Canada Child Benefit

Canada Child Benefit: How Much You Get and What an Extra Dollar of Income Costs

For the July 2026 to June 2027 benefit year, the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) pays up to $8,157 a year for each child under 6 and $6,883 for each child aged 6 to 17. It shrinks as your adjusted family net income (AFNI) for 2025 rises: by 7% of every dollar above $38,237 for one child, up to 23% for four or more, and by a smaller rate again above $82,847. A family with one child under 6 and $45,000 of AFNI gets about $7,684 a year, or roughly $640 a month. The payment is tax-free, so every dollar it loses is a dollar you do not get back at filing time. Everything below is the CRA's published sheet run at stated incomes, so a family can find its own row.

The two reduction bands

The CRA's calculation sheet for this benefit year has one maximum per child and two bands of reduction. Everything else in this guide is that sheet run with different incomes.

The percentage depends on how many children are in your care.

The fixed amount is not a separate penalty. It is the most the first band can take, rounded to the dollar. The band is $44,610 wide ($82,847 minus $38,237), and 7% of $44,610 is $3,122.70, which the CRA rounds to $3,123. For two children, 13.5% of $44,610 is $6,022.35, shown as $6,022; for three, 19% gives $8,475.90, shown as $8,476; for four, 23% gives $10,260.30, shown as $10,260. Once you are past the top of the first band, the reduction carries on from where the first band stopped, at the lower rate. The formula therefore has no cliff. The benefit slides down continuously, and it only changes slope at two points.

Two details about the sheet are easy to miss. The rate depends on the number of children, not on their ages, but the maximum depends on the ages. The reduction is also subtracted from the family's total maximum, not from each child's amount, so a family with one child under 6 and one aged 12 starts from $15,040 and loses 13.5% of the income over $38,237. The rate steps up only with the count of children, and it tops out at four.

What counts as AFNI

AFNI is the net family income from your return and, if you have a spouse or common-law partner, theirs. The CRA starts from line 23600 for each person, subtracts any Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) and Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP) income received, and adds back any UCCB or RDSP amounts repaid. It is a figure after deductions, which is why an RRSP deduction lowers it and why the same pay can produce different AFNI for two families. Income tax is the other half of the arithmetic, and the brackets behind it are in the income tax brackets guide.

Because it is a combined figure, the split between two partners does not matter. A couple earning $70,000 and $0 and a couple earning $35,000 each have the same AFNI of $70,000, and the same CCB. That is unlike income tax, where the split matters a great deal. It also means the CCB does not reward moving income between spouses, though the tax saving from splitting may still be worth having.

The benefit year runs from July to June, and the amount is based on the previous calendar year. The July 2026 to June 2027 payments use 2025 income. The CRA recalculates every July from the latest return, and amounts are indexed to inflation. That timing has a practical consequence: the income that sets your payments is the income of a year that is already over, so only deductions you can still claim on that year's return can change it. For an RRSP, the CRA's guide for the 2025 tax year gives March 2, 2026 as the last day to contribute and still deduct the amount on the 2025 return, which means an RRSP contribution made in the first two months of 2026 could still lower the income the July 2026 payments are based on.

The CRA's example, then two more built the same way

The CRA's own example is a family with one child under 6 and an AFNI of $45,000.

The CRA shows the monthly payment as $640.29. A little rounding separates that from $7,683.59 divided by 12, which is $640.30, so read the monthly figure as "about $640."

Here is a second family, with two children, one under 6 and one aged 9, and an AFNI of $70,000.

A third family has three children, one under 6 and two aged 6 to 17, and an AFNI of $100,000. This one is above the top of the first band.

Both of these were computed by hand from the sheet's figures. They match the CRA's published rates, but they are not an output of the CRA's own estimator, which is the place to check a real family's number before relying on it.

The full table: four family sizes at twelve incomes

To see the shape of the benefit, the table below uses a fixed set of children for each size: one child under 6 plus the rest aged 6 to 17. Every number is the annual CCB in dollars for July 2026 to June 2027, rounded to the nearest dollar.

Three patterns are worth noticing. The drop from $40,000 to $80,000 is steep and almost perfectly linear, because it is a single rate applied over a long stretch. After about $83,000 the line flattens, which is why the gap between $90,000 and $100,000 is much smaller than the gap between $70,000 and $80,000. And the benefit does not stop at the income most people think of as "high." A single parent with one young child still receives $1,285 at $200,000.

