The Child Care Subsidy at Gizmo's

The short version

The Child Care Subsidy (CCS) is the Government's contribution towards your child care fees. Gizmo's is registered with Kids at Home, an approved family day care provider, so if you're eligible, the subsidy is paid straight to the provider and your invoice arrives already reduced. You never pay the full fee and wait to be reimbursed.

The amount left for you to pay is called the gap fee. That's the number that actually matters when you're comparing us to a centre, and it's the number Katie will quote you.

What decides how much you get

Three things set your subsidy, and Services Australia controls all three:

• Your family income. The subsidy is a percentage of your fee, and that percentage steps down as combined family income rises.
• Your subsidised hours. There's a limit on how many hours per fortnight are subsidised for each child. Working, studying, volunteering and looking for work all count towards it, and there's a minimum entitlement that applies regardless.
• The hourly rate cap. The subsidy is calculated against a capped hourly rate, and family day care has its own cap, separate from long day care.

There are two further conditions: your child needs to meet the immunisation requirements (or be on a recognised catch-up schedule or exemption), and you need to be the person liable for the fees.

How to claim it with us, step by step

If you've never claimed CCS before, this is the whole process. It's more straightforward than it looks: most families get through it in an afternoon.

1. Set up myGov and link Centrelink. If you already receive any family payment, this is done.
2. Get a Customer Reference Number (CRN) for yourself and for your child. You need both. If your child doesn't have one, Centrelink can create it when you claim.
3. Submit your CCS claim through your Centrelink online account. You'll be asked about your income estimate and your activity: work, study, volunteering or looking for work.
4. Give Katie your details. She needs your CRN, your child's CRN, and your child's date of birth, exactly as they appear in your Centrelink record. A single letter out of place is the most common reason an enrolment won't match.
5. Kids at Home submits the enrolment. As the approved provider, they lodge the Complying Written Arrangement for your child, which is what tells Services Australia your child attends here. Katie passes your details on and follows it through.
6. You confirm the enrolment in myGov. This step is easy to miss, and until you do it the subsidy won't flow. Katie will remind you.
7. Your invoices arrive with the subsidy already deducted. Kids at Home handles billing by weekly direct debit, and you pay the gap fee.

Kids at Home charges a one-off enrolment fee when you join. Katie will tell you what that is when you enquire.

Absences, holidays and sick days

Each child gets an allowance of absence days per financial year that are still subsidised, so the occasional sick day or family holiday doesn't mean paying the full fee. Beyond that allowance, additional absences can still be covered in certain circumstances. Katie tracks this and will tell you where you stand rather than letting you find out on an invoice.

Gizmo's own closures work differently and more simply: when we're closed over the Christmas period, no fees are charged at all, because there's nothing to subsidise and nothing to pay.

A word on comparing costs

When you're weighing us against a long day care centre, compare gap fees, not headline rates. The two services have different hourly rate caps, and centres often charge for hours you don't use. The honest comparison is: what will I actually pay, for the hours I actually need?

See our fees and current vacancies → · Family day care vs long day care →