Early Years Funded Entitlement for Working Families

Find out the eligibility criteria for working families with children aged from 9 months to school age and how to apply.

1 Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families eligibility criteria

This offer is available for those who work the equivalent of 16 hours at the national minimum wage, or more per week. It is made up of 2 parts.

Children aged 9 months to 3 years: up to 15 hours per week of funded childcare for children from the term that begins after they turn 9 months old and lasts until the term after the child turn 3 years old (if you remain eligible and reconfirm your eligibility code). From September 2025, all children eligible for EYFE for Working Families can access up to 30 hours EYFE per week from the term after they turn 9 months old.

Extended EYFE: an additional 15 hours per week of funded childcare for children beginning the term after they turn 3 years old. This is in addition to the 15 hours Universal EYFE and entitles them to up to 30 hours of funded childcare per week.

To find out when your child becomes age-eligible to access EYFE, see our Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) page.

Eligibility criteria

You can apply if you (and your partner if you have one) are working and earn:

  • less than £100,000 per year (per person)
  • more than the equivalent of 16 hours at the national living wage or minimum wage per week, for example, £120 per week if you are 25 or older (apprentices are also eligible if they earn the equivalent of 16 hours at the apprentice minimum wage)

You may also be eligible if:

  • you and your partner are employed, but one or both of you is temporarily away from the workplace on parental, maternity or paternity, adoption leave, or on statutory sick pay
  • you are employed, but your partner either has substantial caring responsibilities, or is disabled or incapacitated, or vice versa (in other words, your partner is employed but you have caring responsibilities or are disabled or incapacitated) - this is dependent on you or your partner being entitled to specific disability or caring benefits such as:
    • incapacity benefit
    • carers allowance
    • contribution based employment and support allowance
    • severe disablement allowance
  • you are self-employed or on a zero hours contract and expect to meet the earning criteria on average over the next three months - if you are starting up your own business, you will not be expected to meet the minimum earning criteria in your first year of trading
  • you are not currently working, but are expecting to take up paid work within 14 days, as long as you expect to meet the income criteria over the coming 3 months.

 

2 How to apply for EYFE for Working Families

Your application must be made to the government in advance, who then check that you are eligible and provide you with an eligibility code. To access EYFE for Working Families at a childcare provider for an age-eligible child, you must apply for and receive your eligibility code by the applicable deadline below:

  • 31 December, to start accessing from the beginning of the spring term starting in January
  • 31 March, to start accessing from the beginning of the summer term starting in April
  • 31 August, to start accessing from the beginning of the autumn term starting in September

If you do not apply for and receive your eligibility code by the deadline, your child may not be able to access EYFE for the term.

If you provide false information, you could face a fine of up to £3,000.

Apply online (external link)

3 How to access EYFE for Working Families

Once your eligibility is confirmed, you will receive an 11-digit eligibility code for the EYFE for Working Families. For information on how to use and claim EYFE, visit our Early Years Funded Entitlement page.

It is important to remember your code must be reconfirmed every 3 months. The government should remind you by text message or email before the deadline. You can do this by logging in to your Government Gateway account you created to apply for your code.

Your chosen childcare provider should check your code is valid before you start. When they do this, they can see the following that relates to your code:

Start date: is when your code was issued by HMRC, but this is not the date your child can access their funding from. The start date of a code must always be before 31 of March, August or December.  

End date: is the date you need to reconfirm your code by. The code enters its ‘grace period’ the day after. 

Grace period: is the period of time where a code is still able to be used to access funding. It can only be used if a funded place is already being accessed. The code is valid at your child’s current provider up until the ‘grace period end date’. 

Grace period end date: is the potential date that your child could be funded up to if they fall out of eligibility, such as if your working hours change. It is important to note you only use your code during its grace period if you are already accessing a funded place. You cannot access funding at a new provider. 

It is important you provide your chosen childcare provider with your code as soon as possible.

If you remain eligible and reconfirm on time then funding continues until your child becomes of statutory school age (the end of the term that they turn 5), or when your child starts to attend school (even on a part time basis), whichever is earliest.

