Free early childhood education (ECE)

To get up to 20 free hours, you have to:

• find an approved service that offers 20 Hours ECE
• enrol your child with the service
• state on the enrolment form which days and hours you'll claim for your child — no more than 6 hours in a day and 20 hours in a week.

Types of approved childcare

This can be while they're at a:

• teacher-led service, like kindergarten or preschool
• home-based service
• Te Kōhanga Reo, or
• playcentre.

Payments

Payments are made to the ECE service. In a home-based service, payments can be made directly to the educator, depending on the arrangement you have.

Other charges

Your ECE service can charge you for any hours your child attends outside of the free hours.

They can also ask you:

• for a donation
• to pay optional charges.

Splitting hours across childcare services

If your child attends more than one ECE service you can split your free hours between them as long as you:

• don't claim for more than 6 hours a day and 20 hours a week across all ECE services
• don’t use the same hours or days at more than one ECE service at the same time
• update your enrolment information any time you change your child's hours or the services they use.

Enrolment

Some services require children to be enrolled for a minimum number of:

• hours per day
• days per week.

Childcare subsidy

Some people will also be able to claim a childcare subsidy to help with other ECE costs. You can't claim the subsidy for the same hours you're claiming for free.

Help paying for childcare for children under 5