Excerpts
Effective Monday, April 1, 2024, families looking for licensed child care can no longer be charged a fee to put their names on waitlists, removing a barrier to finding high-quality child care.
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Approximately 5% of providers, mostly in metropolitan areas, were charging families a fee to put their name on a waitlist. Because most families looking for child care reach out to a number of providers, this was a significant cost. Waitlist fees, most of which are non-refundable, ranged from $25 to $200 or more.
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Eliminating waitlist-related fees at government-funded child care centres makes access to child care more equitable for all families and is another way that government is reducing costs. Through B.C.’s child care affordability programs, government has brought the cost of child care for children 12 and younger down to $18 from $45, which is the current average daily cost before government reductions.
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Quick Facts:
- The ACCB is an income-tested provincial program providing as much as $1,250 per month, per child, to help eligible low- and middle-income families with their child care costs.
- Families with an income under $45,000 per year may receive the maximum ACCB and pay nothing out of pocket for child care.
- Families with an income of as much as $111,000 per year may be eligible to receive additional child care support through ACCB.
- An average of 35,000 children received support through the Province‘s ACCB each month so far in 2023-24.