All parents can access up to 15 hours of Universal EYFE for 3 and 4 year olds, even if you are or become ineligible for EYFE for Working Families.

If you lose eligibility for the Extended EYFE for Working Families (for example, due to a change in employment circumstances), your child’s place will be funded during a ‘Grace period’. You can continue to access EYFE for Working Families at your chosen provider, but a new provider would be unable to claim whilst you are in your Grace Period. After the grace period, you will still be eligible for the Universal EYFE if your child meets the age requirement. If accessing EYFE hours at 2 providers, the Universal EYFE will continue at the provider(s) listed on your parent declaration form. Children not age-eligible for Universal EYFE will no longer access EYFE hours unless eligible for 2 year old LA Issued EYFE or when they reach the required age for Universal EYFE.

There is no difference in how the first 15 Universal hours and the additional 15 Extended hours are delivered. All hours follow the Early Years Foundation Stage framework.

You do not need to use all 15 or 30 hours of the EYFE for Working Families to access it. For example, if you use 25 hours per week, the government will still fund the hours you take up under the EYFE for working families offer.

 

 

4 Information for foster carers and kinship carers

Foster carers can apply for EYFE for Working Families. If you are a foster carer you need to liaise with your social worker to assess whether accessing a funded childcare place is in the best interests of the child.

Eligibility

Foster carers must still meet the working families eligibility criteria. This means you must also be in receipt of paid employment or self-employment outside of your foster carer role if you wish to apply for this funding.

Children in foster care will be able to receive funded hours for working families, if criteria are met. These are:

  • the responsible local authority must agree that the foster parent’s paid work outside their fostering role is consistent with the child’s care plan - the agreement that the foster parents can take up EYFE for Working Families should be recorded and the child’s care plan should be updated as appropriate
  • that, in single parent foster families, the foster parent engages in paid work outside their role as a foster parent, although there is no minimum income requirement
  • in 2 parent foster families, either both partners engage in paid work outside their role as a foster parent (although there is no minimum income requirement for either foster parent) or one partner engages in paid work and the other partner receives certain qualifying benefits
  • if one partner is not a foster parent, then that partner must be in qualifying paid work and earn a minimum of the equivalent to 16 hours at national minimum wage, unless they are receiving certain qualifying benefits
  • a child in foster care has a disability and their foster carer is a full-time carer. However, the full-time foster carer must receive Carer’s Allowance and have a partner who works outside of their fostering role

If foster carers do not meet the eligibility criteria, West Sussex County Council (WSCC) can assess the child’s needs for early years’ education and childcare as part of the child’s care plan, but this would be funded in a different way.

Application

If you are a foster carer of a child where WSCC is the corporate parent, you should first speak to your child’s social worker to assess whether access to funded childcare for working families is in the best interests of the child. The designated person from the West Sussex Virtual School will give the final agreement to ensure that it is in the child’s best interest. If another local authority is considered the corporate parent, please speak to your social worker.

If it is agreed that accessing funded EYFE hours will benefit the child, you will then complete an application form provided by the county council. This application must be made before:

  • 31 December, to start accessing from the beginning of the spring term starting in January
  • 31 March, to start accessing from the beginning of the summer term starting in April
  • 31 August, to start accessing from the beginning of the autumn term starting in September

Foster carers, like all other parents and carers accessing funded hours for working families, are required to reconfirm their eligibility every 3 months. To reconfirm your eligibility, the Early Years Funding team will contact your allocated social worker, who will then get in contact with you to check if you are still eligible.

Kinship carers

Kinship carers may be entitled to financial support to help cover the cost of childcare. There are different types of kinship carers. Visit the Kinship West Sussex page to find out more. You can also visit the looking after someone else’s child government page. Connected person foster carers should follow the above guidance for foster carers.

Parents are eligible to make an application for funded hours for working families. A parent, in relation to a child, includes any individual who has either:

  • parental responsibility for the child
  • has care of the child

Therefore, if you are classed as a kinship carer who has parental responsibility or care of the child, you may be eligible. You should apply through Childcare Choices, and when asked your relationship to the child, select the guardian option.

 

5 Contact information

If you need help or any further information, contact us using the details below.

Last updated:
5 February 2025
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