You may be able to receive an additional 570 hours per year on top of the funded entitlement if your child is 3 to 4 years old and you are working parents. This means that with the additional funding, eligible children will receive up to 1,140 hours funded childcare per year. We spread this funding throughout 51 weeks of the year to provide consistency for your child and your family, receiving 22.35 hours per week.

You, and any partner, must each expect to earn (on average) at least £139 per week (equal to 16 hours at the National Minimum or Living Wage). You will still be treated as meeting the earning requirement if you or your partner are on maternity, paternity or adoption leave – this applies whether you are single or in a couple.

If you are in a couple and one of you meets the earning requirements through qualifying paid work but one of you is unable to work because you have a disability or you are a carer, then you will be exempt from the earnings requirement. In this circumstance, one of you must be working and the other would need to evidence that they are unable to work by showing that they are receiving Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Carer’s Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance.

You will not have access to the 30 hours funded childcare scheme if either you, or your partner, each individually, expect to earn £100,000 or more.

All funded childcare starts the term after your child’s 3rd birthday:

You must reconfirm your eligibility every 3 months. If you apply more than 3 months before the term starts, you’ll have to reconfirm your eligibility in your account (which you’ll be given once you have applied for the first time) in order to keep your code valid.

To check eligibility for 30 hours funded childcare,

you will need to visit: www.childcarechoices.gov.uk. You will receive an 11-digit funding code. You will need to submit your funding code, your National Insurance number and your child’s date of birth here. You can apply from when your child is 2 years and 36 weeks old

*York local authority – funding starts 1st May.

15 hours funded childcare

You may be entitled to claim 570 hours funded childcare per year from the government for your 2-year-old. We spread this funding throughout 51 weeks of the year to provide consistency for your child and your family, receiving 11.18 hours per week.

You may be entitled to claim 15 hours funded childcare for your 2-year-old if you live in England and receive one of the following benefits:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Universal Credit, and your household income is £15,400 a year or less after tax, not including benefit payments
• Tax credits, and your household income is £16,190 a year or less before tax
• The guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• The Working Tax Credit 4-week run on (the payment you get when you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)

If you are not receiving a qualifying benefit, 2-year-olds can also get funded childcare if they:

• are looked after by a local authority.
• have a statement of special education needs (SEN) or an education, health and care (EHC) plan.
• get Disability Living Allowance.
• have left care under an adoption order, special guardianship order or a child arrangements order.

You will have access to this funding the term after your child turns 2 (see table below):

Procedures to apply for 2-year-old funding differ across Local Authorities. You should speak to your Health Visitor, Nursery Manager or look online at your Local Authority website.

*York local authority – funding starts 1st May.