The table assumes the children are in your care full-time. If custody is shared, each parent receives 50% of the amount they would get with full custody, worked out from their own AFNI. A parent with one child under 6 in shared care and an AFNI of $45,000 would receive half of $7,683.59, or about $3,842.

Why the child's age matters by $1,274 each

A child under 6 is worth $1,274 more per year than a child aged 6 to 17: $8,157 minus $6,883. The reduction rate depends on the number of children and not on their ages, so swapping an under-6 child for a 6-to-17 child takes exactly $1,274 off the family's benefit at any income where the benefit has not already reached zero. Read the full table as a baseline and adjust from it.

Take a family of three children, all aged 6 to 17, with an AFNI of $70,000. The maximum is 3 × $6,883 = $20,649. The reduction is 19% of ($70,000 − $38,237), which is 19% of $31,763, or $6,035 to the nearest dollar. The benefit is $20,649 − $6,035 = $14,614. The table's three-child column, with one child under 6, shows $15,888 at the same income. The gap between the two, $1,274, is the age difference and nothing else.

This also explains a pattern in real payments. When a child turns 6, the family's maximum drops by $1,274 a year, so the benefit falls by that much even though income has not changed. The drop is one of the few CCB changes you can see coming years in advance.

Where the benefit reaches zero

Above the top of the first band, the benefit equals the maximum minus the fixed amount, minus the rate on the excess. Setting that to zero gives the AFNI at which the payment ends.

The formula for each is $82,847 + (maximum − fixed amount) ÷ rate. For one child under 6 that is $82,847 + ($8,157 − $3,123) ÷ 0.032 = $82,847 + $157,312.50 = $240,159.50. For one child aged 6 to 17, ($6,883 − $3,123) ÷ 0.032 = $117,500, so the benefit ends at $200,347. Families far above the median income still get something, and a family with four children at the AFNI where a two-child family has already lost everything is receiving more than $2,000.

What an extra dollar costs: the CCB rate on top of tax

The reduction rates are a second tax, in effect. When AFNI is in the first band, each dollar of extra income loses 7 to 23 cents of CCB in addition to income tax. The table is for a single parent in Ontario with two children, so AFNI equals earnings. The tax column is the combined federal and Ontario rate on the next dollar, from a model built on the CRA's T4127 rates and the basic personal amounts. It includes the Ontario surtax, the Health Premium and Ontario's low-income individuals and families (LIFT) tax credit, which Ontario's website describes as the lesser of $875 or 5.05% of employment income, reduced by 5% of the greater of individual net income over $32,500 or family net income over $65,000, so that it ends at $50,000 of individual income or $82,500 of family income. For a single parent the two tests are the same. That credit wipes out most Ontario income tax at $30,000 and is clawed back at 5 cents on the dollar between $32,500 and $50,000, which is why the Ontario part of the rate is zero in the first row and the combined rate jumps in the second. The model leaves out other credits that depend on personal circumstances, the GST/HST credit, provincial child benefits and the Canada Workers Benefit, and the second-earner case below, which has a family income above $65,000, gets no LIFT.

The remarkable part is the middle of the table. A parent at $60,000 keeps 56.85 cents of an extra dollar, while a parent at $90,000 keeps 64.65 cents, and a parent at $40,000 keeps only 62.45 cents because the LIFT credit is being clawed back at the same time. The parent at $40,000 is, for the moment, taxed more heavily at the margin than the one at $90,000, which sits in the lower CCB band. And the same arithmetic runs in reverse for deductions: a dollar not earned or a dollar deducted gains back the combined rate, not the tax rate alone.

These tables are planning tools. They do not include provincial child benefits that some provinces add, the GST/HST credit, or the Canada Workers Benefit, each of which has its own phase-out. The tax figures come from a model that uses only basic personal amounts, the Ontario LIFT credit and no deductions other than CPP, so a real return can differ. And the CCB itself is recalculated yearly with indexation, so every figure here has an expiry date of June 2027.

RRSP contributions, with the CCB gain added

An RRSP deduction lowers net income, which lowers AFNI, so it raises the CCB. A deduction is worth the income tax saved plus the CCB reduction avoided. The table uses a couple with two children (one under 6, one aged 6 to 17) where the higher earner makes a $6,000 RRSP contribution and claims the deduction. The saving is the difference between that earner's tax with and without the deduction from the same model.

