Tax-Free Childcare

To apply, you must open a Tax-Free Childcare account online. 

If you are having difficulty with your Tax-Free Childcare account you can call the childcare service helpline.

No. If you are due to start work (or return to work) within the next 31 days, you can apply for Tax-Free Childcare as long as you and your partner are eligible and you will each have an income of at least £2,643 (2026/27) every three months. This works out to roughly £203 each per week (2026/27).

To apply, you must open a Tax-Free Childcare account online. 

If you are having difficulty with your Tax-Free Childcare account you can call the childcare service helpline.

You may not be able to apply for Tax-Free Childcare if you are on a visa with no recourse to public funds. Government funded early education and childcare is not a ‘public fund’ for immigration purposes, so can be accessed by a child regardless of their immigration status. 

The parent who applies for Tax-Free Childcare will need to meet a residence requirement. In order to meet the requirement, the parent applying must have one of the following:

• British or Irish citizenship
• Settled or pre-settled status granted under the EU Settlement Scheme
• A pending EU Settlement Scheme application
• Immigration permission that allows access to public funds, such as indefinite leave to remain or refugee leave

A parent who has NRPF will not meet the residence requirement. In two-parent households, at least one parent on the application will need to meet the residence requirement. If a single parent or both parents in a household have NRPF, the family will be unable to access 30 hours childcare.

For more information on eligibility and how to apply, see the government site.

Periods of maternity and statutory family leave are counted as being in work, and the earnings requirement does not apply. This means that you can be eligible for Tax-Free Childcare while on maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

You may claim or continue to claim Tax-Free Childcare for older children while on statutory family leave. However, you may not be eligible to receive Tax-Free Childcare for the child you are on leave to care for. In this case, eligibility will be limited to the last 31 days of leave where you are claiming for a new child whose birth led to the time off.

Unfortunately not for the child that you are on leave to care for, unless you are taking KIT days within the 31 days prior to your return to work. This is because you are not eligible to claim Tax-Free Childcare while on maternity leave for the child you are on leave to care for, until the last 31 days of leave.

You can claim or continue to claim Tax-Free Childcare for older children.

We advise that when negotiating working KIT days with your employer, that you discuss childcare arrangments and expenses. For more information on KIT days, see our article on working during maternity and family leave.

For the purposes of Tax-Free Childcare, a disabled child means a child who is receiving Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Child Disability Payment, an armed forces independence payment, or a payment from elsewhere in the European Economic Area which has a similar character to those benefits.

Children who are certified as severely sight impaired or blind are also disabled for the purposes of Tax-Free Childcare.

If you fall out of eligibility your Tax-Free Childcare account will remain open for 2 years from the date of your last entitlement period for which there is a valid declaration of eligibility. There is no mechanism for you to manually close the account.

The account will become ‘pay only’ and you must use or withdraw any money remaining in the account within 2 years. You can use the money, including any top-up payments made prior to the date you fell out of eligibility, to pay for childcare that takes place after you fall out of eligibility.

If you withdraw the money, rather than using it to pay for childcare, you will only be entitled to receive the money you have paid in. The top-up element will be returned to HMRC.

If your circumstances change, which means that you know you will fall out of eligibility for Tax-Free Childcare you can maximise your entitlement by paying in as much as you can to receive the maximum top-up within your current eligibility period.

The government top-up is 25% of anything you pay in up to a maximum amount of £500 in every 3-month eligibility period. To get this amount of top-up you will need to pay in £2,000 within your eligibility period.

You can use the money left in your account, including the top-up amount, to pay for childcare that takes place after you have fallen out of eligibility.

Yes, if you are claiming Tax-Free Childcare, you can still use any free childcare you are entitled to. You can use Tax-Free Childcare to cover extra hours of childcare you may need to enable you to work.

However, you may not use Tax-Free Childcare while claiming Universal Credit. For more information, see our page on what childcare schemes can and can’t be used together.

If you make an application for Tax-Free Childcare while receiving childcare vouchers, your vouchers will end and you will not be able to re-apply. So you should consider carefully which scheme you are better off using before deciding to apply for Tax-Free Childcare.

Only those signed up to a voucher scheme prior to October 2018 can continue in this type of scheme. People who are already using the childcare voucher scheme are able to continue using it if they wish (unless their employer brings it to an end).

The maximum you can receive through Tax-Free Childcare is £2,000 each year. Therefore, if you receive more than £2,000 towards your childcare costs in an employer supported scheme, you are likely better off staying in that scheme.

If you are unsure how much Tax-Free Childcare you would be entitled to, or whether you would be better off on Tax-Free Childcare, try the government’s childcare calculator.

You won’t be able to use the Tax-free Childcare Scheme if you are receiving Universal Credit – if you want to claim Tax-Free Childcare, you will need to end your Universal Credit claim. It is important that you check whether you will be better off claiming Tax-Free Childcare, or claiming Universal Credit. You can use the government calculator to do this.

The childcare element of Universal Credit (UC) can help towards the costs of registered or approved childcare. If you qualify for UC and are eligible for the childcare element, you can claim up to 85% of your childcare costs up to a maximum of £1,071.09 for one child or £1,836.16 for more than one child (rates for 2026/27).