Book January Vacation Care in November. Popular Weeks Go First.

January still feels a long way off. The vacation care programs for it do not. They are being planned and released now, and the popular weeks and days go first.

If you are juggling work, leave and a school calendar that never quite lines up, you are not behind. You are exactly on time. The families who get the weeks they want are usually the ones who book in November, not the ones who wait until December and take what is left.

Book in November, and price the fortnight rather than the day. The booking protects the place. The arithmetic protects the budget.

What changed on 5 January 2026

You might be carrying the old activity test in your head, with its 24, 36, 72 and 100 hours. That is not how it works now. From 5 January 2026, the activity test was replaced by the 3 Day Guarantee, and every CCS-eligible family gets at least 72 hours of subsidised child care a fortnight.

The 100-hour tier still exists. You can get 100 hours a fortnight if you and your partner, if you have one, each do more than 48 hours of recognised participation. It also applies if you have a valid exemption, or if your child is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. The hours apply to each child, not to the family as a whole.

The income test and the rates are a separate calculation, and the site’s Child Care Subsidy explainer covers the income test and rates in more detail. Here, the number that matters is your child’s subsidised hours.

One small step: open your Centrelink statement and find the subsidised hours line for each child. That is the number the rest of this article uses.

The fortnight sum

Term time and vacation time look nothing alike in hours. Say your child attends five after-school sessions at three hours and five before-school sessions at one hour. That is 20 hours a week, or 40 hours a fortnight, which fits comfortably inside 72.

Vacation care is different. Ten days at 10 hours is 100 hours in one fortnight. The floor is 72. The difference is 28 hours, which is almost three days of care that the subsidy does not cover unless you are in the 100-hour tier.

The floor matters most in the school holidays, when the hours are concentrated. In term time, 40 hours a fortnight is easy to fit. In January, a ten-day program reaches 100 hours.

Seventy-two hours is seven ten-hour days and two hours. If your child attends shorter sessions, count the hours, not the days.

Read the table by column. At nine hours a day, eight days reach exactly 72 hours. At ten hours a day, ten days reach 100. At eleven hours a day, ten days reach 110, which is 10 hours past the top tier even for a 100-hour family.

For a 72-hour family, ten 10-hour days leave 28 hours unsubsidised, which is 2.8 days. For a 100-hour family, all 100 hours sit inside the tier, but an eleventh day or a run of 11-hour days goes past it.

The fortnight is the unit, not the week or the term. A week that looks fine can still put the fortnight over the limit.

One small step: count the January days you actually need, multiply by the session hours, and compare the total with 72 and 100.

The hourly cap

For school-age children in outside school hours care and vacation care, the cap is $13.30 an hour. CCS is calculated on the lower of the fee and that cap. The cap can change, so check the current figure when you book.

The daily fee is not the hourly rate. If a service charges a daily session rate, divide the fee by the number of hours in the session. The session hours are not always the hours your child attends, so ask which figure the service uses.

Three hypothetical days show how the cap works. Each one is a 10-hour session.

On the $130 day, the whole fee sits under the cap. On the $150 and $180 days, the subsidy applies to $133, which is $13.30 multiplied by 10 hours. The rest is yours.

An excursion can change the picture again. If the service bills the excursion as a separate charge outside the session fee, that charge is not subsidised. A separate $30 excursion charge is $30 out of your pocket, on top of the gap. If the excursion sits inside the session fee, it is treated like the rest of the fee, subject to the cap.

Both ways are common. The mistake is not asking which one the service uses.

One small step: take one day from your January plan and divide the daily fee by the session hours. If the answer is above $13.30, you know where the cap will bite.

The full January bill

Take a hypothetical family with one child, ten days of vacation care at $130 a day, ten hours a day, and a CCS rate of 60 per cent. The rate is an illustration. Yours will be different, and the statement is the place to find it.

The 100-hour family pays 40 per cent of $1,300, which is $520. The 72-hour family pays 40 per cent of the first 72 hours, which is $374.40, plus the full $13 an hour for the 28 hours above the floor, which is $364. The difference between the two families is $218.40 for the same ten days of care.

The arithmetic is per child. If two children attend, the hours and the gap apply to each child separately.

That difference is large enough to plan around. It is the reason the fortnight sum comes before the booking.

A common worry among parents is that the daily fee is the problem. The gap fee is the better number to watch, because it is what the subsidy leaves behind. For some families the gap is still too high, and the subsidy does not cover the extras. That is a real budget problem, and no arithmetic makes it disappear. Pricing the fortnight is how you see the number before it arrives, not a way to pretend it is small.

