What childcare really costs

Your figures

How to read the result

The only figure that compares two options is the net cost per hour of care. A nursery advertised at £2 an hour and a childminder at £6 can end up the same once support and tax relief are counted — and sometimes the order reverses. Count the weeks actually billed, including paid holidays, and the extras, which are often 15 to 20 % of the total. Support amounts and tax caps are set out in your country's page.

The commonest mistakes in the sums

• Count the weeks the child attends, not the weeks billed. Many contracts spread payment over the whole year, holidays included: five paid but unused weeks are more than 10 % of the annual cost.
• Forgetting extra hours. Arriving twenty minutes late three times a week adds an hour a week — around fifty hours a year.
• Forgetting the extras. Meals, nappies, equipment and outings commonly add 15 to 20 % and never appear in the advertised rate.
• Thinking in gross terms. An option that looks twice as expensive can cost less net, because support and tax relief do not apply the same way to every kind of care.
• Forgetting that the cost falls. From three, school takes over much of the day: the last year's budget bears no relation to the first.

The calculation everyone skips

Compare the net annual cost of care with the extra net income that working more actually brings. Between childcare, travel, meals and the progressivity of tax, moving from four days to five sometimes returns very little — and doing that sum before the birth, calmly, prevents a decision taken under pressure a few months later, almost always at the expense of the same parent.

Frequent questions