Is 30 hours childcare the same in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

How do the four official offers compare?

GOV.UK — Free Childcare for Working Parents is explicit: you must live in England, and there are different schemes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A .co.uk search for “30 hours” still lands on the England apply page. That page does not enrol a child in Glasgow, Cardiff or Belfast.

Does England’s 9-month working-parent offer apply in the rest of the UK?

No. The 9-months-to-4, 30-hour, 11-digit-code scheme is Free Childcare for Working Parents. GOV.UK limits it to families who live in England. Moving to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland ends that code. Moving the other way means a fresh England apply once you live there and meet the tests.

Tax-Free Childcare is a different product. It is a UK-wide top-up account for approved childcare (child 11 or under, or 16 if disabled) and is not a substitute for a nation’s funded-hours offer. You still cannot hold it with Universal Credit childcare.

What does Scotland fund instead of the England 30 hours code?

mygov.scot (last updated 1 April 2026) says 3 to 5 year olds can get up to 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare a year. That is around 22 hours a week if used all year, or around 30 hours a week if used only in school term time. The page also says some 2 year olds can get funded hours, and that funded ELC is free to you.

Start dates follow the child’s birthday and the type of setting. mygov.scot’s council-nursery table is not the England 1 January / 1 April / 1 September grid: turning 3 between 1 March and 31 August points at an August start; 1 September to 31 December at January; 1 January to 28 or 29 February at March or April. Contact the local council if the setting is a partner nursery or childminder.

This is a universal council offer for 3 to 5 year olds, not an HMRC working-parent code. There is no 31 August Childcare Service deadline because there is no Childcare Service apply.

Is the Childcare Offer for Wales the same 30 hours as England?

The weekly number matches; the recipe does not. GOV.WALES describes up to 30 hours of combined government-funded nursery education and childcare, for up to 48 weeks. The 30 hours is a minimum of 10 hours of nursery education plus a maximum of 20 hours of childcare. Terms and conditions for parents state that during 39 term-time weeks the Offer builds on the universal nursery-education commitment, and for the remaining 9 weeks it funds 30 hours of childcare.

Eligibility on GOV.WALES includes: live in Wales; each parent’s gross income £100,000 or less a year; and either work (on average the equivalent of 16 hours at National Minimum or Living Wage), certain statutory pay and leave, or a further or higher education course of at least 10 weeks. The child must be 3 or 4 and not yet eligible for a full-time school place for the term-time Offer.

Nursery education hours are applied for through the local authority. The childcare element uses the Welsh Government’s national digital service. That is not the England Childcare Service code.

Does Northern Ireland have an England-style 30 hours working-parent scheme?

No. nidirect — Pre-school education places describes the Pre-School Education Programme: funded education in the year before primary school. Places are in nursery schools, primary schools with nursery units, and voluntary or private settings that hold funded places. nidirect says parents do not pay for those funded places. It also says pre-school is available but not essential, and you have to apply.

The Department of Education (NI) treats this as education, not as England’s working-parent childcare. This page does not print a weekly hour total for every child, and it does not print a childcare-subsidy percentage. Session length is a setting-level fact — ask the Education Authority setting you are applying to.

In shortSearch “30 hours” and you usually get England’s code scheme. Scotland’s 1,140 hours, Wales’s 30-over-48 combined offer, and NI’s funded pre-school year are different statutes. Apply on the page for the nation you live in.