Tax-Free Childcare, UK
Official statistics
Families with a Tax-Free Childcare account they used, and those with an account open, in each tax year since 2017-18, with the government's top-up, UK, from HMRC's Table 1.
Families who used Tax-Free Childcare
868,095
2025/26 · with a government top-up of £599.8 million; 601,620 families used it in 2026-06
Verified against source, 8 November 2026, 13:39 UTC- Families with used accounts
- Families with open accounts
Source: HM Revenue and Customs. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Data table
9 rows
| Category | Families with used accounts | Families with open accounts |
|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 | 57,000 | 272,315 |
| 2018/19 | 160,185 | 449,355 |
| 2019/20 | 315,040 | 614,730 |
| 2020/21 | 374,135 | 697,145 |
| 2021/22 | 512,415 | 815,855 |
| 2022/23 | 649,935 | 946,220 |
| 2023/24 | 740,385 | 1,072,325 |
| 2024/25 | 825,950 | 1,235,370 |
| 2025/26 | 868,095 | 1,316,035 |
Source and licence
- Publisher
- HM Revenue and Customs
- Check it yourself
- https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-free-childcare-quarterly-statistics
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Retrieved
- 8 November 2026, 13:19 UTC
- Raw files fetched
- https://www.gov.uk/api/content/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-june-2026SHA-256 ddaa53521d102373731b92a6c2e6a028076714f543dc682062dd66ed2c7d37b5 · 12,825 bytes
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a86b7c6c9205b515d421f0b/Tables_and_Statistics_August_2026_rounded.odsSHA-256 72fa878d8c328ef4279f7be707f23a1b4dd428ce9e4f7c640f395d7e03ccfd81 · 251,900 bytes
Verification
Verified against source, 8 November 2026, 13:39 UTC Run at 8 November 2026, 13:39 UTC; 18 of 18 figures matched the live source.
| Result | Check | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | Provenance recorded | HM Revenue and Customs; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-11-08T13:19:30Z; 2 raw file(s) |
| Pass | Raw files match recorded SHA-256 | 2 of 2 files intact |
| Pass | Re-parsing raw files reproduces figures | 18 of 18 figures and the headline reproduced; the meta's top_up and latest_month match |
| Pass | Figures are finite numbers | 18 figures, 0 invalid |
| Pass | Live source matches every figure | 18 of 18 figures match exactly after downloading 2 source file(s) again (2 byte-identical); the headline matches; the meta's top_up and latest_month match |
| Pass | GOV.UK table is current | the tax year 2025/26 ended 222 days before retrieval (limit 500), from Tax-Free Childcare Statistics Tables June 2026 |
| Pass | Table 8's UK row agrees | 18 of 18 cases of the record's figures are Table 8's for the UK, 2 of them by the publisher's known difference: Families with used accounts, 2024/25 (-9,830), Families with open accounts, 2017/18 (+5) |
| Pass | Table 8's English regions add up to England | 18 of 18 cases of the years' English regions add up to England within half of the 5 HMRC rounds each figure to within 25 (10 exactly) |
| Pass | Each total is its two parts | 240 of 240 cases of the years' and months' families with open and used accounts are TFC alone and TFC with 15 or 30 hours together, within half of the 5 HMRC rounds each figure to within 7.5 (166 exactly), 13 of them by the publisher's known difference: used, 2024/25 (-9,830), used, 2024-04 (-18,575), used, 2024-05 (-18,300), used, 2024-06 (-22,870), used, 2024-07 (-24,515), used, 2024-08 (-11,975), used, 2024-09 (-14,120), used, 2024-10 (-15,330), used, 2024-11 (-15,185), used, 2024-12 (-17,655), used, 2025-01 (-17,850), used, 2025-02 (-17,680), used, 2025-03 (-19,060) |
| Pass | Each year's top-up is its months' | 9 of 9 cases of the tax years HMRC gives every month of have a top-up their months' add up to, within £0.05 million for each figure within 0.65 (5 exactly), 1 of them by the publisher's known difference: 2023/24 (-0.7) |
| Pass | Source page answers | https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-free-childcare-quarterly-statistics – HTTP 200 |
Notes
- HMRC rounds every count to the nearest 5 and the government's top-up to the nearest £100,000, and marks values under 30, and those it suppresses, with *. It changed its methods and definitions in April 2024, March 2025 and June 2025 and has not revised the earlier figures in line with them.
- HMRC's Table 1 gives 825,950 families with used accounts in 2024-25, and its Table 8 by country and region 816,120 for the UK; the hub shows Table 1's. In 2024-25 Table 1's used accounts are also 9,830 above their two parts, TFC alone and TFC with 15 or 30 hours of funded childcare, in the year, and by 11,975 to 24,515 in each month.
- The headline gives the latest month's families with used accounts beside the tax year's; HMRC's commentary on each release is in its collection of Tax-Free Childcare statistics.