Expansion to early childcare entitlements: eligibility codes issued and validated
Management information on eligibility codes for the extended childcare entitlement for working parents.
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Headline facts and figures
This publication provides a summary of the number of eligibility codes issued to parents of children aged nine months to two years old, and the number of codes that have been validated by providers to date.
The data is taken from DfE’s Eligibility Checking System (ECS).
This is management information data, aggregating codes by local authority (using child postcodes), age of child (9 months to 12 months vs one-year-olds vs two-year-olds), and the term for which the code was applied (Spring and Summer 2026). This will be the final publication relating to the Spring Term 2026, and the first publication of data relating to the Summer Term 2026.
This is the second time that number of parents benefiting from the entitlement have been published as well as the codes issued and validated by deprivation, based on Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), following the March 2026 publication.
These counts reflect data as at midnight on the 31st March 2026 (end of Spring term) and noon on 30th June 2026 (Summer term) - see methodology for more details.
About these statistics
In order to access a government-funded childcare entitlement place, parents and carers must apply for an eligibility code. This code is subsequently validated by early years providers or local authorities once a place has been secured at an approved setting.
This release presents the number of eligibility codes issued and validated for the Spring 2026 and Summer 2026 terms. Data for the Spring term are reported as at midnight on 31 March 2026, while data for the Summer term are reported as at noon on 30 June 2026. As the Summer term is still ongoing, figures should be treated as provisional and may increase as more codes are validated.
Building on the previous publication in March 2026, this release again includes validation rates by area-level deprivation using the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), alongside estimates of the number of parents benefiting from funded entitlements.
The Spring term ran from 1 January to 31 March 2026, and the Summer term runs from 1 April to 31 August 2026.
National codes issued, validated, and percentage validated by age of child and term
LA Map of Validation Rates
Codes issued, validated, and percentage validated by IDACI
The Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) is one of the components of the Indices of Deprivation for England. It measures the proportion of children aged 0–15 living in income‑deprived households within each Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA). Nationally, LSOAs are grouped into ten deciles, where Decile 1 represents the most deprived areas and Decile 10 the least deprived.
This section presents validation rates for eligibility codes issued for Spring 2026 and Summer 2026 terms, broken down by IDACI decile. It shows the proportion of codes validated for existing users, new users, and all users combined, highlighting how validation patterns vary across areas with different levels of deprivation.
Number of Parents Benefiting from the Entitlement
Background to the policy
All three and four-year-olds in England are entitled to 15 hours a week of funded early education for 38 weeks of the year (term-time). In addition, since September 2017 three-and four-year-olds from families where both parents are working (or the sole parent is working in a lone parent family), and each parent earns a weekly minimum equivalent to 16 hours at national minimum wage or living wage, and less than £100,000 per year, have been entitled to 30 hours free childcare per week, for 38 weeks a year.
In 2023 the government announced that the entitlement would be extended to 30 hours free childcare per week for eligible working families for children aged nine months and older. The rollout of this policy was staggered such that from April 2024 eligible parents of two-year-olds were able to access 15 hours free childcare. From September 2024 eligible working parents of children from the age of nine months were able to access 15 hours free childcare, and from September 2025 all children aged nine months and above from eligible working families began accessing 30 hours of free childcare per week, for 38 weeks a year.
Background to the data source
Parents apply for the free childcare offer (hereafter referred to as an ‘entitlement’) through HMRC’s Childcare Service. As part of this process, eligibility is assessed against the relevant criteria. Where a parent is determined to be eligible, an eligibility code is issued via the Childcare Service and recorded in the Eligibility Checking System (ECS). This code serves as evidence of entitlement.
Parents are required to present their eligibility code to a registered childcare provider. Providers must then verify the validity of the code using the ECS. This verification process is recorded within the system and is referred to in this publication as a ‘validation’. For a child to access funded childcare, an eligibility code must be generated in advance of the start of the relevant term and subsequently validated by a provider.
Interpreting the data
Typically, fewer eligibility codes for childcare entitlement offers are validated than are issued (see methodology). The proportion of codes validated can be impacted by several factors, including:
- Parental behaviour. Parents may have applied for a code in advance of the term but subsequently decided that their child was not ready to attend a formal setting by the time the term began. Similarly, the parent may have an issued code but yet to arrange or choose a preferred provider, or their child may not yet have taken up their place at their preferred provider.
- Provider behaviour. The local chosen provider may not have a place available to offer, or may not offer entitlement funded hours. In these cases, the code is not validated, but the child may or may not be attending. This could also reflect a delay (a) while the provider makes a decision, for example if waiting for funding rate confirmation from their local authority, or (b) if the provider routinely validates codes for places taken up later in the term.
- Miscellaneous. There may be issues or delays in the ECS system, meaning a code was issued but not validated. For example, the code may have been issued but the LA has not validated the code, despite a provider confirming the place. Codes issued reflect codes applied for by the application deadline, though a small number continue to be processed and issued beyond this date. This means a small number of parents may not have had chance to validate the code with their chosen provider and LA by the 30th April. Additionally, some codes were automatically issued to parents with Tax-Free Childcare accounts who may not have intended to apply for one (see methodology section for more details).
Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Expansion to early childcare entitlements: eligibility codes issued and validated statistics and data:
Early Years Analysis and Research Unit
Email: EY.AnalysisANDResearch@education.gov.ukContact name: Thabang Nonyane
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