Family Tax Benefit Rates 2026-27: Part A & Part B Explained

General information only. This is not tax or financial advice, nor financial-counselling advice. FTB rates and thresholds are indexed and can change — confirm current figures with Services Australia before relying on them.

Family Tax Benefit rates lift on 1 July most years, but a lot of the guidance still in circulation is quietly stuck on last financial year’s numbers. If a page you’re reading quotes a Part A free area under $69,000 or doesn’t mention the $123,078 higher threshold, it’s describing 2025-26 — not the rates that apply now. Here are the 2026-27 FTB Part A and Part B rates, in full, with both income tests explained.

FTB Part A: maximum and base rates

Part A is paid per child and scales with each child’s age. The maximum rate applies while your family’s income is under the free area; above that it steps down toward a base rate that keeps paying even at higher incomes.

These are annual rates — Services Australia pays FTB fortnightly (or as a lump sum after the year), so the fortnightly amount is roughly the annual figure divided by 26. The step-up at age 13 reflects the higher cost of teenagers who are still in secondary school; a family with a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old is assessed on two different maximum rates, not one blended figure.

The Part A income test: two methods

Part A’s income test runs in two stages, and knowing which one you’re in matters for planning.

Method 1 — the free area and the 20c taper. You get the maximum rate if your family’s adjusted taxable income is $69,131 or less. Above $69,131, your maximum-rate Part A reduces by 20 cents for every dollar over the free area. This taper only ever brings you down to the base rate ($1,971.00 per child) — it can’t push you below it by itself.

Method 2 — the higher threshold and the 30c taper. Once family income passes a much higher threshold — $123,078 (Services Australia may adjust this threshold for larger families) — a second test applies. Above this higher threshold, the base rate itself reduces by 30 cents for every dollar over the threshold, until it phases out to nil. Families below the higher threshold keep the full base rate regardless of how the Method 1 taper landed.

So the sequence for a family above $69,131 is: apply the 20c taper to bring the maximum rate down to the base rate, then — only if income also exceeds $123,078 — apply the 30c taper to reduce the base rate itself. A family earning $90,000 with two young children is in Method 1 territory only (paying a reduced-but-above-base rate); a family earning $140,000 has already floored at the base rate and is now losing that base rate at 30c/$1 under Method 2.

Adjusted taxable income for both tests is broader than your payslip: it adds back reportable fringe benefits, reportable super contributions, net investment losses (negative gearing included), and certain foreign income on top of your taxable income.

FTB Part B: maximum rates

Part B is a second, separate payment layered on top of Part A for single-income and single-parent families. It’s rated on the age of the youngest child in the family, not each child individually.

The Part B income test: two earners, two tests

Part B tests couples on both incomes, but asymmetrically:

• Primary (higher) earner: there’s no free area at all for the primary earner — Part B simply cuts off if their adjusted taxable income exceeds a set limit for the year. Single parents and grandparent carers are assessed only against this limit, since there’s no second income to test.
• Secondary (lower) earner: the lower earner (or the single parent) has their own, separate free area. Below it, Part B is unaffected by their earnings; above it, Part B tapers down at a set rate per dollar, and can reduce to nil well before the primary earner’s cut-off is reached.

The practical effect: a single-income family with one parent earning well above the primary cut-off gets no Part B, no matter how low the other partner’s income is. A dual-income family where the lower earner picks up more shifts can see their Part B shrink even if the household’s total income barely moves — because it’s the individual secondary income, not the couple’s combined income, that drives the second taper.

Why the freshness matters

Both parts of FTB are indexed on 1 July, and the 2026-27 figures above are meaningfully higher than 2025-26 across every line — the Part A free area, the higher threshold, and every maximum and base rate have all moved. If you’re comparing your Centrelink statement against an article quoting $66,722 as the free area or $117,194 as the Part B cut-off, you’re looking at last year’s numbers, and any taper calculation built on them will be wrong for this financial year.

Supplements sit on top of these rates

The maximum and base rates above are the fortnightly-or-annual entitlement — they don’t include the end-of-year supplements, which are separate top-ups paid only after your income is reconciled and only if your family income sits under a fixed cap. See Family Tax Benefit Supplements 2026 for how the $970.90 Part A supplement and $478.15 Part B supplement work, and why they’re all-or-nothing at the $80,000 threshold.

For a worked example of the tapers in action — including how adjusted taxable income is built up from taxable income — see FTB income tests for the full income-test detail.

To see how these rates and tapers apply to your own family, plug your income and children’s ages into the Family Tax Benefit calculator.