Information on private day care allowance for service providers
Families are eligible for private day care allowance if their child under school age attends private early childhood education.
Private day care allowance is paid to municipality-approved private day care centres, group family day care centres, family day care providers, and childcarers employed by families. Private day care allowance includes the care allowance, an income-based care supplement and an Espoo supplement.
The child’s guardian applies for private day care allowance and the Espoo supplement from Kela. Kela pays the allowance directly to the service provider. In addition, Espoo offers a sibling supplement to private day care allowance, a municipal supplement for five-year-olds, pre-primary education compensation for private pre-primary education providers, and private day care allowance for early childhood education of a child of pre-primary education age.
Espoo offers a separate sibling supplement to private day care allowance, which is paid in addition to Kela’s private day care allowance. A family is eligible for the sibling supplement paid by Espoo if more than one child in the family attends early childhood education.
The early childhood education can take place in a day care centre or group family day care centre entitled to private day care allowance, a private family day care provider’s home, a municipal day care centre, an outsourced day care centre or a service voucher day care centre. A family is not entitled to the sibling supplement if the children are cared for at home by a childcarer employed by the family.
The sibling supplement is paid on the condition that the private service provider commits to reducing the child’s early childhood education fee paid by the family by an amount equal to the sibling supplement. You can find the commitment form and a related service price list (both in Finnish) on this page.
The child’s guardian applies for the sibling supplement from the City of Espoo, after which the city pays the supplement directly to the service provider. You can find more information about the sibling supplement and its euro amounts, as well as application instructions for guardians here. The sibling supplement is granted retroactively for a maximum of 6 months.
The sibling supplement is primarily paid for the siblings of the family’s youngest child. The supplement is paid to the older siblings’ private early childhood education unit. If the youngest child attends private early childhood education and the older siblings attend municipal, service voucher or outsourced early childhood education, the sibling supplement is paid to the youngest child’s early childhood education unit.
The amount of the sibling supplement is affected by the income-based care supplement the family may receive. Kela reviews the support decisions for families receiving an income-based care supplement annually in the summer. The guardian must attach a copy of the latest private day care allowance decision to the sibling supplement application for the calculation of the supplement amount. Thus, the guardian may apply for the sibling supplement only after they have received a new decision from Kela.
The guardian must always apply for the sibling supplement before the service provider can apply for the municipal supplement for five-year-olds. Remember to instruct the guardian to submit the sibling supplement application first. Guardians can find information on free early childhood education for five-year-olds here.
Enquiries related to sibling supplement: Mon, Wed and Thu 9:00–12:00. Growth and Learning Sector’s Financial Management Unit, tel. +358 9 81627401.
Espoo offers a municipal supplement for five-year-olds with which service providers can provide five-year-old children with free early childhood education for a total of twenty hours a week.
The municipal supplement for the provision of free early childhood education for five-year-olds can be granted to day care centres, group family day care centres and family day care providers entitled to private day care allowance. The provision of the free twenty hours of early childhood education a week is voluntary for service providers.
Here you can find the percentages and euro amounts of the municipal supplement. The municipal supplement for five-year-olds enables service providers to provide five-year-old children with free early childhood education for four hours a day and a total of twenty hours a week. The payment of the municipal supplement starts in August of the year the child turns five and continues until the end of July of the following year.
The supplement is paid on the condition that the service provider commits to reducing the child’s early childhood education fee paid by the family by an amount equal to the municipal supplement. The service provider also undertakes to comply with the City of Espoo’s principles regarding free early childhood education for five-year-olds. You can find these principles on the private early childhood education extranet.(external link, opens in a new window)
If a five-year-old has a sibling, the service provider must instruct the family to first apply for the sibling supplement. Only after that can the service provider apply for a municipal supplement for free early childhood education for five-year-olds. The City of Espoo pays the supplement directly to the service provider.
Espoo’s Early Childhood Education Unit provides private service providers operating in Espoo with instructions and forms for applying for the municipal supplement in August. You can also find the instructions and the application form on the private early childhood education extranet.(external link, opens in a new window)
Private day care centres and family day care providers operating in other municipalities can also provide free early childhood education for five-year-olds living in Espoo. However, Espoo does not receive direct information about these children and establishments from Kela. Service providers operating in other municipalities may request instructions and an application form from Espoo’s Early Childhood Education Service Guidance at vaka.palveluohjaus@espoo.fi.
The City of Espoo pays the pre-primary education compensation directly to service providers that have been approved as pre-primary education units by the city. The City Council determines the amount of pre-primary education compensation in the budget annually. For units entitled to private day care allowance, the pre-primary education compensation for the school year 2025-2026 is 530 euros per month per child.
The city pays pre-primary education compensation for children from other municipalities if the child has started pre-primary education in a day care centre entitled to private day care allowance by 20 September. If the child starts pre-primary education after 20 September, Espoo will not pay pre-primary education compensation for said child. In such cases, the service provider can negotiate the compensation with the child’s municipality of residence.
If, in addition to free pre-primary education (20 hours per week), a child attends early childhood education connected to pre-primary education in a private day care centre entitled to private day care allowance, the family can apply for private day care allowance from Kela
Kela pays the private day care allowance to the service provider from August to May. If the child needs full-time early childhood education during the summer, the family must separately apply for private day care allowance for the months of June and July. You can read more about this on our website aimed at guardians.
If the child’s municipality of residence is not Espoo, Kela pays the private day care allowance and any municipal supplements according to the decisions made by the child’s municipality of residence.
Under the Basic Education Act, a child’s guardian must ensure that the child attends pre-primary education or some other activity where the goals of pre-primary education can be achieved. A guardian may decide that their child will not attend pre-primary education but will attend full-time early childhood education in a private day care centre. In this case, the guardian must ensure that the child achieves the goals of pre-primary education in some other way.
Kela pays the service provider a lower amount of private day care allowance for a child of pre-primary education age who attends full-time early childhood education. The allowance is paid from August until the end of May of the following year. The family can apply for the difference between the allowance for full-time early childhood education and the allowance for early childhood education of a child of pre-primary education age from the City of Espoo. The city makes a decision based on the application and pays the difference directly to the service provider.