Report

Canada Child Benefit - Recent and Projected Growth

Sep 17, 2026

This report examines the drivers of recent growth in Canada Child Benefit expenses between 2022-23 and 2024-25 — including inflation indexation, income growth, and demographic change — and presents the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) outlook for the cost of children's benefits over the medium term.

Highlights

Between benefit year 2022-23 and 2024-25, the annual Canada Child Benefit (CCB) grew by $4.2 billion, rising from $25.0 to $29.2 billion, or more than 16% - higher than the growth of covid-specific temporary CCB enhancements.
This PBO report estimates that 68 per cent of this increase, equivalent to $2.8 billion, stems from the indexation of benefits, which are adjusted each July 1 to CPI inflation ending the preceding September. The significant growth in CCB benefits through automatic adjustments reflected post-pandemic CPI increases from the October 2021 to September 2023 window, when year-over-year inflation reached a high of 8.2%.
For many families, income did not keep pace with inflation during this period. The PBO estimates that the decline in real income for a subset of families receiving CCB explains an additional 25 percent of the increase in benefits.
Finally, a more modest share of CCB growth in the period reflected the higher population of families with children under the age of 18 receiving benefits. This population growth was largely driven by net international migration, which has since moderated so that the number of CCB recipients is estimated to have peaked in benefit year 2025-26.
Of the $4.2 billion increase in benefits over the two-year period, nearly 60 percent, or $2.5 billion, went to families with income over $50,000. For comparison, these families received $12.2 billion in total benefits in 2022-23, about half of total payments. As such, the automatic adjustments built into CCB favoured middle-income families on a relative basis, as compared to base CCB benefits.