In the first household the CCB gain is $810, which is 13.5% of $6,000, because the deduction stays inside the first band. In the other two it is $342, which is 5.7% of $6,000, because the deductions stay inside the second band. The tax figure is larger at $75,000 because the deduction brings the earner's income under the $72,000 line where the Ontario Health Premium steps up, in addition to the 29.65% bracket rate.

This is why a CCB family's RRSP contribution is worth more than the usual marginal-rate arithmetic says, and why the question of RRSP versus TFSA changes with children. The RRSP vs TFSA guide works the general case. For a family inside the 13.5% band, a TFSA contribution gives no CCB benefit at all, and an RRSP contribution does.

A smaller version of the same effect applies to other deductions. For a self-employed parent, the employer-equivalent half of CPP contributions is a deduction. On $60,000 of net self-employment income, the CPP deductions bring net income down to about $56,073, and the CCB responds to that lower figure.

The reverse: one-off income and withdrawals

Anything that adds to net income reduces the next year's CCB. A $10,000 bonus paid in a year when a two-child family sits at $70,000 pushes AFNI to $80,000 and takes $1,350 off the following benefit year, which is 13.5% of $10,000. At the earner's 29.65% marginal rate plus the 13.5% CCB loss, the family keeps about 57 cents of each bonus dollar, not the 70 cents the tax rate alone suggests. The same arithmetic applies to an RRSP withdrawal, a taxable capital gain or a severance payment. A withdrawal of $10,000 from an RRSP costs the tax on it plus the same $1,350 in this family, and it is covered in more detail in RRSP withdrawal tax in Canada.

The lagged timing cuts both ways. The year that sets your payments is already over by the time the payments start, so a one-off in 2026 reduces the benefit year that begins in July 2027, not the one you are in. There is nothing to do about it after the fact, but it is worth knowing when you decide which tax year a large gain, a bonus or a withdrawal falls in.

A second earner joins: what the household keeps

The same arithmetic answers a question many two-parent families ask: is it worth the second parent going back to work? Take the family above with two children, one under 6 and one aged 9, and a family net income of $60,000 from one earner. The second parent takes a job at $25,000 a year.

The household keeps about 75 cents of each dollar earned, because most of the new income lands in the 13.5% band and the last $1,938 of it crosses into the lower band at $82,847. The new income ($24,785 after the CPP enhancement deduction) pushes AFNI above the line, and the part above the line costs 5.7% instead of 13.5%. Ontario's LIFT credit does not help here: with family income over $65,000 the 5% family test removes the $875 maximum before the household reaches $84,785. The figures also leave out work-related costs such as child care, which change the answer for a real family.

How much income costs $1,000 of CCB

For planning, the useful form of the rates is the reverse one: how much extra AFNI it takes to lose $1,000 of benefit.

A family of four with an AFNI of $60,000 loses a thousand dollars of CCB for each extra $4,348 of income, before any tax. A one-child family needs more than three times that.

Child disability benefit and tax

Children eligible for the disability tax credit may qualify for an additional child disability benefit of up to $3,480 a year, or $290 a month, added to the CCB payment. Like the CCB itself it is reduced as family net income rises above a threshold, which the CRA gives as $82,847. CCB payments are not taxable. They do not appear as income on your return and are not part of AFNI in the following year. Provincial benefits that sit beside the CCB, and the other Canadian tax and benefits guides, follow different rules and need their own checks. RRSP withdrawal tax in Canada works the case of a family that takes money out of a plan and sees the benefit shrink.

Sources

• CRA, "How we calculate your Canada child benefit" (amounts for July 2026 to June 2027, reduction rates and fixed amounts, AFNI definition, shared custody, child disability benefit, tax treatment): https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/canada-child-benefit-overview/canada-child-benefit-we-calculate-your-ccb.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• CRA, indexed personal income tax and benefit amounts for 2026 (CCB base benefit amounts and income thresholds; federal brackets and basic personal amount): https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/frequently-asked-questions-individuals/adjustment-personal-income-tax-benefit-amounts.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• CRA, T4127 Payroll Deductions Formulas, 122nd Edition (federal and Ontario rates, surtax, Ontario Health Premium, basic personal amounts used in the tax model): https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/payroll/t4127-payroll-deductions-formulas/t4127-jan/t4127-jan-payroll-deductions-formulas-computer-programs.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Family tables, the second-earner case and the marginal rates are hand calculations on the CRA sheet and the T4127 and Ontario LIFT rules, so a family's own figure should be checked in the CRA's estimator. Ontario LIFT: https://www.ontario.ca/page/low-income-individuals-and-families-tax-credit (checked October 23, 2026).