Free childcare hours — "funded hours" in the official wording — do not start when your child reaches the qualifying age. They start at the beginning of the next term — and if you miss the deadline, you wait an entire term for the next one.
There are three start dates a year: 1 January, 1 April and 1 September. Miss one and the next is three or four months away. For a family paying full nursery fees, that is an expensive piece of administration to get wrong.
The deadline that actually matters
You need a valid eligibility code before the term begins, and you need to have given it to your provider. In practice that means:
| Term starting | Your child must have reached the qualifying age by | Apply by |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January | 31 December | 31 December |
| 1 April | 31 March | 31 March |
| 1 September | 31 August | 31 August |
Leave a few weeks. An application is not instant, your provider needs the code before they can claim the funding, and councils set their own internal cut-offs for processing. Applying on 30 December for a January start is not a plan.
The boundary trap
This is the part that surprises people, and it is worth reading twice.
The qualifying age must be reached on a date before the term start, not on it. A child who turns three on 1 September does not get funded hours that September. They wait until January.
Three examples:
- A child born on 31 March 2026 reaches 9 months on 31 December 2026 — just inside the band. Funded hours from 1 January 2027.
- A child born on 1 April 2026 reaches 9 months on 1 January 2027 — one day late. Funded hours from 1 April 2027, three months later.
- A child born on 1 September 2023 turns three on 1 September 2026. They miss that term and start in January 2027.
One day of birth date can mean three months of fees. Nothing can be done about it after the fact, which is exactly why it is worth checking the date rather than assuming.
Which entitlement your child qualifies for
| Your child | What they get | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| 9 months to school age, working parents | 30 hours a week (1,140 hours a year) | Both parents meet the earnings test and neither exceeds £100,000 |
| All 3- and 4-year-olds | 15 hours a week (570 hours a year) | Age only — no income test |
| Some 2-year-olds | 15 hours a week | Certain benefits, an EHC plan, DLA, or looked-after status |
The 15 hours for 3- and 4-year-olds is unconditional. Even if your income disqualifies you from the working-parent hours, that half remains.
The earnings conditions, briefly
For the 30 working-parent hours, each parent must expect to earn at least 16 hours a week at the National Minimum Wage over the coming quarter — roughly £2,644 a quarter for a parent aged 21 or over in 2026/27 — and neither parent's adjusted net income may exceed £100,000.
Several situations are treated as meeting the earnings test even with no pay coming in: statutory maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental, neonatal care, parental bereavement, sick and carer's leave. If one partner receives certain carer's or disability benefits, the other partner's earnings alone can satisfy the condition. And there is no earnings test during the first 12 months of self-employment.
You can apply up to 31 days before starting or returning to work, which is the detail that lets parents returning from leave line the code up with the term rather than missing it.
Keeping the hours once you have them
Funded hours are not set and forget. You must reconfirm every three months, in the last 28 days of each period. Miss a reconfirmation and the funding can stop, which tends to surface as an unexpectedly large invoice rather than a warning letter.
Two practical habits: put the reconfirmation dates in a calendar the moment you get the code, and tell your provider promptly when anything changes.
A note on what the hours cover
Funded hours are generally 38 weeks a year — term time. Many nurseries offer a "stretched" arrangement spreading the same total across 52 weeks, which means fewer funded hours each week but no gap in the holidays. Both deliver the same annual total; they simply distribute it differently.
Your provider cannot charge you a top-up fee for the funded hours themselves, though they can charge separately for meals, consumables and optional extras provided those charges are genuinely voluntary.
Common questions
My child turns three during the term. Do hours start then?
No. They start at the beginning of the next term after the qualifying date.
Do I apply to the council or to HMRC?
For the 30 working-parent hours you apply through the government's childcare service and receive a code to give your provider. The universal 15 hours for 3- and 4-year-olds is arranged through your provider or council — there is no code to obtain.
What if I apply late?
You wait for the next term start. There is no backdating, which is why the deadline deserves a calendar entry.
We are just over £100,000. Is there anything to do?
Possibly, if the excess is modest. Pension contributions reduce adjusted net income, and the threshold is a hard cliff rather than a taper, so small changes near it have outsized effects.