There are different early education schemes for each country of the UK. Click on the links below to find information related to the area of the country you live in.

• England

• Scotland

• Wales

• Northern Ireland

England

3 and 4 year olds

All 3 and 4 year olds in England are entitled to 570 hours per year of free childcare. Most childcare providers ask families to take this as 15 hours per week over 38 weeks per year but you might be able to change how you take it.

You can start using your free hours in the term after your child turns three and it ends when your child starts school or becomes compulsory school age.

You have to use an approved childcare provider.

To claim your free childcare hours, contact your local authority.

Some families can get up to 1,140 hours per year free childcare for their 3 and 4 year olds. This is usually taken as 30 hours per week. To be eligible for this, you need to meet the earnings criteria.

If you’re single:

• If you're over 23, you need to be earning more than £166.72 per week 
• If you're 21 or 22, you have to be earning more than £162.88 per week  
• If you're 18-20, you have to be earning more than £119.84 per week 
• If you're under 18, you have to be earning more than £84.48 per week 
• There is no minimum earnings if you're self employed and started your business less than a year ago.
• You can still get free hours while you're on maternity leave.
• You need to be earning less than £100,000 per year.

If you live with a partner:

• Both of you need to be working and earning the amount listed above (unless you or your partner are self employed and started your business less than a year ago), or

• One of you needs to be working and earning more than the amounts listed above, and the other needs to be claiming Carer’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance or the Carers Element of Universal Credit, or have Limited Capability for Work or Limited Capability for Work Related Activity on Universal Credit.

• If either of you has an income of more than £100,000 per year you won’t be able to use the scheme.

You can apply online for your 30 hours per week of free childcare.

Foster carers can get 30 hours free childcare for the child they are caring for. However, they can’t apply online and will have to get help from social services to apply. Speak to your social worker and local council.

2 year olds

Some families can get free childcare for children from age 2 for 15 hours per week over 38 weeks per year.

To qualify for free childcare for your 2 year old, you have to be receiving certain benefits or your child needs to fall into one of the special categories.

You might be eligible for 15 hours per week of free childcare for your 2 year old if you are receiving:

• Universal Credit and your household earns less than £15,400 per year after tax.
• Guarantee Pension Credit.
• Income Support.
• Income related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
• Income based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).
• Tax credits and your household earns less than £16,190 per year before tax.
• The Working Tax Credit four-week run on (the payment you get when you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit).

You might also be able to get 15 hours free childcare for a child aged 2 if you have no recourse to public funds, and, you have earnings below:

• £26,500 for families outside of London with one child
• £34,500 for families within London with one child
• £30,600 for families outside of London with two or more children
• £38,600 for families within London with two or more children

You might also be able to get 15 hours per week free childcare for your 2 year old if:

• The child gets Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
• The child has a statement of special educational needs or an education health and care plan.
• The child is in local authority care.
• The child left local authority care under a special guardianship order, a child arrangements order, or an adoption order.

To apply for free childcare for your 2 year old, you should contact your local council.

Scotland

3 and 4 year olds

All 3 and 4 year olds living in Scotland are entitled to at least 1140 hours per year of free childcare. This is usually taken as 30 hours per week over 38 weeks. You can only use these hours for registered childcare. 

Scotland is gradually increasing the number of hours available, so contact your local council to apply and find out how many hours you can claim.   

2 year olds

Some households living in Scotland can claim free childcare for 2 year olds. You may get at least 1140 hours per year of free childcare, or possibly more. This is usually taken as 30 hours per week over 38 weeks.

To be eligible, you have to be claiming certain benefits or your child has to fall into certain categories.

You might be able to claim free childcare for your 2 year old if you are receiving:

• Income Support
• income related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• income based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
• Guarantee Pension Credit
• Support as an Asylum Seeker
• Child Tax Credit, with no award of Working Tax Credit, and your household income is £17,005 a year or less 
• Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit and your household income is £7,920 a year or less
• Universal Credit and your pay after tax is £660 per month or less.

You might also be able to claim free childcare for your 2 year old if the child:

• Is in local authority care.
• Is living with you under a guardianship order.
• Is living with you under a kinship care order.

To apply for free childcare for your 2 year old, you will need to contact your local council.

Once you start getting free childcare for your 2 year old, you can keep getting it, even if you get a job which takes you over the earnings limits.

Wales

3 and 4 year olds

All 3 and 4 year olds are entitled to free early education of 10 hours per week during school terms. This is included in the Childcare Offer for Wales and is intended to help children get ready for school. 

Some 3 and 4 year olds are entitled to 30 hours per week of free early education and childcare over 48 weeks per year under the Childcare Offer for Wales. The 10 hours of early education will be a part of these 30 hours, so someone who qualifies for this scheme will get an extra 20 hours per week of free childcare, and extra childcare during school holidays when the early education hours aren't provided.

