Your income can affect it

Family income

We'll work out your Child Care Subsidy (CCS) percentage using your family income estimate.

Your CCS percentage is the amount we’ll subsidise. It will apply to either your hourly fee or the relevant hourly rate cap, whichever is lower.

Your family income	Child Care Subsidy percentage
$0 to $69,390	85%
More than $69,390 to below $174,390	Between 85% and 50% The percentage goes down by 1% for every $3,000 of income your family earns
$174,390 to below $253,680	50%
$253,680 to below $343,680	Between 50% and 20% The percentage goes down by 1% for every $3,000 of income your family earns
$343,680 to below $353,680	20%
$353,680 or more	0%

You can still claim this subsidy even if your family income estimate is $353,680 or more. If you actually earn less than this, we’ll pay you the subsidy you’re entitled to. We’ll do this when we balance your payments at the end of the financial year.

Annual cap

If your family earns $189,390 or less, you won’t have an annual cap on your subsidy.

If your family earns between $189,390 and $353,680 we’ll cap your subsidy. This means we’ll subsidise your fees up to the annual cap of $10,560 per child each financial year.

Withholding

We’ll withhold 5% of your subsidy. This is to help reduce the likelihood of you getting an overpayment. You’re able to vary this amount to suit your circumstances.

You can do this up to twice a year using your Centrelink online account through myGov. If you’d like to change it more than this, call the Families line.

We use your family income estimate to work out how much subsidy you’ll get. This means at the end of each financial year we’ll balance your payments using your actual adjusted taxable income. We compare this information to make sure we’ve subsidised your child care fees correctly in the financial year.

If you underestimated your family income, you may end up with an overpayment which you’ll need to pay back. We’ll use the amount we withheld to help reduce the debt.

If you have a CCS overpayment, we may use some of your CCS each fortnight to pay this back. The easiest way to repay money is by using the Money you owe service. This is available in either your Centrelink online account through myGov or your Express Plus Centrelink mobile app. Read more about the steps you can take if you’re ready to start repaying the money you owe.

If you overestimated your family income and didn’t get enough subsidy, we’ll pay any outstanding amount directly to you. This will include the amount we withheld.