Free Childcare hours extended
Entitlement to free childcare has been extended from 15 to 30 hours for parents of children aged between nine months and three years old, from 1st September, 2025.
This completes the final phase of Government’s plans to ensure that all eligible parents have access to 30 hours of free childcare for children aged between nine months and four years for up to 38 weeks a year.
Working parents in England will need to register through Government gateway to access the free childcare and will need to provide the following information:
- National Insurance number
- Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR), if you’re self-employed (if you have a UTR)
- the UK birth certificate reference number (if available) of any children you’re applying for
- the date you started or are due to start work (this can be approximate if it’s more than 3 months ago)
Parents can start the application process from the child is 23 weeks old, access to the free childcare is granted when the child turns nine months old. For parents returning to work following statutory family leave, maternity paternity, adoption etc, the application process date is dependent upon when the employee returns to work.
Some working parents might not qualify for the fully funded 30 hours but may have access to 15 free hours HMRC will confirm this as part of the application process.
Successful claimants will be issued with an 11-digit code to access their online account and must provide the account details to the relevant childcare provider.
Working parents will be required to reconfirm entitlement by signing in to their online account every 3 months, primarily to confirm details are up to date and to retain access to the free childcare, if the deadline is missed parents may need to reapply through their online account to reactivate the 11 digit code. They can also make payments to their childcare provider and make for free hours for a new child.
All parents of children aged 3 to 4 in England can access a universal offer of 15 hours of government funded early education from the term after their child turns 3. This will be claimed directly by the childcare provider so parents will not need to do anything, but they will need to provide evidence in the form of the child’s birth certificate and will be required to sign a declaration.
Different schemes apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, parents will need to check the criteria for each as set out by the relevant local authorities.
Autumn Budget Announcement
The Treasury Office has set the date for the Autumn budget.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachael Reeves has confirmed the date will be set for Wednesday 26 November 2025.
There will be much speculation about what this budget will include. The press release today (3 September) announced it as a Budget to address economy that’s “not working well enough for working people”.
In a video message, the Chancellor addressed some of the pledges/challenges as set out in their initial manifesto:
The first job was to fix the foundations. That has meant backing working people with a National Living Wage rise benefiting three million workers, strengthening public services by starting to bring down NHS waiting lists, and unlocking growth through planning reform and an additional £120 billion investment in Britain’s infrastructure.
The full Statement is available as announced by the HM Treasury.