To qualify for this, the household has to meet certain earnings criteria.

If you’re single:

• You need to be earning more than 16 x national minimum wage per week (This doesn’t apply if you’re self employed and started your business less than a year ago. It also doesn’t apply if you’re off work and getting Statutory Sick Pay, or if you’re off work on adoption or maternity/paternity leave)
• You need to be earning less than £100,000 per year.

If you live with a partner:

• You both need to be earning more than 16 x national minimum wage per week (if one of you is self-employed and started your business less than a year ago this won’t apply to them), or
• One of you needs to be working and earning more than 16 x national minimum wage and the other needs to be claiming Carer’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), or
• One or both of you is temporarily off work on maternity/paternity or adoption leave or Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), and when you’re working you would satisfy the earnings requirements
• If either of you has an income of more than £100,000 per year, you won’t be able to use the scheme.

2 year olds

In some areas of Wales, 2 years olds are entitled to 12.5 hours per week of free childcare. This is based on your postcode area. It is provided through the Flying Start scheme.

For more information about the free childcare schemes available to you, contact the Family Information Service at your local council.

Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, children aged 2, 3 and 4 may be able to access the Pre-School Education Programme. 

This is usually given as 2.5 hours per day on 5 days per week during school terms. Some children may be able to get more hours than this. 

Different providers have different eligibility rules. 

For more information about the scheme, contact the Education Authority Admissions Helpdesk

The Sure Start programme 

The Sure Start programme supports parents and help children under the age of 4 to get ready for pre-school.

This programme has health, family support and early education services to support children’s learning skills, health and well-being, and social and emotional development.

See Sure Start partnerships to find out what services are available in your area.

Updated: April 2023

There are several different schemes which provide help with childcare costs.

You can claim free childcare as well as help with childcare costs.

For example, Anais has a 3-year old daughter. Anais is entitled to 30 hours free childcare for her daughter, but Anais needs 40 hours per week childcare to enable her to work. Anais is paying for 10 hours per week extra childcare and she can claim help with the cost of that 10 hours.

You will only be able to get help with the costs for approved childcare.

There are a few different schemes to help pay childcare costs. Some of these schemes are closed to new applicants but if you are already getting help through the scheme you can carry on getting it. 

These schemes are still open to new applications:

• Childcare element of Universal Credit
• Tax Free Childcare.

These schemes are closed to new applications:

• Childcare element of Working Tax Credit
• Childcare vouchers/Employer provided childcare

Universal Credit

You will only be able to get help with your childcare costs through Universal Credit if you are claiming Universal Credit. Use our Benefits Calculator to find out if you could get Universal Credit.

If you get help with your childcare costs through Universal Credit, you will get up to 85% of your childcare costs, up to a maximum of £950.92 a month for one child, or £1,630.15 for two or more.

You can claim help with childcare costs for any children under 16 who you are responsible for. 

To claim help with childcare through Universal Credit, you will need to claim Universal Credit. If you are already getting Universal Credit but aren’t getting help with childcare costs, you should report these costs in your journal.

Help with childcare through Universal Credit is paid to you and not to your childcare provider. It is paid in arrears, which means it will only be paid to you after you have paid your childcare provider. 

You will need to report how much you have paid in childcare costs each assessment period. You will also need to provide evidence of how much you have paid.

If you pay for childcare that covers more than one assessment period, you will only get an amount of childcare costs element in each assessment period that covers the costs for childcare that took place in that assessment period.

For example, Kirsty’s child goes to an after school club for 10 hours per week at £3 per hour. The school asks parents to pay each term. Kirsty therefore needs to pay 15 weeks childcare costs at once, which comes to £450. This falls into three assessment periods and she is paid as if she had £150 of childcare costs in each assessment period. 

Help with upfront cost of childcare

If you are going to struggle to pay for childcare costs upfront, you may be able to get help through the Flexible Support Fund. 

To be eligible for this fund, one of the following must apply:

• you're starting work or
• you're increasing your work hours, for example you've moved from part-time work to full-time work.

You can use your online account or contact your work coach to ask if you can get support from the Flexible Support Fund. Your work coach will decide if you're eligible and consider:

• if your childcare provider was registered
• if the amount being charged is reasonable for the local area
• if you could have got help with childcare payments from elsewhere 

Your work coach will fill in forms with you. Your work coach will give you a form called FSF3, you will need to ask your childcare provider to complete one of the sections.

Money from the Flexible Support Fund does not have to be paid back.

If they refuse, you may be able to get an advance to pay the up front childcare costs. An advance will have to be paid back. If you live in Northern Ireland, you can get help through the Adviser Discretion Fund with your first month's childcare costs and still reclaim the costs from your Universal Credit. 

