Tax Credits: Codes of practice
The tax credits system ended on 5 April 2025. This section of the site remains in place for ongoing tax credit issues such as tax credit debts, disputes, appeals, complaints and compliance checks.
These are important documents issued by HMRC to say what their practice is in certain situations. They are not legally binding and can be overturned by the courts, although this has happened very rarely in practice. Below we have given details of all current codes as well as links to archived versions that are useful for dealing with older disputes and appeals.
Current Codes of Practice
Archived Codes of Practice
For 2025/26 there is only one COP in tax credits setting out how HMRC deal with overpayments of tax credits. This will also be helpful for advisers dealing with post 6 April 2025 disputes and appeals.
- COP 26 (April 2025) - Tax credits: What happens if we've paid you too much tax credits?
You can find more information about challenging overpayments in our ‘how to deal with HMRC’ section.
The codes that appear below are no longer in use and are presented here for information purposes only. Earlier versions of COP 26 are useful when dealing with old disputes and appeals.
Previous versions of Cop 26 -
- COP 26 (2024)
- COP 26 (2023)
- COP 26 (2022)
- COP 26 (2021)
- COP 26 (2020)
- COP 26 (2019)
- COP 26 (2018)
- COP 26 (2017)
- COP 26 (2016)
- COP 26 (2015)
- COP 26 (2014)
- COP 26 (2013)
- COP 26 (2012)
- COP 26 (2011)
- COP 26 (2010)
- COP 26 (Mar 2008)
- COP 26 (Feb 2008)
- COP 26 (Jan 2008)
- COP 26 (2007)
- COP 26 (2006)
- COP 26 (2004)
- COP 26 (2003)
Last reviewed/updated 9 April 2025