HM Revenue and Customs has apologised for an error which saw around half a million people fail to receive their regular child benefit payment yesterday.
Around 30% of child benefit payments due to go out yesterday were not sent, affecting around 500,000 people.
The issue was caused by a processing error which has now been resolved. HMRC said it now expects these people to receive the payment tomorrow.
A spokesperson for HMRC said: “We are very sorry that some customers did not receive their scheduled child benefit payments as expected and we understand the concern and difficulty this may have caused. We have now fixed the problem and are putting measures in place to prevent this from happening again.
"Affected customers will now receive their payments on Wednesday morning (5th June). Anyone who has incurred a direct financial loss because of the delayed payment can apply for redress by completing our online complaints form.”
Child benefit is paid to most recipients every four weeks on either a Monday or Tuesday. The issue that caused payment problems yesterday has not impacted payments scheduled for today.
As of August 2023, there were 6.91 million families in receipt of child benefit payments.