You must tell us within 14 days if you close your service or change your operating hours. This is a requirement under Family Assistance Law.
You can generally only claim the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) when your service is open, except for public holidays, declared emergency periods, or approved closures for mandatory national child safety training.
Please refer to the CCS rules during service closures listed below. Whether you can claim CCS depends on the reason for the closure.
Mandatory National Child Safety Training: Services approved for CCS can close for up to 5 hours a year so staff can complete mandatory national child safety training via the Geccko platform. These closures must begin no earlier than 5:00 pm.
Public Holidays: You can claim CCS for a public holiday even when the service is closed, but you must only claim for children who would have normally attended on that specific day.
Declared Emergency Periods: During a formally declared CCS period of emergency, you may be eligible to claim CCS and waive gap fees even when your service is closed.
Standard Closures & Absences: For standard, non-emergency full-day closures (such as staff training days outside the national safety training parameters, or operational shutdowns), you must not submit session reports or claim absences for CCS.
If your service is closed for part of the day, your reported sessions of care must align with your opening hours.
If you close your service, you must not submit session reports unless it is a public holiday or during a period of emergency where your service would have been otherwise open.