Advice for Parents/Guardians
The Northern Ireland Childcare Subsidy Scheme (NICSS) is a Department of Education initiative aimed at reducing childcare costs by 15% for eligible working parents of qualifying children. All parents automatically receive 15% off their bill from their provider up to a maximum of £184 per month.
The subsidy scheme targets working parents who are eligible for Tax Free Childcare (TFC) and have children who have not yet started primary school. Any parent receiving TFC for a child who has not yet enrolled in primary school will be eligible to participate in the scheme provided their childcare provider is signed up with HMRC as a TFC provider.
In addition to the original scheme which offered support for children aged 0-4, the extension means that from 1st September 2025, working parents of school age children (4+ to 11) can now receive the 15% subsidy, up to the capped amount (£184 per month), on your childcare bills. This means that any parent receiving TFC, for a child aged 4+ to 11, will be eligible to participate in the scheme, provided their childcare provider is signed up with HMRC as a TFC provider.
Registration for eligible children will open week commencing 21st July. The registration process for school aged children is simple and will take around 10 minutes to complete.
Please note you will not be able to enrol a school aged child on to the scheme until 21st July.
In preparation, please make sure you can easily access your Tax Free Childcare Number and your quarterly reconfirmation notice/certificate from HMRC. You will need this information to register on the scheme, once it opens.
Don’t forget, if you have more than one eligible child, you will need to complete the process separately for each child.
If you are not registered for TFC, but would like to learn more about the scheme, please click here.
How can you benefit?
The subsidy will only be available to parents who register their child with the scheme.
STEP 1 – Check that your provider is registered for the scheme
Ask your childcare provider if they are registered for the scheme as only registered and eligible providers can apply the NICSS subsidy.
STEP 2 – Prepare by collating all the information required for registration
Please have the following information ready before starting the registration process:
A. Tax Free Childcare Payment Reference for your child. This number can be found on correspondence from HMRC and is typically a combination of (Initial letter of their first name) (First three letters of their second name) (number characters)
e.g. for Adam Smith this could be (ASMI#####)
We understand that some parents, don’t use the online TFC system, and therefore will not have been allocated with a Tax-Free Childcare Payment Reference. If this is the case, please do reach out to us at nicssparents@early-years.org and we will allocate you with a unique reference number that you can use to register your child.
B. Copy of the TFC quarterly confirmation letter/notice for your child. Please take a screen shot or screen grab of this communication from HMRC which clearly shows:
1. name of your child,
2. the quarterly expiration date
You will be required to upload this document as part of the registration process. (If you are waiting on HMRC to approve your current eligibly and don’t have a current approval document please use the most recent one for now.)
If you have more than one eligible child, you will need to complete the process separately for each child.
STEP 3 - Registering your child
You then need to access the NICSS portal, to register your child on the scheme.
Watch this short video below to walk you through the child registration process for parents;
Please then register your child using the button below;
Further information
How to update your child’s eligibility on the portal;
Contact Us
If you have any further queries before registering your child, please reach out to the team at Early Years through the link below
E: nicssparent@early-years.org
T: +44 (0)28 9066 2825 (Option 3)