UK statutory leave · 2026-27
Tax-Free Childcare
Each parent aged 21 or over must expect to earn at least £203.36/week over the next 3 months (the 16-hour National Living Wage equivalent), and neither may expect adjusted net income above £100,000. Children are eligible until the September after age 11 (or 16 if disabled).
Download the UK statutory parental-pay extract cited on this page: uk-statutory-parental-pay.csv (CC BY 4.0).
What this scheme actually pays
Tax-Free Childcare is a government childcare top-up, not leave pay. Working parents using OFSTED-registered childcare; usually beats 30 free hours alone when combined.
Government tops up parent contributions (£2 for every £8 paid, up to £2,000/year per child, £4,000 for disabled). Not for: Parents already claiming Universal Credit childcare element or childcare vouchers (mutually exclusive).
HMRC leave posture brief
TFC statutory profile in this snapshot
Entity-varying stamps from the live leave_types registry (paid weeks, KIT allowance, payer route, flat rate) - not a clone nationwide scaffold.
- 0 wks statutory paid weeks on this scheme
- 0 weeks at flat rate only
- 0 days Keeping-in-Touch allowance
- TFC who routes statutory cash
- - no paid-weeks peer on file
- 2026-08-10 HMRC/GOV.UK registry vintage
Where TFC sits in the corpus
Exclusive count of all 6 registry schemes: paid statutory leave vs benefit-only (Tax-Free Childcare). TFC is the benefit-only row.
Where TFC sits among all 6 schemes
Statutory paid-weeks inventory across every leave scheme in the corpus. TFC is marked; length is not a quality ranking.
TFC vs all schemes by paid weeks
Where this scheme's statutory paid weeks sit among every tracked leave type
0 6th of 6 the lowest of 6 schemes
Schemes, banded by statutory paid weeks
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more schemes. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source UK statutory parental-leave entitlements · 2026-08-10
Leave Value & Flexibility Score
How generous and flexible TFC is, from 3 of 4 tracked dimensions (the rest do not apply to this scheme, so their weight redistributed to the ones that do).
- Paid weeks 0 weeks 0/100 · F
- Total leave available 0 weeks 0/100 · F
- Keeping-in-Touch flexibility 0 days 0/100 · F
- Initial pay-replacement rate Flat rate only N/A · weight redistributed
Benchmarked against the full tracked leave-scheme corpus (p10-p90 range per dimension, computed live); a higher score means more paid weeks, more total leave, more Keeping-in-Touch flexibility, and (when the scheme has one) a higher initial pay-replacement rate. See how we place leave schemes.
About this TFC extract
This page reads the live leave_types row for Tax-Free Childcare (NONE · TOP-UP · NONE · GOV-TOPUP) from HMRC and GOV.UK statutory-payment rules for 2026-27. Flat rates uplift each April; employer-enhanced contractual pay is out of scope.
Full attribution and refresh cadence sit on the methodology page. HMRC and Acas remain the canonical channels for individual eligibility disputes.
Who qualifies
Each parent aged 21 or over must expect to earn at least £203.36/week over the next 3 months (the 16-hour National Living Wage equivalent), and neither may expect adjusted net income above £100,000. Children are eligible until the September after age 11 (or 16 if disabled).
Qualifying period
Reconfirm eligibility every 3 months
Who pays (GOV-TOPUP)
Government tops up parent contributions (£2 for every £8 paid, up to £2,000/year per child, £4,000 for disabled).
Notice required
Online application at gov.uk
Pension treatment
N/A — childcare benefit, not leave pay.
Best-for / not-for
Best for: Working parents using OFSTED-registered childcare; usually beats 30 free hours alone when combined.
Not for: Parents already claiming Universal Credit childcare element or childcare vouchers (mutually exclusive).
Governing law and source
Childcare Payments Act 2014
Source: https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare/check-if-youre-eligible · Rates as of 2026-08-10 per HMRC rate-and-allowance publication
Next step for your own household
Tax-Free Childcare's value depends on your own childcare spend and income; TFC does not pay leave, so weigh it separately from the paid-leave schemes on the pay calculator or line it up against every other scheme on the comparison board .
Read with TFC
Nearest ABS(paid_weeks) and ABS(kit_days) peers for TFC (NONE · TOP-UP · NONE · GOV-TOPUP), replacing the old fixed Related schemes strip.
NONE TOP-UP NONE GOV-TOPUP
What this registry row gives you
TFC is recorded as a government childcare top-up route in the 2026-27 leave_types table, not statutory leave pay.
- Compare TFC paid-weeks and KIT stamps against every other live scheme. Open compare
- Browse the full leave-type catalog for paid-weeks and KIT neighbours. Leave-type catalog
- How the flat rate, qualifying tests, and KIT days are derived from the primary tables. Methodology
Informational registry only, not payroll, tax, or medical advice. Confirm figures against the cited HMRC/GOV.UK source before any decision.
According to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and GOV.UK statutory-payment guidance, UK parental leave and pay figures are published in the Rates and Allowances: Statutory Payments tables and related employment-rights pages. Every figure on PlainMaternity is rebuilt from those primary publications; no number is typed in by an editor. Leave-type figures are computed directly from gov.uk statutory pay and leave data, no figure is typed in by an editor. We don't rate employers or recommend leave choices, these pages are a registry of the published rules. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a correction. Data current as of 2026-27.