On 24 March 2026, the Government announced a temporary increase of $50 a week to the in-work tax credit (IWTC) payments from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 or until the price of 91 octane petrol is below $3 a litre for 4 consecutive weeks (whichever is earlier).
If the increased payment remains in place until 31 March 2027, we estimate that 143,000 families will receive the full $50 increase and a further 14,000 families will become eligible for IWTC and receive less than $50 a week.
The forecast total estimate of families who will receive the IWTC in the 2026-27 tax year is around 157,000.
More information on the number of IWTC recipients from previous tax years.
Working for Families statistics datasets
About the administration of the in-work tax credit
Families can choose to receive their IWTC payment weekly or fortnightly or wait until the end of the tax year and receive a lump sum payment.
Based on previous years, we expect that approximately 80% of families will choose to receive their IWTC payment either weekly or fortnightly during the year.
Eligibility for the IWTC payment can change during the year when a family’s circumstances change. For example, a family may become newly eligible following the birth of a baby. A family can also become ineligible, for example once their youngest child turns 18. Because of changes like these, we expect around 90,000 families to receive an IWTC payment in any given fortnight. At the end of the year, we expect the total number of families who will receive a weekly or fortnightly IWTC payment to be between 120,000 and 130,000.
We expect about 20% of families will choose to receive their IWTC payment as a lump sum at the end of the tax year.
In-work tax credit statistics
We will report fortnightly on:
- The number of families who received more than $50 a week from IWTC. These families received the full $50 temporary increase and were already entitled to IWTC before the increase.
- The number of families who received up to $50 a week from IWTC. These families are newly eligible due to this temporary increase.
- The total unique number of families who received a payment during the year.
- The number of families who received IWTC this year compared to last year.
As some families receive their Working for Families entitlement as a lump sum at the end of the tax year, the total number of IWTC recipients will not be able to be confirmed until June or July 2028 once filing for the 2027 tax year has been completed.