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September 26, 2025
Last updated: October 2026
The 3 Day Guarantee is the rule that sets how many hours of Child Care Subsidy (CCS) your family can get. Since 5 January 2026, every family eligible for CCS gets at least 72 hours of subsidised care per child each fortnight. That is about three days a week. You no longer need to work, study or volunteer to get those hours.
Some families get more. A child can get 100 hours a fortnight if both parents each do more than 48 hours of recognised activity a fortnight, if the family has an exemption, or if the child is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
The guarantee changes the number of subsidised hours, not your subsidy percentage. Your income still sets the percentage, and most families still pay a gap fee. This guide explains how the hours work, who qualifies for 100, and what to check before you choose how many days to book at Kings Road Long Day Preschool or any other centre.
The 3 Day Guarantee replaced the CCS activity test on 5 January 2026. Under the old test, a family's subsidised hours depended on how many hours parents worked, studied or volunteered, and a family with less than 8 hours of activity a fortnight got 24 subsidised hours if its income was under a set threshold, or none at all above it.
Now the floor is 72 hours for every eligible child, whatever the family's activity. The change was aimed at families with casual or changing shifts, parents studying part-time, single parents and families returning to work after a break. The government expected more than 100,000 families to become entitled to more subsidised hours in its first full financial year.
Every CCS-eligible family gets at least 72 hours per child each fortnight. A child gets 100 hours a fortnight when one of these applies:
Recognised activity (Services Australia calls it recognised participation) is the work, study and other activity that counts towards the 100-hour result. The Family Assistance Guide lists:
Reasonable travel time between your child's service and your work or study can be included. Travel with your child, such as the drive to drop-off, can't.
Families already receiving CCS don't need to do anything to get the 72 hours. They are applied automatically. New families make a CCS claim as normal through their Centrelink online account.
You only need to act if you want more than 72 hours. Report your recognised activity, or tell Services Australia about an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child in your care, through your Centrelink online account. Keep it updated if your hours change. Our step-by-step guide to applying for the Child Care Subsidy walks through the claim itself, and once you've enrolled you will also need to confirm your child's enrolment on myGov.
CCS is calculated on the full session your service charges, not just the hours your child is there, and those charged hours are what use up your fortnightly hours. A session can be up to 12 hours long. If a service charges a 10-hour session and your child is picked up after 7 hours, all 10 hours count.
This is why "three days" is only a rough guide. Seventy-two hours is six 12-hour sessions a fortnight, or seven full 10-hour sessions with 2 hours left over. Before you settle on a number of days, ask each centre how long its charged session is and work out how many days your hours cover. Hours beyond your fortnightly entitlement aren't subsidised.
The 3 Day Guarantee changes how many hours are subsidised, nothing else. These stay the same:
For the full picture of percentages, income limits and the cap, read our guide to how the Child Care Subsidy works in NSW. If your child is 3 or older, NSW also offers Start Strong fee relief, which is applied after CCS.
No. Every family eligible for the Child Care Subsidy gets at least 72 subsidised hours per child each fortnight, whatever their activity. Work, study and volunteering only matter if you want 100 hours. At Kings Road Long Day Preschool we can help you think through how many days fit your hours.
Per child. Each child in care gets their own hours result each fortnight. If two children attend Kings Road Long Day Preschool, each has their own 72 hours, or 100 if the family qualifies.
It can, if you previously had fewer subsidised hours under the old activity test. It does not change your subsidy percentage or the hourly rate cap, so most families still pay a gap fee. Kings Road Long Day Preschool's fee is above the hourly cap, so part of each day is out of pocket.
Only if you both do more than 48 hours of recognised activity a fortnight. If one of you is at 48 hours or less and there's no exemption, your child gets 72 hours. If that's you, check the session length before deciding how many days to book at Kings Road Long Day Preschool.
Yes. It covers centre-based day care, which includes long day care and long day preschools like Kings Road Long Day Preschool, as well as family day care, outside school hours care and in home care.
Families here can book 2 to 5 days a week, and the centre is open 8am to 5pm, 48 weeks a year. The 3 Day Guarantee means most families can have subsidised hours for about three days a week without meeting an activity test, though the exact number of days depends on how sessions are counted.
Our fee sits above the CCS hourly cap, so there is a gap. We would rather you knew that up front. If you're deciding between two and three days, or working out where Start Strong fits for a 3 or 4 year old, ask us and we'll go through the numbers with you.
Book a tour or contact us and we'll walk you through how your subsidised hours would work here.