Tax Free Childcare

You can’t get Tax Free Childcare at the same time as Universal Credit or tax credits.

If you claim Tax Free Childcare, this will stop your tax credits. It won’t stop your Universal Credit automatically but you will be asked to close your claim for Universal Credit. You also can’t get it at the same time as childcare vouchers.

Tax Free Childcare means the government will pay £2 for every £8 you spend on childcare, up to a maximum of £2,000 per year per child (or £4,000 for a child with a disability). It is managed through an online account. Your childcare provider will be paid direct from this account.

You can get Tax Free Childcare for children up to the age of 11. If your child has a disability and gets Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or Armed Forces Independence Payment (AFIP), or is sight impaired, you can get tax free childcare until the child is 17.

To be able to get tax free childcare, you have to satisfy the earnings rules:

If you’re single:

• You need to be earning more than 16 x national minimum wage per week (this doesn’t apply if you’re self employed and started your business less than a year ago. It also doesn’t apply if you’re off work and getting Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), or if you’re off work on adoption or maternity/paternity leave )
• You need to be earning less than £100,000 per year.

If you live with a partner:

• You both need to be earning more than 16 x national minimum wage per week (if one of you is self-employed and started your business less than a year ago this won’t apply to them), or
• One of you needs to be working and earning more than 16 x national minimum wage and the other needs to be claiming Carer’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), or
• One or both of you is temporarily off work on maternity/paternity or adoption leave or Statutory Sick Pay, and when you’re working you would satisfy the earnings requirements.
• If either of you has an income of more than £100,000 per year, you won’t be able to use the scheme.

You can apply for the Tax Free Childcare scheme online.

Which scheme is best for me?

It can be hard to work out which of the government’s schemes you will be better off on. The Gov.UK website has a calculator to help you decide. However, it doesn’t show the help you can get through Universal Credit yet. You can use the Turn2us benefit calculator to check what help you can get through Universal Credit and compare that to the help you can find using the gov.uk calculator. If you are struggling to make sense of it, you should speak to an adviser.
 

England, Scotland and Wales

If you are looking for work, you may be able to get help with some expenses, for example, to enable you to attend interviews, through a discretionary Jobcentre fund called the Flexible Support Fund.

Help with childcare costs through Universal Credit is paid to you, not to your childcare provider, and it is only paid to you after you have had to pay your childcare provider. This can make it hard for people when they start a new job.

If you're moving into work, you may be able to get help with childcare costs upfront. You should ask your work coach to find out if you're eligible through your Universal Credit claim or the Flexible Support Fund. If you're not eligible, you may have to ask for an advance.

Ask your local Jobcentre for more information about this and any other schemes they may run to help you into work.

Northern Ireland

If you are looking for work, you may be able to get help with some expenses, for example, to enable you to attend interviews, through a discretionary fund called the Advisor Discretionary Fund.

You can get help with your first month's childcare costs from the Advisor Discretionary Fund. This will be paid as a grant that you don't have to pay back. You can then reclaim the first month's childcare costs from your Universal Credit and use that money to pay the next month's childcare costs. 

 

If you are in education, you may be able to get help with childcare costs. 

See the Gov.UK website for help with childcare costs when studying to find out about Learner Support and Care to Learn payments and Childcare Grants. 
 

• England

• Scotland

• Wales

• Northern Ireland

England

I live in England and I (and my partner) work – which schemes can we use?

If your child is 3 or 4, you will be able to get at least 15 and maybe as much as 30 hours per week free childcare for your child. The 15 hour scheme is run by your local council but the 30 hour scheme is managed through a centralised, online application.

If your child is 2, you might be able to get 15 hours free childcare if your earnings are low.

You might also be able to access help with the childcare costs you do need to pay.

If you are already getting help with childcare costs through Working Tax Credit or childcare vouchers, you can carry on getting it.

If you need to make a new claim, you can use either the Tax Free Childcare scheme or help through Universal Credit. Most people who are entitled to Universal Credit will be better off getting help with their childcare costs through Universal Credit instead of through the Tax Free Childcare scheme. You can compare it by using the Gov.UK help with childcare calculator to see how much help you’d get through the Tax Free Childcare scheme and the Turn2us Benefits Calculator to see how much help you’d get through Universal Credit.

I live in England and I (and my partner) don’t work – which schemes can we use?

If your child is aged 2, 3 or 4, you will be able to get 15 hours per week free childcare. You can apply for this through your local council.

You won’t usually be able to get help with childcare costs through Universal Credit while you’re not working but if you’re getting statutory maternity, paternity, adoption or sick pay, you’ll be treated as if you are working. 

You can’t use the Tax Free Childcare scheme if you’re not working.

If you are looking to move into work and need help paying childcare costs to enable you to do, so you should ask your work coach about accessing support through the Flexible Support Fund.

