Tax-free childcare timings

[cruelemort]

I am currently a member of the childcare voucher scheme but it will be better for me and my partner to move over to tax-free childcare. My baby is due to start nursery in August and i had a couple of questions -

• All the information on tax-free childcare says the government will top up by £2000 per year, is this a calendar year? Financial year? Year since you joined the scheme? Child's birthday? I want to leave it to as late as possible before joining the scheme so i can maximise the number of childcare vouchers i have, so if for example it is done per calendar year i would like to wait until December 31st to sign up and put the whole amount in on one day, therefore being able to collect childcare vouchers all the way until December.

• At what stage do you have to be to start getting the government top-ups? You can start collecting childcare vouchers before your child goes to nursery but I am unsure if you can do the same for tax-free childcare?

Thanks!

Hi @cruelemort sorry to pick your brain rather than fill it but I am currently looking at the same questions. Did you manage to find any answers?

In particular to the second question - Our DD is due in June and DH and I are splitting a year of leave between us so she won't be going to nursery until Jun 2019, we are better off under the tax-free childcare scheme but I can't seem to find anywhere that says we can start paying into it before she starts nursery (like you can with buying vouchers).

Afraid not @FloydOnThePull, i will post here if i find anything. I imagine I can get the answers off the tax free childcare website when i sign up, but i am concerned that if i sign up there it will automatically cancel me getting any more childcare vouchers!

The top up is added to what you pay in, each time you pay in, up to a maximum of £500 per quarter. So don't put in £8000 in one lump sum!

I'm signed up to TFC and from what I can tell the top up is allocated quarterly (although paid into your TFC account as soon as you make a deposit) and you have to reconfirm your eligibility every 3 months from when you sign up. So I don't think it matters when you sign up as such. They will ask you to confirm whether you're receiving vouchers or not. Hope that helps.

You reconfirm eligibility every three months, so I don't think you can start paying in until you are nearly ready to pay for childcare.
You have to leave the voucher scheme within three months of setting up Tax-Free Childcare. At first reconfirmation point (3 months from opening account) you have to confirm you are no longer getting vouchers.
Least that is how I think it works.

My understanding is that it is a rolling year. You can get a maximum top up if £500 per 3 months. Money can stay in your account. If you have a regular payment every month it doesn't matter but if you say only need childcare in holidays you may be best off paying money into the account throughout the year rather than just in the holidays as you may receive more of the top up. If your child is eligible but they haven't started nursery yet you may want to consider starting to pay money in so you can get additional top ups (only really makes a difference if you have high childcare costs).

We have set this up as I've changed jobs and we are better off but I hadn't thought about the fact when we are entitled to 30hrs free childcare we may actually be better off with the vouchers. I hadn't factored that in.