As it is coming up to the Christmas holidays and the end of 2025, it may be necessary to make important changes for the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) on your Early Years Hive.

As such, the following points are covered in this announcement:

• NCS service calendars (adding closures)
• NCS weekly returns
• NCS bridging payments
• Grace periods

We advise making any necessary changes as soon as possible to ensure payments under NCS are not affected and to encourage that all NCS claims are confirmed by parents/guardians to ensure funding.

Please be aware that the Early Years Hive may not be accessible if you are trying to access it from abroad.

NCS Service Calendar (adding closures) 

If your service is closed over the Christmas and New Year’s period, you must mark the closures on your NCS service calendar on the Early Years Hive accordingly – this must be done in advance of the closure period, NCS calendars cannot be adjusted retrospectively. You must also note whether it is a subsidised (paid) closure or not. Services are entitled to up to 10 subsidised closures per programme year.

For guidance on adding closures to your NCS service calendar, please see the ‘How to add a Closure’ heading of the NCS Service Calendar Guide.

NCS Weekly Returns  

As per the NCS Funding Agreement, NCS returns must be submitted on the Early Years Hive each week. Returns become available from the last day (Sunday) of the reporting week and must be submitted by Tuesday of the following week to ensure that payment will be issued that week. This rule is the same throughout the Christmas and New Year’s period.

If a return is not submitted within the required timeframe, all subsidy payments will be suspended until it is submitted. All service providers should ensure any outstanding returns are submitted before the end of the year. For guidance on returns, please see the NCS Attendance Returns Guide.

NCS bridging payments

If your service is closed for a full week and at least one of those days is designated as a subsidised closure, you will be given the option to request a bridging provision for the closed week(s) on the NCS return one week prior to the closure. The same applies if you are closed for two consecutive weeks and at least one of the days is designated as a subsidised closure.

The bridging provision allows you to receive 90% of the provisional allocations for the week(s) you are closed without the requirement to complete a return on time. You will be blocked from submitted the weekly return during this time as you will only be required to complete a fast return the following week.

Grace period

If you miss the option to avail of a bridging payment but feel you will be unable to submit an NCS return due to closure, you may still avail of a grace period payment. Please see here for more information on grace period payments. Please note however that you can only make two grace period requests within the programme year, and you may not make a request twice in a row.

To request a grace period, contact the Early Years Provider Centre by raising a Request using the following categories:

• Programme: NCS
• Programme type: Returns
• Programme type detail: Other