Scotland

I live in Scotland and I (and my partner) work – which schemes can we use?

If your child is 3 or 4, you will be able to get at least 1140 hours per year of free childcare. Some local councils offer more than this. 

If your child is 2, you might be able to get 1140 or more hours of free childcare for them if your earnings are low.

If you are already getting help with childcare costs through Working Tax Credit or childcare vouchers, you can carry on getting it.

If you need to make a new claim, you can use either the Tax Free Childcare scheme or help through Universal Credit. Most people who are entitled to Universal Credit will be better off getting help with their childcare costs through Universal Credit instead of through the Tax Free Childcare scheme. You can compare it by using the Gov.UK help with childcare calculator to see how much help you’d get through the Tax Free Childcare scheme and the Turn2us Benefits Calculator to see how much help you’d get through Universal Credit.

I live in Scotland and I (and my partner) don’t work – which schemes can I use?

If your child is 3 or 4 you will be able to get at least 1140 hours per year of free childcare. Some local councils offer more than this. 

If your child is 2, you might be able to get 1140 or more hours of free childcare for them, depending on which benefits you’re claiming.

You won’t usually be able to get help with childcare costs through Universal Credit while you’re not working but if you’re getting statutory maternity, paternity, adoption or sick pay, you’ll be treated as if you are working. 

You can’t use the Tax Free Childcare scheme if you’re not working.

If you are looking to move into work and need help paying childcare costs to enable you to do so, you should ask your work coach about accessing support through the Flexible Support Fund.

Wales

I live in Wales and I (and my partner) work – which schemes can I use?

If your child is 3 or 4 years old, you will be able to access 10 hours per week of free education. You might be able to access up to a total of 30 hours per week free education and childcare if you (and your partner) each earn more than the equivalent of 16 times the national minimum wage per week and neither of you earns more than £100,000 per year. 

If your child is 2, you might be able to access a Flying Start scheme place. This depends on your postcode. Contact your local council to find out if you’re eligible.

You might also be able to access help with the childcare costs you do need to pay.

If you are already getting help with childcare costs through Working Tax Credit or childcare vouchers, you can carry on getting it.

If you need to make a new claim, you can use either the Tax Free Childcare scheme or help through Universal Credit. Most people who are entitled to Universal Credit will be better off getting help with their childcare costs through Universal Credit instead of through the Tax Free Childcare scheme. You can compare it by using the Gov.UK help with childcare calculator to see how much help you’d get through the Tax Free Childcare scheme and the Turn2us Benefits Calculator to see how much help you’d get through Universal Credit.

I live in Wales and I (and my partner) don’t work – which schemes can I use?

If your child is 3 or 4 years old, you will be able to access 10 hours per week of free education.

If your child is 2, you might be able to access a Flying Start scheme place. This depends on your postcode. Contact your local council to find out if you’re eligible.

You won’t usually be able to get help with childcare costs through Universal Credit while you’re not working but if you’re getting statutory maternity, paternity, adoption or sick pay, you’ll be treated as if you are working. 

You can’t use the Tax Free Childcare scheme if you’re not working.

If you are looking to move into work and need help paying childcare costs to enable you to do so, you should ask your work coach about accessing support through the Flexible Support Fund.

Northern Ireland

I live in Northern Ireland and I (and my partner) work  - which schemes can I use?

If your child is aged 2, 3 or 4, depending on your local provider’s eligibility rules, you might be able to access 10.5 hours per week of Early Education 

You might also be able to access help with the childcare costs you do need to pay.

If you are already getting help with childcare costs through Working Tax Credit or childcare vouchers, you can carry on getting it.

If you need to make a new claim, you can use either the Tax Free Childcare scheme or help through Universal Credit. Most people who are entitled to Universal Credit will be better off getting help with their childcare costs through Universal Credit instead of through the Tax Free Childcare scheme. You can compare it by using the Gov.UK help with childcare calculator to see how much help you’d get through the Tax Free Childcare scheme and the Turn2us Benefits Calculator to see how much help you’d get through Universal Credit.

I live in Northern Ireland and I (and my partner) don’t work  - which schemes can I use?

If your child is aged 2, 3 or 4, depending on your local provider’s eligibility rules, you might be able to access 10.5 hours per week of Early Education. There is also a programme supporting parents and helping children under the age of 4 to get ready for pre-school. See Sure Start Services

You won’t usually be able to get help with childcare costs through Universal Credit while you’re not working but if you’re getting statutory maternity, paternity, adoption or sick pay you’ll be treated as if you are working. 

You can’t use the Tax Free Childcare scheme if you’re not working.

If you are looking to move into work and need help paying childcare costs to enable you to do so, you should ask your work coach about accessing support through the Adviser Discretionary Fund.