HMRC issued an apology on X (formerly Twitter) on 3 June after a processing error, which has now been resolved, meant 500,000 families did not receive their payments due to a processing error.

HMRC said: ‘We’re sorry that some customers’ child benefit payments have not arrived as scheduled and we are working urgently to resolve the issue.

‘There’s no need for customers to call us and we will provide updates here as soon as they are available.’

Payments will now be made on Wednesday 5 June, with the usual Tuesday payments paid as normal.

As of August 2023, 6.9m families were benefitting from the payments which come every four weeks, either on a Monday or a Tuesday.

The allowance for the first child is £25.60 per week, which increases by £16.95 for each child under 16 after this.

HMRC said: ‘We are working to get payments out as quickly as possible to those people who were expecting their child benefit today but didn’t get it.

‘We are sorry for the delay and will give an update here soon.

‘Payments due on Tuesday will be made on time.’

Money expert Martin Lewis issued a poll on his X account to find out how many of his followers had not received their payment. From the respondents, 22.5% said they had not received it and were meant to, and just 7.3% said they had received it at the time of writing.

Lewis said: ‘Once the issue has been fixed if people are out of pocket, they should complain to HMRC for redress (so I’d suggest this means if you’ve had a charge as a payment bounced due to no child benefit, note it down and then later try asking it to cover that charge).’