final section contains useful abbreviations. You can click on the section titles below to go to those parts of the manual.

  1. Overview 
  2. Claims, awards and rates
  3. Payments
  4. Third parties 
  5. Overpayments and recoveries/misrepresentation/failure to disclose 
  6. Responsibility for a child or qualifying young person 
  7. Prescribed conditions for a child or qualifying young person 
  8. Exclusions from entitlement and priority between persons entitled 
  9. Entitlement after death of a child or qualifying young person
  10. Residence and immigration 
  11. General and supplementary provisions 
  12. Guardians allowance
  13. Decision making
  14. Abbreviations

This manual is useful if you are looking for information about certain parts of the legislation and can be quoted to HMRC in support of disputes and appeals.

There is a search function for the manual which allows you to search for keywords. (It is a box above the manual on each GOV.UK page.)

Last reviewed/updated 1 July 2022