Free childcare funding for children from nine months to four years

From September 2025, the 15 hours originally available to eligible working families has expanded to 30 hours, meaning eligible working parents can now apply for 30 hours of childcare from the term after their child turns nine months until they reach school age. 

If you currently receive 15 hours for working families, just reconfirm as usual and the code will work for the 30 hours offer in September, providing you remain eligible, and your provider has confirmed your new attendance pattern for your increased hours. 

What makes you eligible?

• both parents are working, or one parent is working in lone parent families. This is defined as earning the equivalent of 16 hours per week on national minimum wage/national living wage, but less than £100,000 per year. This applies for self-employed and zero-hour contracts.
• both parents are employed but one or both of them are temporarily away from the workplace on parental, maternity, paternity or adoption leave.
• both parents are employed but one or both of them are temporarily away from the workplace on statutory sick pay.
• one parent is employed, and one parent has substantial caring responsibilities based on specific benefits received for caring.
• one parent is employed, and one parent is disabled or incapacitated based on specific benefits.

Please see further details on the Best Start in Life website.

How to apply?

You can apply for your code up to 16 weeks before your baby turns nine months old. 

Apply now

You need to apply online before the deadline to receive a code to give to your childcare provider. The deadline is the day before the new term begins, but we encourage you to apply earlier and recommend applying at least six weeks before the deadline. Some providers may ask for codes before the deadline, so we recommend you speak to your provider to find out if this is the case. The deadlines are:

If you wish to use your entitlements later than the term after your child turns the relevant age, you can apply closer to the time you wish to start. Provided you still meet the eligibility criteria for that entitlement at that time, you will not lose your ability to apply.

What happens next?

Once you have applied and have been approved and account will be set up. You will receive an 11-digit code to give to your childcare provider to access the entitlements.

To keep getting free childcare codes need to be reconfirmed appoximately every three months. Remember to log into your childcare account on GOV.UK to check when your reconfirmation dates are, so you can renew your code on time. You will also receive reminders from HRMC when it is time for you to reconfirm.