Missed the tax credit renewal deadline? Contact HMRC as soon as possible

After the tax year ends, HMRC use a ‘renewals process’ to confirm your income and your circumstances for the tax year just ended (2021/22). This allows them to finalise your tax credits entitlement for the year just ended and to set up your claim for the new tax year (2022/23). HMRC automatically finalise and renew some claims. In these cases you only need to contact HMRC if something is wrong on your notice or if anything has changed.  

For all other claims, HMRC will ask you to check the information in your renewal pack and to give them your income information for the tax year that has just ended (2021/22). These are often called ‘reply-required’ renewals and you must contact HMRC by the 31 July deadline to give them the information they need to renew your claim. Renewal packs that require a reply by 31 July have a red line across the first page.    

See our section on tax credit renewals for more information.  

I missed the 31 July deadline. Why does it matter? 

If you were required to contact HMRC by 31 July to declare your income and circumstances and you did not do so, HMRC will stop your tax credit payments. They will also ask you to pay back all payments made to you from 6 April. This is because failure to renew means that there is no new claim for the 2022/23 tax year. As there is no claim, any payments received from 6 April 2022 will be overpaid. 

I missed the deadline and my tax credit payments have stopped, can I get them re-started? 

You may be able to get them re-started but you need to be quick.

If your payments have stopped, you should receive a letter from HMRC (called a statement of account) saying you need to repay all payments you have had since 6 April. If you contact HMRC to complete your renewal before you get that letter or within 30 days of the date on that letter, HMRC can complete your renewal and re-instate your tax credits from 6 April so that your award can continue. 

If you miss this 30-day deadline, then HMRC can only reinstate your claim and payments from 6 April if you: 

• Contact HMRC by 31 January 2023; and
   
• You can show HMRC that you had good cause for missing the 31 July deadline and the 30 day restore period.  

If you do this but have claimed universal credit in the meantime, HMRC can reinstate your tax credits up to the day before your universal credit award starts. 

If HMRC cannot reinstate your claim, all the tax credit payments you have had from 6 April 2022 will be treated as overpaid and you will need to pay them back. You will not be able to make a fresh claim for tax credits, see Who can claim tax credits?.

If this happens and you need to claim financial support, you may be able to claim universal credit or pension credit (depending on your age and circumstances). The rules for universal credit are different to tax credits. Speak to a welfare rights specialist before making any claim for universal credit. They will be able to tell you how claiming universal credit affects any other benefits you are claiming. See our Getting Help section. 

I don’t know my income figure for 2021/22 yet, what can I do? 

Don’t delay your renewal. If you don’t have your actual income figure for the tax year 2021/22 yet, you can still complete your renewal by giving HMRC an estimate of your income – you should tell HMRC it is an estimate. If you do this, you must give HMRC your actual income figure by 31 January 2023. 

I got an auto-renewal pack this year. I didn’t contact HMRC as everything on my renewal form looked correct, should I do anything? 

As long as you checked the information about you was correct, HMRC should have already finalised your award for 2021/22 and set up your new claim for 2022/23 after 31 July. Unless there has been a change since then, HMRC won’t send you a new award notice for 2022/23 because details of your new award were shown in your renewal paperwork. You can also use HMRC’s on-line tax credits service to check your award and your payments.