Parents with a child under five years old can now apply for a 30
hours free childcare place for September 2017.
The new 30 hours free childcare offer for working parents of
three and four-year-olds in England doubles the current 15 hours
of free childcare currently available to all parents, offering a
total saving for eligible working families of up to £5,000 a
year.
For parents across the UK, Tax-Free Childcare will cut childcare
costs by up to £2,000 per year for each child under 12 years old,
or £4,000 per year for disabled children under 17 years old.
Parents with a child born on or after 1 April 2013 can now apply
for Tax-Free Childcare. All eligible parents will be able to
apply for Tax-Free Childcare by the end of 2017.
The government’s total childcare offer is backed by a record
investment of more than £6 billion per year by 2020, supporting
working families and those on low incomes.
Eligible parents can apply for both 30 hours free childcare and
Tax-Free Childcare via the government’s online childcare service.
They can apply for all of their children once their youngest
child qualifies, avoiding the need to provide the same
information twice and saving them valuable time.
The service initially opened to parents with children under the
age of four, and disabled children under 17, in April 2017 and
more than 140,000 parents have already successfully applied
through the service.
Parents can access the Childcare Choices website, www.childcarechoices.gov.uk,
to see what childcare offers they could be eligible for. The
Childcare Choices website includes a Childcare
Calculator for parents to compare all the government’s
childcare offers and check what works best for their families.
The site also enables parents to pre-register for email alerts
that will notify them when they can apply, as well as providing
details of existing government childcare offers.
