The Child Care Subsidy (CCS) is the main way the federal government helps with the cost of approved child care in Australia. It’s paid to your provider, not to you, and it reduces your fee automatically — but what it actually covers, and what it doesn’t, catches a lot of families out. Here’s the short version.
Photo by Tanaphong Toochinda on Unsplash
What it covers
CCS pays a percentage of your hourly child care fee, up to an hourly cap set by the government. It applies to approved:
- Long day care (centre-based)
- Family day care
- Outside school hours care
- In-home care (in limited circumstances)
Your CCS percentage depends on your family’s combined income. For 2026–27:
- Families earning $88,520 or less get the maximum rate of 90%.
- Above that, the rate steps down by 1 percentage point for every $5,000 of extra income.
- It reaches 0% at $538,520.
If you have more than one child aged 5 or under in care, your second and younger children can get a higher rate — up to 95% — worked out separately from your eldest child’s standard rate. Siblings don’t need to attend the same service for this to apply.
These income figures and the hourly caps below are indexed every July, so the exact numbers shift each financial year — the ones here are current for 2026–27. Worth checking Services Australia directly if you’re reading this well after that.
The hourly cap — the part that actually determines your gap fee
This is the detail that trips people up. CCS doesn’t apply to your full fee — it applies to whichever is lower: your provider’s hourly fee, or the government’s hourly rate cap.
For 2026–27, the caps are approximately:
- $15.19/hour — centre-based day care, below school age
- $14.08/hour — family day care
- $13.30/hour — outside school hours care
If your centre charges more than the cap — increasingly common in high-demand areas — you pay the full difference on every dollar above it, with no subsidy at all on that portion. A centre charging $18/hour when the cap is $15.19 means you’re covering that $2.81 gap yourself, on top of your regular gap fee. This is usually where families get a nasty surprise: a high CCS percentage doesn’t mean a low bill if your provider’s fees sit well above the cap.
The 3 Day Guarantee — how many hours you can actually access
Since 5 January 2026, the old activity test has been replaced by the 3 Day Guarantee. This is a significant change from how CCS used to work, so it’s worth spelling out clearly:
- Every CCS-eligible family now gets at least 72 hours of subsidised care per fortnight (roughly 3 days a week), regardless of how much you work, study, or volunteer.
- You can access 100 hours per fortnight if you (and your partner, if you have one) each do more than 48 hours per fortnight of recognised work, study or training — or if you have a valid exemption.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are entitled to 100 hours per fortnight regardless of family activity levels.
Before January 2026, a family with limited or no work/study hours could be capped at as little as 24 subsidised hours a fortnight. That floor is gone. If you were told in the past that you didn’t qualify for much subsidised care because you weren’t working enough hours, it’s worth checking again — you very likely qualify for more now.
What it doesn’t cover
- Fees above the hourly rate cap — see above. This is the single biggest source of unexpected out-of-pocket cost.
- Non-approved care — most casual babysitters, unregistered nannies, and informal arrangements aren’t CCS-eligible. The provider has to be an approved child care service.
- Extras some services charge separately — things like excursions, incursions, or formula/nappies at some centres may sit outside the subsidised fee, depending on the provider’s billing structure.
- A child who doesn’t meet immunisation requirements — your child generally needs to meet the Australian Immunisation Register requirements (the “No Jab, No Play” rules) to be CCS-eligible, with limited medical exemptions.
- Families who don’t meet residency rules — you or your partner generally need to be an Australian citizen, permanent resident, or hold an eligible visa category.
Other eligibility basics
To get CCS at all, you generally need to:
- Have a child 13 or under (or up to 18 in some disability/special circumstances) who isn’t yet attending secondary school full-time
- Use an approved child care service
- Be responsible for paying the child care fees
- Meet the residency and immunisation requirements above
- Have your income estimate and enrolment set up correctly through Centrelink/myGov
If your circumstances are unusual
Families facing financial hardship, a child at risk, or a temporary transition into work may qualify for Additional Child Care Subsidy (ACCS) — a separate, higher-rate support on top of standard CCS. It’s assessed case by case through Services Australia, and it’s worth asking about directly if your situation is complicated rather than assuming standard CCS is your only option.