If the gap is the part that worries you, an emergency fund is the buffer that keeps a big January from turning into a credit card balance. The gap is predictable, which means it can be saved for in advance.

One small step: write the fortnight figure down before you book, using your own CCS percentage and the service’s session hours. A number on paper is easier to plan around than a daily rate in your head.

The booking timeline

Bookings do not open on one national date. They follow each service’s own calendar, which is why the work starts before the program is released.

Now. Check your child’s CCS enrolment and your subsidised hours. You can claim CCS up to six months before your child starts care, so a January booking can be claimed from July. If your child already receives CCS but has not attended outside school hours care for 14 weeks, the service may need to resubmit the enrolment, and you then confirm it in your Centrelink online account through myGov.

When bookings open. Release dates vary by service. One service publishes its program about four weeks before the vacation care period, on a Friday afternoon, and opens bookings at 10am the next day, with term-time families first and casual bookings on the following Tuesday. That is one provider’s process, not a national rule. If you are not a regular term-time family, ask when the casual window opens.

Before day one. Confirm the booking, the session hours, the excursion charges and the cancellation policy in writing. The confirmation should show the days, the session hours and the fee. Ask whether the excursion is inside the session fee or billed separately.

First week. Keep an eye on absences. You can get up to 42 allowable absence days per child each financial year, and extra absences may be available for illness, a pupil-free day or an immunisation grace period. The rules are on the Services Australia page, and the service can tell you how it records them.

Cancellation. Policies differ. One service publishes no charge if the error is reported by the end of the weekend bookings open, 50 per cent of the daily fee in the first week, and the usual session fee minus subsidy after that. Check your service’s policy before you pay, not after you need it.

A booking is not a guarantee of a place, and a CCS claim does not create one. The Department of Education is explicit that families are not guaranteed a place with a provider. Book early, confirm in writing, and keep the confirmation.

One small step: put the booking opening date in your phone now, with a reminder two days before.

Choosing a service

Is the service approved for CCS? The subsidy only applies to services approved for CCS. Ask, and check the service’s approval on the Services Australia side if you are unsure.

What are the session hours, in writing? The daily fee divided by the session hours gives the hourly rate the cap is compared with. A service that will not put the hours in writing is a service to ask again.

Is the excursion inside the fee or outside it? The answer changes what you pay on excursion days. Ask for it before the program starts.

What is the cancellation and absence policy? A January place can be lost or changed, and the policy decides what that costs. Get it in writing with the booking.

If the service is not approved for CCS, the subsidy does not apply. That is not a reason to rule it out, but it is a reason to know before you book.

None of these questions is suspicious. A good service answers them without fuss, because families ask them every year. Ask for the answers in writing, because a phone call is not a record.

One small step: ask the four questions before you pay a deposit.

What to do this week

1. Find your hours. Open your Centrelink statement and check the subsidised hours for each child: 72 or 100.
2. Count the days. Work out the January days you need and multiply by the session hours. Compare the fortnight total with your tier.
3. Check the enrolment. Confirm your CCS claim and the service enrolment, including the 14-week rule if your child has not attended outside school hours care for a while.
4. Ask when bookings open. Get the date, the priority window and the fee schedule in writing, including excursion charges.
5. Price the fortnight and book. Use your own CCS percentage, not the 60 per cent in the example. Then book when your window opens.

The order matters. The hours decide the subsidy, the subsidy and the cap decide the gap, and the gap decides what January costs. The booking only protects the place.

Book in November. Price the fortnight. Popular weeks go first.

This is general information, not financial advice.

Sources: The type of child care you use affects it, Services Australia (https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/type-child-care-you-use-can-affect-child-care-subsidy?context=41186&p=180); Recognised participation and activity test for Child Care Subsidy, Services Australia (https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/recognised-participation-and-activity-test-for-child-care-subsidy?context=41186); Don’t forget about Child Care Subsidy for vacation care and OSHC, Services Australia (https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/dont-forget-about-child-care-subsidy-for-vacation-care-and-oshc); Child Care Subsidy if your child is absent from child care, Services Australia (https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/child-care-subsidy-if-your-child-absent-from-child-care?context=41186); 3 Day Guarantee is now in effect, Department of Education (https://www.education.gov.au/newsroom/articles/3-day-guarantee-now-effect); Child Care Subsidy hourly rate caps are changing soon, Department of Education (https://www.education.gov.au/early-childhood/announcements/child-care-subsidy-hourly-rate-caps-are-changing-soon-1); Vacation Care Information, St Columba’s OSHC (https://www.stcolsbays.wa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Vacation-Care-Information.pdf)