Legal News

The government has published advice for childcare providers regarding Tax-Free Childcare.

Tax-Free Childcare is a new government scheme to help working parents with the cost of childcare, due to start in early 2017.

Parents will be able to open an online account, which they can use to pay for childcare from a registered provider. For every £8 a parent pays in, the government will pay in an extra £2.

Parents can receive up to £2,000 per child per year towards their childcare costs – or £4,000 for disabled children.

The scheme will be available for children up to the age of 12 – or up to 17 for children with disabilities.

To qualify, parents will have to be in work, each expecting to earn at least £115 a week. Each parent must not have income above £100,000 per year.

The scheme will be rolled out gradually to families, with parents of the youngest children able to apply first. Parents will be able to apply for all their children at the same time, when their youngest child becomes eligible. All eligible parents will be able to join the scheme by the end of 2017.

Childcare providers will need to sign up to receive payments from parents –
throughout September and October 2016, letters were sent to regulated and approved childcare providers across the UK, asking them to sign up online for Tax-Free Childcare.

Childcare providers must be a regulated or approved childcare provider to receive Tax-Free Childcare – and only childcare providers registered with a regulator can receive Tax-Free Childcare payments.

To register with a regulator can take up to 12 weeks, so unregistered providers need to sign up as soon as possible so that customers can pay using Tax-Free Childcare.

A regulator must have the provider’s current address – and providers will only receive an invitation to sign up for Tax-Free Childcare if the regulator has a current address and email address.

Any queries can be addressed to the childcare service helpline on 0300 123 4097.

Parents will be able to see if a provider has signed up for Tax-Free Childcare – and once signed up, providers will appear on a new digital tool, which lets parents search for childcare providers who can be paid using Tax-Free Childcare.

A 10-digit Unique Tax Reference (UTR) number to sign up for Tax-Free Childcare for providers those running businesses – nannies can use a National Insurance number to sign up as a Tax-Free Childcare provider.

Duncan Lewis Children Lawyers

Duncan Lewis children lawyers can advise on a wide range of family and child care matters, including parental rights at work, maternity and paternity pay and parental leave from work.

There are Duncan Lewis offices nationwide and our specialist children lawyers advise on family and child care matters under the laws of England and Wales and Islamic law, including:

• Adoption


• Child abuse


• Child care arrangements


• Child maintenance


• Civil Partnerships


• Co-parenting agreements


• Court Orders


• Court of Protection


• Divorce


• Domestic violence


• Guardianship


• International child abduction


• International marriage and divorce


• Islamic marriage and divorce


• Parental responsibility


• Pre-proceedings meetings


• Separation agreements


• Spouse abandonment


• Surrogacy


• Wardship


• Wills and trusts.