Advanced options
England: 30 funded hours now runs from 9 months old for eligible working parents (each earning under GBP 100k), 15 universal hours from age 3. Scotland, Wales and NI run their own schemes. "Free" hours often arrive with consumables charges (meals, snacks, sundries) that are legal if optional: ask for the itemised policy.
What The Free Childcare Hours Calculator Works Out
- Yearly value: funded hours per week x 38 term-time weeks x your nursery's hourly rate. The full 30-hour working-parent entitlement is worth about GBP 7,410 a year at a typical GBP 6.50 rate, the single largest childcare subsidy most families receive, and 15 hours about GBP 3,705.
- Hours per week: 30 or 15 hours in term time, or the same 1,140 or 570 annual hours spread thinner across 52 weeks (about 21.9 or 11 a week) under the "stretched" option most working parents prefer.
- The entitlements: in England, 15 universal hours for all 3 and 4 year olds, 15 for disadvantaged 2 year olds, and 30 hours from 9 months old for working households where each parent earns above the minimum-wage floor and below GBP 100,000, the same cliff edge as Tax-Free Childcare. Codes are applied for through the childcare account and must be reconfirmed every three months; a missed reconfirmation can lose a term. Scotland (1,140 hours), Wales and Northern Ireland run their own schemes.
- Hours your child actually attends (advanced): most children at nursery attend more than the funded hours. The "unfunded hours" card prices every hour above the funded total at your nursery's rate, over the weeks attended and the number of children.
- Weeks attended per year (advanced): nurseries usually open 50 or 51 weeks, while the funding covers 38, which is why stretching the hours and the bill rarely line up neatly.
- Consumables and extras (advanced): the funded rate paid to providers has chronically trailed delivery costs, so many nurseries recover the difference through charges for meals, nappies, trips and sundries. These must be optional to be lawful, and two nurseries can quote wildly different net bills for the same funded child.
- Tax-Free Childcare (advanced): the 20% government top-up applies to everything the funded hours do not cover, including extras, up to GBP 2,000 per child per year. It cannot be combined with Universal Credit's childcare element, which refunds up to 85% of costs and usually wins for eligible claimants.
- Your net bill per month (advanced): unfunded hours plus extras, minus any Tax-Free Childcare top-up, divided by 12, alongside the full-price figure. The final card shows what percentage of the full bill the state is covering.
Check eligibility: GOV.UK: free childcare for working parents.