30 hours funded childcare: what you actually get and how to claim it

If you are back at work, or planning your return, a nursery place is probably the biggest line in your monthly budget after housing. The 30 hours funded childcare scheme can take a serious chunk out of that bill, but the rules trip families up every term, so here is what the entitlement actually gives you and how to claim it without missing a deadline.

What the 30 hours entitlement actually is

The entitlement gives eligible working families in England 30 hours of funded childcare a week for children from nine months old up to school age. The government pays a registered provider directly for those hours; you never see the money yourself. You simply see a smaller invoice.

The headline figure of 30 hours is based on 38 weeks of the year, matching school terms. That single detail explains most of the confusion parents feel later, and we come back to it below.

The scheme reached its full form in September 2025. Before that the 30 hour offer was limited to three and four year olds; now babies and toddlers of working parents qualify too. Separately, every three and four year old in England gets 15 universal funded hours regardless of what their parents earn or whether they work at all.

Who qualifies for 30 hours funded childcare

The test is built around work and income. You, and your partner if you live with one, must each expect to earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours a week at the national minimum wage, averaged over three months. For most people in steady jobs that is a low bar. Self employed parents qualify too, and there is flexibility for people who are newly self employed or whose income arrives unevenly.

There is also a ceiling. If either parent has an adjusted net income above £100,000 a year, the whole household loses the entitlement. The limit applies per parent, not to your combined income, which surprises a lot of families. A couple earning £99,000 each qualifies; a couple where one earns £101,000 and the other earns nothing does not.

Some families still qualify when one parent cannot work, for example because they receive certain disability or carer related benefits. The full rules, including the special cases, are set out clearly at Childcare Choices.

How to apply and what your code means

You apply online through the government childcare service at GOV.UK. You will need your national insurance number, and your partner's if you have one, plus some basic details about your child. Most decisions come through quickly, though HMRC can take longer if something needs checking, so never leave it until the last week.

When you are approved you receive an 11 digit code. That code is the key to everything. You bring it to us along with your national insurance number and your child's date of birth, we verify it through our local authority and the funded hours are applied to your place.

Two deadlines matter. Your code must be issued before the start of the term in which you want to use it, and terms begin on 1 January, 1 April and 1 September. You must also reconfirm your details every three months, which takes a minute online but is very easy to forget. Set a phone reminder on the day you apply.

Term time or stretched: two ways to take your hours

The default offer is 30 hours a week for 38 weeks, mirroring school terms. Plenty of working parents do not live term time lives, so many settings, including ours, offer a stretched version instead: the same total number of funded hours spread across more weeks of the year, which works out at roughly 22 hours a week over 51 weeks.

Neither option is better; they suit different families. Term time suits teachers and anyone who already has school age children. Stretched suits parents who need consistent cover all year and would rather see the same bill every month. Ask any nursery you visit which patterns they support before you fall in love with the place.

What the funding covers and how it fits around paid hours

The funding covers childcare and early education during the funded hours themselves. It does not have to cover meals, snacks, nappies or extras such as outings, and government rules allow providers to charge for these consumables. Practice varies widely between settings, so always ask for a written breakdown before you sign anything. You can see exactly how funded hours sit alongside our own charges on our fees page, with nothing hidden in the footnotes.

Funded hours also combine happily with paid hours. If your child attends for 40 hours a week on a term time code, 30 hours are funded and 10 are invoiced at the normal rate. Many families pay for those extra hours through tax-free childcare, a separate scheme you can hold at the same time, which adds a 20 per cent government top up to whatever you pay in.

So is it actually free?

Honest answer: the hours are free, but the place around them often is not quite. Depending on your pattern you may pay for extra hours, meals and consumables, and a stretched offer changes the weekly arithmetic. What you should expect from any decent nursery is a clear written statement showing funded hours, chargeable hours and every extra, given to you before you commit. If a setting cannot produce that, keep looking.

If you would like to see what the entitlement means for your own dates and days, book a tour with us and we will sit down together and work through a real example.