Child Care Subsidy

 CHILD CARE SUBSIDY - CCS

Assistance to help you with the cost of child care.

FROM ELLIE: I'd like to cover (top line only, with links for more detail) CCS payments, ceased eligibility (26 weeks) and implications of this (ie CCS is recovered on all absences after last eligible attendance) and steps to reactivate CCS eligibility once it does cease Can you please have a go and we'll work on it together?

To get Child Care Subsidy (CCS) you must:

• care for a child 13 or younger who's not attending secondary school, unless an exemption applies

• use an approved child care service

• be responsible for paying the child care fees

• meet residency and immunisation requirements.

The amount of Child Care Subsidy you can get depends on your circumstances.

To work out how much CCS you’re eligible for we’ll look at all of the following:

• your family’s income

• the hourly rate cap based on the type of approved child care you use and your child’s age

• the hours of activity you and your partner do.

The amount of subsidised child care you can access per fortnight applies to each child.

How to claim

Complete the following steps to apply for Child Care Subsidy (CCS)

If your child is absent from child care

Instructions on how to confirm your child’s enrolment details for Child Care Subsidy.

CCS Recovery - paying back

When Centrelink updates an enrolment to "ceased" after a period of no attendance, they review the child’s submitted attendances/absences to ensure no CCS has been paid after the child’s last physical attendance at the service.

 Where CCS has been paid after the child’s last physical attendance, Centrelink will automatically recover this CCS as they deem that the family is not entitled to this subsidy payment.

These charges are directly from Centrelink and the centre has no control over them.

When your child doesn’t use child care

From 11 July 2022, if your child hasn’t used child care at least once in the previous 26 weeks, they will stop being eligible for Child Care Subsidy (CCS)

We’ll reassess your family if one or more of your children stop using child care. We’ll check to see if any other children still using child care can get the higher CCS rate from 11 July 2022 onwards.

If you decide not to use child care, you can contact us to end your child’s CCS eligibility.

If your child starts to attend care again, you’ll need to submit a new claim for