Childcare fund from pay

I’ve just started visiting nurseries and one mentioned this to me, but I’m unsure what the scheme is called to google for more info. We won’t be going into nursery until January 2026 but we’re also not eligible for funded childcare, but I was told today that there’s a thing you can agree with HR/payroll whereby you set aside a certain amount from your pre-taxed pay that goes into a childcare fund and you can use that to pay towards your fees. Does anyone know is this a thing and what it’s called? It makes sense, as I understand there’s a similar scheme with pensions, whereby you can salary sacrifice a percentage of your pre-taxed pay into your pension, so I’m expecting a similar sort of scheme…

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This called Childcare vouchers but this was replaced by Tax Free childcare. Unless you are already enrolled under childcare vouchers in 2019 I believe you need to apply for Tax free childcare instead, which will give you 20% towards your childcare bill provided both parents are working above 16 hours at minimum wage or below £100k a year x

My company does - Workplace Nursery Salary Sacrifice. This is an employer benefit not a government benefit. I would ask your employer if they have any schemes like this as you can save a fair bi But your nursery has to also be signed up to the scheme.. Annoyingly my nursery isn’t. We just do the Tax free childcare you have to sign up through the government portal and pay nursery through that. They then top it up to either 20% of fees or £2000 which ever is the greatest.

This sounds like the scheme Naomi mentioned -it is completely different to tax free childcare

@Naomi definitely sounds like this, thank you! I’ll have to check with the employers then. Thank you!

Have you considered paying more into your pension to become eligible for funded childcare? That’s what I will be doing to bring my adjusted taxable income below the threshold.

@Linda very interesting take…no, not considered this, but worth a conversation perhaps. Thanks!

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