Services Australia has started another yearly check: Child Care Subsidy (CCS) balancing. Balancing can give a welcome cash boost to many families. In fact, last year almost 80 per cent of families got a top up payment or no change as their balancing outcome. How much money lands in your bank account as a top up depends on your circumstances.
Here I’ll answer some common causes of confusion and potential balancing delays for families and how to avoid them.
What’s balancing?
Balancing is how we check families got the right amount of financial support over the past year.
We compare what you estimated your family income would be for the financial year with your actual income for the year and check everything lines up.
To kick-start the process, you need to confirm your family income for last financial year (2025-26) by either lodging a tax return or by telling Services Australia you don’t need to lodge.
Once that’s done it may take a couple of weeks to balance your payments, but it could happen sooner.
When finished we’ll write to you to confirm if you’ll get a top up payment, need to pay money back or there’s no change.
Why do we balance Child Care Subsidy in August?
We balance Family Tax Benefit (FTB) from July and CCS from mid-August. This is because we need information from child care providers, like your child’s attendance details for the financial year, before we can begin the CCS process.
If you have confirmed your income by lodging a tax return, you don’t need to do anything - we’ll balance your CCS payments when we have all of the information we need.
If you don’t need to lodge, you need to tell us and confirm your income, through myGov, even if you’ve already told ATO. If you have already done this for your FTB, you don’t need to do it again.
Didn’t get the balancing outcome you expected?
Most families get a top up payment or no change, but some families get a debt.
This is usually because your income changed through the year and your income estimate was out of date. Life happens: extra shifts, changed jobs, time off. Or your circumstances changed in ways you didn’t expect.
We automatically withhold 5 per cent of your CCS to help reduce the risk of overpayment. You can increase this percentage in your online account if you want a bit more buffer to suit your family’s needs.
If you do get a debt, you’ll get a letter explaining your balancing outcome, either in your myGov Inbox or by mail. We’ll also outline flexible repayment options to pay the money back.
The good news is there’s an easy fix for the future. Take 5 minutes to update your income estimate whenever things change - it could make a big difference at the end of the financial year.
Waiting on balancing - has your partner confirmed their income?
One that can catch some people out: you’ve confirmed your income, but your balancing hasn’t happened yet. Make sure your partner has confirmed their income too!
We base your CCS rate on your family income estimate. This includes you and your partner. So your partner needs to lodge a tax return, or you need to tell us they don’t need to lodge, to get your balancing sorted.
If you separated during the year, don’t worry, you don’t need to contact your ex-partner. Call us on 136 150 to discuss confirming their income.
For more information go to servicesaustralia.gov.au/balancing or watch our podcast - Balancing Explained.