Financial support for early education and care (ECEC) is complex. It includes not only entitlements to access government-funded hours, but also provisions through the social security and tax systems.
Here, we focus only on entitlements to funded hours, in England: arguably the most straightforward component of the system. Funded hours can be taken up through any Ofsted-registered provider: including school-based nursery classes, private nurseries, voluntary sector pre-schools, and childminders. Childminders may be registered with an agency that is then registered with Ofsted.
Changes over the years
Universal entitlements to a funded, part-time early education place for every four-year-old in England were established in the late 1990s, and rolled out to cover all three-year-olds by 2004. Children were entitled to the equivalent of 12.5 hours per week, 33 weeks per year.
In 2008, the universal entitlement rose from 33 to 38 weeks per year. In 2010, it rose from 12.5 to 15 hours a week.
Alongside this, from 2006, a small number of local authorities trialled funded hours for two-year-olds classed as ‘disadvantaged,’ predominantly but not exclusively on the basis of low household income or local area deprivation.
In 2013, across all local authorities, two-year-olds whose family income was in the bottom 20% of the income distribution became entitled to 15 hours a week. From 2014, the entitlement was further extended to cover those whose families’ income was in the bottom 40%.
A much smaller number of children with experience of the care system and children with disabilities are also included in this ‘disadvantaged-two-year-olds’ offer.
The income threshold for the ‘disadvantaged-two-year-olds’ funding has been frozen since its introduction (rather than increasing over time to continue to incorporate the 40% lowest income households). This means that by 2024 the percentage of two-year old children entitled to funded hours on the basis of low-income had fallen to 24%.
While increasingly fewer disadvantaged two-year-olds became eligible for funding post-2014, funding for some three-and-four-year olds was expanded. In 2017, working families became entitled to an additional 15 hours, raising their total entitlement to 30 hours.
More changes have been implemented over the past two years, and again are only for working families. In April 2024, two-year-olds in working families became entitled to 15 hours per week. This overlaps rather than adding to the entitlement for those also entitled to ‘disadvantaged-two-year-olds’ funding, so the total remains 15 for those entitled to both.
From September 2024, children aged nine months to two years in working families have been entitled to 15 hours per week. This increased to 30 hours per week, 38 weeks of the year from September 2025.
Entitlements in 2026
The current situation, in 2026, is therefore that, at one end of the spectrum of entitlements:
- Children in working families are entitled to the equivalent of 30 hours per week, 38 weeks per year, from 9 months old to four years old
While at the other end of the spectrum:
- Children in ‘disadvantaged’ families, who are not working, are entitled to 15 hours per week from two years old to four years old
Over the past three decades, the focus of funding has shifted away from early universalism, where all children were entitled to a funded place from age three. Initially it shifted to a targeting of disadvantage, and then it shifted to a prioritisation of parental employment support.
| Late 1990s | Universal entitlements to a funded, part-time early education place for every four-year-old |
| 2004 | Universal entitlements to 12.5 hours per week, 33 weeks per year for every three and four-year-old |
| 2006 | Selected LAs trial funded hours for disadvantaged two-year-old |
| 2008 | Universal entitlements to 12.5 hours per week, 38 weeks per year for every three and four-year-old |
| 2010 | Universal entitlements to 15 hours per week, 38 weeks per year for every three and four-year-old |
| 2013 | All LAs offer funded hours for low income two-year-olds, bottom 20% |
| 2014 | All LAs offer 15 hours, 38 weeks per year, for low income two-year-olds, bottom 40% |
| 2017 | Additional 15 hours per week, 38 weeks per year for three and four-year-olds with working parents |
| April 2024 | Additional 15 hours, 38 weeks per year, for two-year-olds with working parents |
| September 2024 | Additional 15 hours, 38 weeks per year, from 9 months old, with working parents |
| September 2025 | Additional 30 hours, 38 weeks per year, from 9 months old, with working parents |
‘Working’ is defined as: ‘Each parent or the single parent in a lone parent household…earn[ing] the equivalent of 16 hours at the national living wage or their national minimum wage rate over the forthcoming quarter’ with the additional stipulation that, ‘if either or both parents’ income exceeds £100,000 they will not be eligible for the extended entitlement.’
There have been some exceptions to the universalism of the offers. Until 2022, children in families with no recourse to public funds, including asylum seeking families, were not entitled to the ‘disadvantaged two-year-olds’ offer. These families are now entitled to 15 hours from age two if classed as disadvantaged, and to the universal 15 hours from age three. However, they continue to be excluded from the more recent expanded entitlements from 9 months onwards for working parents.
While these theoretical funding entitlements exist for the vast majority of families, it is important to note they do not guarantee a place, and there is no mechanism to allocate places. Some groups of children in some areas are less likely to be able to use their funding than others. For example, under-provision for pre-schoolers with disabilities has consistently been highlighted, and some areas experience ‘childcare deserts,’ where the number of available places is far fewer than the number of under-fives.
At times, the funded hours have been promoted as entirely free-at-the-point-of-contact, and in some early years settings they are. Whether this is the case varies across providers, with some charging for registration fees and other extras and others stipulating attendance requirements that go beyond the hours funded and require additional payments. Language around these entitlements has therefore shifted over time, from ‘free’ to ‘funded,’ so the latter is what we have used in this explainer.
Education Policy Institute (2026). Early Years Explainer: How have entitlements to funded hours in early education and care changed over the years? [URL] (accessed Day Month Year).