Tax free childcare - help please

[Redhothoochycoocher]

DH and I both work. We get tax free childcare for DD4. She will start school in sept. I am going to stop working for appx 6 months during which time we won't get tax free childcare and DD will continue going to nursery for 3 days a week.

Does anyone know whether I need to keep working until 6th April in order to not need to pay the tax free gov contributions back? Ideally I'd like to stop on 28th march to coincide with the Easter holidays but don't want to be penalised by needing to pay tax free childcare back.

I can't see any guidance on this online so would grateful if someone has any info?

For the tax free childcare won't it go off when you have to reconfirm your details? So the deadline will depend on your dates.

Ah ok thanks. That makes sense. Do you know where I would find out?

You'll not have to pay any of it back. But once you let them know you're not working (wait until you have to do this, once every 3 months) then they'll stop adding the 20% extra to your account for any money you put in.

My DH got made redundant and we knew it was probably coming (during COVID) and so we topped up our account to get the maximum benefit while he was still working. And that covered a few months of childcare costs so I just kept paying childcare out of the tax free childcare account while he wasn't working. By the time I needed to top it up again he had found a new job

Log into your gov gateway account and it will tell you when you next need to reconfirm your details. If you get to reconfirm again whilst you're still working do it late as possible in that window to get an extra months tax free in.