Funded children are eligible for funding the term following their third birthday, as follows:
 

Birthdays between 1st April and 31st August - Funding starts in September

Birthdays between 1st September and 31st December - Funding starts in January

Birthdays between 1st January and 31st March - Funding starts in April

Currently, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months up to three-years- old will be able to access funding for 15 hours per week of education and care for 38 weeks of the year.

 

From September 2025, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months up to three years-old will be able to access funding for 30 hours per week of education and care for 38 weeks of the year.

Eligibility
Eligibility for the different funded early education and childcare schemes normally depends on the age of your child and your working status or income.  Families have to meet certain income requirements to be eligible for the current 30-hour offer for children aged three and four, and the new yet-to-be-introduced offers for children aged nine months and over.  This eligibility criteria applies to each parent or carer in dual-parent households and the lone parent or carer in lone-parent households.

 

To be eligible, each parent or carer must earn more than the equivalent of 16 hours at the national living wage or minimum wage per week.  This means that over the next three months, you must expect to earn at least £1,976 - the National Living Wage if you are 23 or older.  There is no requirement to work
a certain number of hours per week – it is all about how much you earn. 
This means, for example, if you only work 10 hours a week but earn £20 per hour, you will meet the minimum earning threshold.

 

Apprentices are also eligible if they earn the equivalent to 16 hours at the apprentice minimum wage and earn less than £100,000 per year.  Again, this applies to each parent and carer in a dual-parent household.  This means that if one parent earned £101,000 and the other earned £20,000, a family would not be eligible, but if both parents earned £99,000, the family would be eligible.

 

These criteria apply if you are self-employed or on a zero-hours contract and expect to meet the earning criteria on average over the three months after you have applied for your funded entitlement.  HMRC will look at data such as your previous earnings to consider whether you are likely to meet the criteria and may contact you for further information if they are unsure.

 

If you are starting up your own business, you will not be expected to meet the minimum earning criteria in your first year of trading.

If you are not working but you expect to take up paid work within 31 days, you can still apply for 30 hours, if you expect to meet the income criteria over the coming three months.

 

If you live with a partner, you both must meet the above criteria even if one of you is not the child’s parent for example, if you have remarried or have started living with a new partner.  If you are separated or divorced from your child’s parent, the eligibility rules will only apply to the parent that the child normally lives with (and their new partner if they are part of the same household).

 

If you are on shared parental, maternity, paternity or adoption leave, you can still apply for the 30 hours.  If you’re on adoption leave for a child aged three to four years old, you must return to work within 31 days of the date you first apply for the 30 hours offer.