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Your Child Care Subsidy percentage will apply to the lowest of either the hourly:
- rate cap
- fee you’re charged by your child care service.
Hourly rate cap
There’s a different hourly rate cap depending on the type of approved child care you use.
| Type of child care | Hourly rate cap |
|---|---|
| Centre Based Day Care - long day care and occasional care | $12.74 |
| Family Day Care | $11.80 |
| Outside School Hours Care - before, after and vacation care | $11.15 |
| In Home Care | $34.64 per family |
The Department of Education have an In Home Care Estimator on their website. If you’re using In Home Care, this estimator can give you an idea of how much you might get.
In some cases your child’s age will mean we use a different hourly rate cap.
| Age of your child and the type of child care | Hourly rate cap we’ll apply |
|---|---|
| School aged and in Centre Based Day Care | Outside School Hours Care |
| Below school age and in Outside School Hours Care | Centre Based Day Care |
A school aged child is a child who is either:
- in school, including being home schooled
- 6 or older.
Read about the different recognised primary school levels for child care fee assistance based on your state.
Hourly fee
The hourly fee is the amount your child care service charges you for each hour of care. If your service charges a daily session rate, divide this by the number of hours in the session.
The number of hours in a session may not be the number of hours your child actually attends. Check with your child care service to find out the number of hours in a session.
Example of calculating the hourly fee for a daily session rate
Jan has a child named Riley. Riley attends a Centre Based Day Care. They charge $100 per day based on a 10 hour session.
Jan works out the hourly fee by dividing the daily session rate by the number of hours in the session. This means the hourly fee is $10.