FamilyBoost changes.
Monday, 7 July 2025.
Press Release: OECE
Tweaks to FamilyBoost that will put more money back into the pockets of families with infants and young children in early childhood education will certainly be good news for many parents amid the cost of living crisis.
But the changes to the scheme announced today fail to address some of the problems that have prevented uptake – such ECE service providers failing to provide parents with compliant invoices.
The changes also seem to favour higher income families, who can afford higher fee-charging services, the Office of Early Childhood Education’s chief advisor, Dr Sarah Alexander, says.
On Monday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the IRD estimated that around 16,000 more families would be eligible for rebates under the revised scheme, when the income threshold is raised from $180,000 to $229,000 on October 1, and that those who already qualify would now get up to 40% of their fees back (up from a maximum of 25%).
Alexander says although she’s pleased that more families will benefit from the scheme, she would’ve liked to see lower income families getting a higher proportion of ECE costs back.
“I would have liked to see the policy creating a more even playing field when it comes to affordability of childcare and supporting parental choice of ECE service.”
Before advising the Minister on how to improve the scheme’s uptake, Inland Revenue asked the Office of Early Childhood Education for ideas.
In our submission, we outlined several key problems with the scheme in its original form. Based on our analysis, we suggested that the Government:
- Maintain the rebate of 25% of eligible fees for higher-income households, but increase the rebate to 50% or higher for lower-income households.
- Apply the rebate cap of $975 per quarter on a per child, rather than per family basis.
- Make claiming the rebate easier by reducing the amount of information that parents must input before they upload invoices.
- Require ECE providers to provide timely and correct invoices, and not place their own conditions on parents making a claim.
- Produce short videos for social media outlining how FamilyBoost works and how to make a claim (ensuring the messaging resonates with time-poor parents).
The OECE’s full submission to the IRD is on our website, here.
While we’re pleased to see the rebate amount raised, in the OECE’s view, the process of claiming remains burdensome for parents and caregivers, and needs to be simplified to encourage more eligible whānau to take up the rebates.
ENDS.
