Reconfirm Your Childcare Account Every 3 Months: 30 Hours Code and Tax-Free Childcare

If you get 30 hours free childcare or Tax-Free Childcare, you have to sign in to your GOV.UK childcare account every 3 months and confirm your details are still up to date. It takes a couple of minutes. Miss it, and your Tax-Free Childcare top-ups stop and your 30 hours code lapses.

The rule is easy to forget because it's on its own clock: your date comes from when you applied, not from school terms or the tax year. This guide covers how reconfirmation works, what happens if you're late, the grace period, and a simple way to make sure you never miss it.

The 3-month rule in one paragraph

GOV.UK puts it plainly: "You must sign in and confirm your details are up to date every 3 months" (Sign in to your childcare account). The same account covers both schemes:

	Tax-Free Childcare	30 hours (Free Childcare for Working Parents)
Where	UK	England
What you get	£2 for every £8 you pay in, up to £500 every 3 months per child (£1,000 if your child is disabled)	30 hours a week for 38 weeks a year, for children aged 9 months to 4 years
Reconfirm	Every 3 months	Every 3 months
If you don't	Government top-ups stop	Your code lapses (a grace period may apply)

Sources: Tax-Free Childcare and Free Childcare for Working Parents on GOV.UK.

Two things catch people out:

• You must reconfirm even if you're not using it yet. The government's Best Start in Life FAQs say you need to reconfirm every 3 months once you have your code, "even if you have not yet started using your entitlements" (Best Start in Life). If you applied early, at 23 weeks, for a place starting when your baby is 9 months old, you'll have at least one reconfirmation before the first day of nursery.
• It's your date, not a calendar date. Two families at the same nursery can have completely different reconfirmation dates.

What reconfirming actually involves

You sign in to your childcare account with your Government Gateway user ID and password, check your details, and confirm that nothing has changed (or update what has). Coventry City Council sums it up as "you just tick a box to confirm that your details haven't changed" (Coventry City Council).

The service checks you still meet the conditions. For Tax-Free Childcare, that's mainly that you (and your partner, if you have one) each expect to earn at least £2,643.68 over the next 3 months if you're 21 or over, and neither of you has adjusted net income over £100,000 (GOV.UK eligibility). For 30 hours, it's roughly 16 hours a week at the minimum wage, with the same £100,000 limit (Best Start in Life).

When you've reconfirmed for 30 hours, your account shows an 11-digit code to give to your childcare provider (GOV.UK). Your provider uses that code to check your eligibility, so a lapsed code shows up on their side too.

The reminders you'll get

The Childcare Service does send reminders. According to the Best Start in Life FAQs:

1. An email 4 weeks before your reconfirmation is due.
2. Another reminder 2 weeks before.
3. A notification on the deadline date. For Tax-Free Childcare, that's the message telling you your top-up payments have stopped (Tax-Free Childcare FAQ).

So why do people still miss it? The emails land in a busy inbox, or in the inbox of whichever parent applied. The 4-week reminder feels too early to act on, and by the 2-week one you're in the middle of something else. The final notice arrives when it's already too late.

What happens if you miss it

Tax-Free Childcare: the government top-ups stop. GOV.UK says "If you do not, your Tax-Free Childcare will stop" (GOV.UK). Money already in the account can still be used to pay your provider, but you lose the 25% boost until you sort it out. With a top-up of up to £500 a quarter, a few missed weeks can cost real money.

30 hours: your eligibility lapses (Best Start in Life). If your child already has a funded place, you may be able to keep it for a short grace period while you reconfirm or reapply. Newcastle's family information service puts it this way: if you can't renew your code by the deadline, "you may be able to retain your child's childcare place for a short period", and your provider can tell you whether that applies (Newcastle).

The grace period end dates are set in the Department for Education's statutory guidance for councils:

If your code becomes invalid between	Funding can continue until
1 January and 10 February	31 March
11 February and 31 March	31 August
1 April and 26 May	31 August
27 May and 31 August	31 December
1 September and 21 October	31 December
22 October and 31 December	31 March

Two important limits from the same guidance:

• A grace period doesn't let you start a new place. Children shouldn't start a new working-parent place at a provider during a grace period. If you're about to move nurseries or start for the first time, a lapsed code is a real problem.
• The termly deadlines still matter. To use 30 hours from the start of a term, your code needs to be valid by 31 December (for January), 31 March (for April) or 31 August (for September) (GOV.UK). If your child is due to start in January 2027, your code must be valid on 31 December 2026, in the middle of the Christmas break.

Grace periods are a safety net, not a plan. They're applied by your council, and they don't bring back Tax-Free Childcare top-ups.

A simple reminder plan

The goal is to reconfirm at the first reminder, not the last.

1. Find your date now. Sign in to your childcare account and note your next reconfirmation date. If you have more than one child or both schemes, check each.
2. Set a reminder for the day the 4-week email is due, at a time when you're actually free, such as 8 pm after bedtime. Reconfirm then, while there's still time to fix any problem.
3. Set a backup reminder about a week before the deadline, in case the first one gets pushed aside.
4. After you reconfirm, set the next pair straight away. Three months goes quickly. Doing it while the account is still open means you never have to remember to remember.
5. Tell your provider if anything changes, such as a new job, reduced hours or parental leave, and check your eligibility again when it does.

If you and your partner share the paperwork, agree who owns the childcare account. The reminder emails usually go to whoever set it up.

How ReminderIt can help

An email four weeks ahead is easy to file away. A phone call at 8 pm that says "Reconfirm the childcare account tonight, deadline is 14 January" is much harder to ignore. ReminderIt calls your phone at the time you choose and reads your reminder out in a natural voice. If you don't pick up, it arrives on WhatsApp instead.

You can set it up just by messaging on WhatsApp, for example "Call me on 17 December at 8pm to reconfirm the childcare account", then add a second message for the backup a week before the deadline. There's no app to install.

If your partner is the one with the Government Gateway login, you can send the reminder to their phone instead. They confirm their number once with a short verification call, so nobody receives calls they didn't agree to. See how to set a reminder for someone else.

There's a 7-day free trial. On a UK number the trial includes 3 reminder calls, because calls to the UK cost more to place. After that it's one plan at $7 a month. For other early-years admin worth a reminder, see our reminder ideas for new parents.

The short answer

You must sign in to your childcare account and reconfirm your details every 3 months to keep Tax-Free Childcare and 30 hours free childcare, even if you haven't started using the hours yet. You'll get reminders 4 weeks and 2 weeks before your date. If you miss it, Tax-Free Childcare top-ups stop and your 30 hours code lapses. A child already in a funded place may be covered by a council grace period, but a new place can't start during one. Reconfirm when the first reminder arrives, and set your next reminder as soon as you're done.

Sources: GOV.UK, Sign in to your childcare account, Tax-Free Childcare, Tax-Free Childcare eligibility, Free Childcare for Working Parents: when to apply and confirm your details; Department for Education, Early education and childcare statutory guidance (from 1 April 2026); Best Start in Life, 15 and 30 hours FAQs and Tax-Free Childcare FAQ. Rules can change, so check your childcare account and GOV.UK for your own dates.