What you'll need

To complete your return, you'll need to provide the number of children and the number of hours across the early years entitlements taken during the autumn 2025 count week, commencing Monday, 3 November 2025.

Warning You must only include children from early years providers which are normally included in the early years census.

For school nurseries (with registered pupils), maintained nursery schools, and academies (with registered pupils), the relevant data will be collected via the 2025 autumn term school census. Therefore, local authorities do not need to include these children in their data return.

Early years entitlement for working parents and EYPP

You'll need to know the total number of children and the total number of hours taken during count week for the following early years funding streams:

Up to a maximum of 30 hours per child:

entitlement for 2-year-olds of eligible working parents
entitlement for children from 9 months old up to 2-year-olds of eligible working parents

Up to a maximum of 15 hours per child:

2-year-olds in receipt of EYPP accessing the 2-year-old working parents entitlement
2-year-olds in receipt of EYPP accessing the entitlement for families of 2-year-olds receiving specific forms of additional support (formerly known as the 2-year-old disadvantaged entitlement)
9-month-olds up to 2-year-olds in receipt of EYPP accessing the working parents entitlement

Early years entitlement for families receiving specific forms of additional support (formerly known as the two-year-old disadvantaged entitlement) and children with SEND

You also need to know the total number of children taking up the government-funded hours for the following:

entitlement for families receiving specific forms of additional support
children with SEND accessing the entitlement for families receiving specific forms of additional support
children with SEND accessing the entitlement for 2-year-olds of eligible working parents
children with SEND accessing the entitlement for 9-month-olds up to 2-year-olds of eligible working parents