Families who are doing less work, study or other recognised activity due to COVID-19 may be able to apply for more Child Care Subsidy (CCS) hours.
Families affected by COVID-19 may get up to 100 hours of CCS per fortnight for up to 12 weeks.
If you’re eligible, you can access extra hours between 13 July and 4 October 2020. You can apply any time before 4 October but the government can only back pay you up to 28 days.
It’s important you keep your activity test details up to date so the government can give you the right rate of CCS. Check they’re correct before applying for extra hours.
Who can get extra hours
You can get extra CCS hours if your family’s recognised activity level has gone down because of COVID-19. All of the following must also apply:
- you don’t already have access to 100 hours of CCS
- between 13 January and 22 March 2020, you were doing more than 16 hours of recognised activity per fortnight
- now, you’re doing 8 or more hours of recognised activity per fortnight.
You can’t get extra hours if you’ve chosen to do less activity and this isn’t because of COVID-19.
What you need to do
You can apply for extra hours using your Centrelink online account through myGov. Select My Family from the menu, then Child care.
You can also use the Express Plus Centrelink mobile app.