Dear Service Provider,
NCS subsidy increasing on Monday 2 September
The minimum rate for the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) subsidies will increase from €1.40 to €2.14 on Monday 2 September. The increase, which was introduced by Minister Roderic O’Gorman as part of Budget 2024 measures, means that if parents are in receipt of a subsidy which is less than the maximum, they will receive a higher subsidy towards their childcare fees.
There will be no change to the sponsor rate for children aged 0-52 weeks.
The remaining sponsor rates will have the max rate increased to €5.30 as demonstrated below.
| Current Max Rate | New Max Rate | |
| 1 to 2 years | €5.00 | €5.30 |
| 3+ years | €4.54 | €5.30 |
| School Age | €4.31 | €5.30 |
Awards will be recalculated with this new rate and updated accordingly.
Claims will automatically be updated with the new rate for these applicants. There will be no need for parents to confirm these claims again, however if parents have not yet confirmed their claims, they will still be required to do so. Claims must be confirmed by the applicant before payments can flow to the provider.
Important: It should be noted that where rates change, the parents’ co-payment must be updated, and the parent informed.
Service Providers can identify affected claims on the Budget 2024 Claims affected page. This page can be found under the NCS section of the Programmes menu.
Please note that because of the uplift, service providers do not have to create any new documents or have new signatures in old documents.
Support
If you need further support, please raise a Request on the Early Years Hive using the following dropdown options:
- Request program type: NCS
- Request type: Registrations
- Request type detail: Claim
Regards
The Early Years Team