You’ve read our article, A Simple Guide to the Child Care Subsidy Process, and now you’re ready to apply. We’re here to help answer your next question – What IS the process I follow to apply for CCS?
We’ve put together the steps below for you to follow to ensure an easy and stress-free CCS journey. Remember, begin this process as soon as you know you’ll be putting your little one in care, to ensure you’re ready to go when they begin! You don’t need to have chosen your childcare provider at this stage, so don’t stress if you are still choosing your childcare provider. P.S – Don’t forget to check out our guide to finding the a childcare service – Choosing a Childcare Service for your Family.
Step 1:
Check if you are eligible for CCS. Visit Services Australia here, and follow the steps. You’ll be asked questions about your household income, your activity, and the type of approved childcare service you are looking to enrol your child in. Have any information you may need on-hand, to help make this eligibility test as easy as possible.
Step 2: Apply for CCS
Visit Services Australia here, and follow the steps. Please note, that you’ll need to have a myGov account and have this linked to Centrelink to make your claim. You can find the steps to do this here too. Once you’re all signed up, log in to your myGov account and:
- Go to Centrelink
- Select ‘Payment and Claims’, ‘Claims’, and ‘Make a Claim’
- Click ‘Get Started’ under ‘Families’
- Complete all the questions
- Submit your application
- Once your child is enrolled at your chosen service you need to confirm your child’s enrolment through your myGov account.
Step 3: I’ve chosen my education and care centre, now what do I do?
When you’ve found the education and care centre you will be enrolling your child in to, you will be asked to complete an enrolment form. On the enrolment form it will ask a series of questions relating to your family and child, however it’s important to gather your Customer Reference Number (CRN) and your child’s CRN from your Centrelink App ahead of time so you have it ready to go.
It’s your full name, CRN, and date of birth that allows the service to connect to Services Australia to obtain your CCS entitlements and for subsidy to commence.
Step 4: Manage your CCS payment
Regularly log back in to your myGov account to ensure your information is up to date. By keeping your information such as your household income and activity hours up to date, you will avoid situations such as too much CCS being paid to you, or not enough. Remember that if you’re overpaid your eligible amount of CCS, you will incur a debt that you will have to pay back.
Visit Services Australia here, for more information on managing your CCS payment.
Is there anything else I should know?
As we stated in our previous article, this is only a very simple guide to the CCS process to help make things clearer as you begin your childcare journey. For full details on CCS – including the application and approval process, eligibility requirements, exemptions, additional subsidy, and circumstance changes – we strongly recommend you visit Services Australia.