Cost of Raising a Child Calculator

Enter your gross household income, your region, your lifestyle level, how you plan to handle childcare, which type of school you are considering, and how many years you want to plan for. Use the Show advanced options button to add your housing situation, which adjusts the housing cost share.

Non-childcare costs (food, clothing, healthcare, recreation, housing) are drawn from Office for National Statistics (ONS) family expenditure data for your region when available. Childcare costs are planning estimates based on registered provider price surveys and HMRC funded-hours policy. Private school fees use ISC (Independent Schools Council) census data. University costs use the regulated £9,250/yr tuition cap plus published accommodation surveys. All these are then adjusted for your region and lifestyle.

Look at the Lifetime Total, Monthly Average, Child Benefit Offset, and % of Gross Income ratio. Under 15% of gross household income is considered affordable. Between 15-25% is manageable. Over 25% is challenging. The Income Impact card below shows the same comparison against your estimated take-home pay, which is often a more intuitive measure.

The Income Impact card estimates how much of your take-home pay goes on child costs each month. It also shows the percentage of your take-home pay, which is more meaningful than the gross percentage because it reflects what you actually have available.

Use the Scenario Comparison to see frugal, average and comfortable costs side by side. Then look at the Transition Spike Planner — it lists the specific ages (primary school start, secondary transition, GCSE/A-level years, university) where a single year costs more than the band average. These are the years to save for in advance.

Costs vary significantly across the UK. London is around 30% above the UK average, while Northern Ireland and the North East are 10-11% below average. The tool adjusts non-childcare costs using ONS regional expenditure data and scales childcare and education by region-specific multipliers based on provider market surveys.

From April 2025, Child Benefit pays £26.05/week for your first child and £17.25/week for each additional child. It is paid until age 16 (or 20 if the child stays in approved education or training). The High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) is based on the higher earner's individual income, not the household total. If the higher earner's adjusted net income exceeds £80,000, the full benefit is clawed back. Between £60,000 and £80,000, it is tapered (1% withdrawn per £200 above £60,000). The tool assumes equal earnings between two parents and calculates HICBC on that basis. If your income is split unevenly, use gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge to check your exact position.

From September 2024, working parents in England with children aged 9 months to 4 years can access up to 30 free hours of childcare per week for 38 weeks of the year (or fewer hours over more weeks). This is called the Free Childcare for Working Parents scheme. Both parents must be working and earning above a minimum threshold. The tool has a tick-box in the childcare section — enable it to see how much the scheme could save you over the first five years. Check your eligibility at gov.uk ↗. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own separate schemes.

This tool shows costs in today's prices (April 2026 baseline). Over 18 years, inflation will push actual costs higher. At 3% average annual inflation, total costs could be 30-40% higher in cash terms by the time your child reaches adulthood. Use the results as a planning baseline and build in a buffer for rising prices.

Real (ONS): drawn from official Office for National Statistics family expenditure data for your region. Estimated: planning values based on market surveys and policy data for childcare, private school and university costs. Calculated: the totals, averages and percentages worked out from your inputs and the data used by the tool.

Each age band (0-2, 3-4, 5-11, 12-18 and optional university years) has an annual cost made up of childcare, food, clothing, healthcare, activities, education, housing and other spending. Each category is adjusted for your region, lifestyle, childcare intensity and housing status. The annual cost for each band is multiplied by the number of years in that band. All bands are then added together to give the lifetime total. Child Benefit is calculated separately and shown as an offset.

The tool applies a 15% discount to costs for a second (or subsequent) child. This reflects the shared fixed costs — equipment, car seat, clothing hand-me-downs, existing childcare relationships — that reduce the marginal cost of each additional child. Housing costs are discounted more (via the housing status setting) because many families are already in a family-sized home by the time a second child arrives.

Use UK Budget Income Planner to map your full monthly household budget, UK Tax Optimiser to calculate your exact take-home pay, Mortgage Reality Check to check whether you can afford a larger family home, and Degree ROI Simulator to think about whether university will be worth it financially for your child.