Child Care Subsidy

Family income

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

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

You can still claim this subsidy even if your family income estimate is $352,453 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 $188,163 or less, you won’t have an annual cap on your subsidy.

If your family earns between $188,163 and $352,453 we’ll cap your subsidy. This means we’ll subsidise your fees up to the annual cap of $10,373 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 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.