What you can actually claim

What you can claim

One-Parent Family Payment — and the age that ends it

One-Parent Family Payment is the main payment for parenting alone in Ireland. The maximum personal rate is €254 (€264 from January 2027) a week, plus a Child Support Payment of €58 (€64 from January 2027) for each child under 12 and €78 (€84 from January 2027) for each child aged 12 or over.

The condition that catches people is the age: you must have at least one child under 7. Not under 18 — under 7. When your youngest turns 7, OFP stops.

You can work and keep it — the first €165 (€175 from July 2027) is ignored

Working does not end your One-Parent Family Payment. The first €165 (€175 from July 2027) of your gross weekly earnings is not counted at all. Above that, half the remainder is assessed, so you keep a reduced payment rather than losing it.

Two things worth knowing before you take extra hours:

• Savings are largely ignored. The first €20,000 of capital is not taken into account, and your own home never is.
• Maintenance is only half-assessed, and if you pay rent or a mortgage you can offset it — up to €95.23 a week — against the maintenance before half the balance is counted. People routinely declare the full maintenance figure and never claim the offset.

The honest caution is that OFP and Working Family Payment taper together, so the extra hours are worth less than the payslip suggests. Our Better Off Working calculator shows what you would actually keep before you commit.

The two payments you can hold at the same time

Most people assume one payment cancels another. For lone parents there are two important exceptions, both stated by Citizens Information:

• OFP and half-rate Carer's Allowance together. If you are caring full-time for one of your children or for an adult relative, you can keep OFP and claim half-rate Carer's Allowance — until your youngest child turns 16, which is nine years beyond the age at which OFP itself would normally end.
• OFP and Blind Pension together, with the Child Support Payment paid alongside both.

The tax credit worth €1,900 that has to be claimed

The Single Person Child Carer Credit is €1,900 a year, and it is not applied automatically — you claim it from Revenue. It goes to the parent the child lives with for most of the year, and that parent can surrender it to the other parent if they choose.

Revenue's four-year rule applies, so if you have not claimed it you can go back four tax years. That is up to €7,600 sitting unclaimed for someone who never knew it existed.

What else to check

• Working Family Payment — the income limit for one child is €765 a week, and it is measured on income after tax, not gross. A lot of people rule themselves out against the wrong number.
• Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance — €160 or €285 a child, and applications close on 30 September each year.
• Medical card or GP visit card — assessed on net income with rent, childcare and travel-to-work costs deducted first.
• Additional Needs Payment — for one-off essential costs your weekly income cannot cover. Decided locally by a Community Welfare Officer.

Every figure on this page is checked against its official source automatically and was last verified on 10 September 2026. If a rate moves, a check on our side fails and we are told.

Common questions

General information, not financial or legal advice. Rules and amounts change — confirm the current details on the official source (Revenue.ie, Gov.ie, Gov.uk or Citizens Information) before you claim.