Newsletter for Early Years Funding providers in West Sussex
Monday 12 January 2026
This term's newsletter includes:
- Early Years Funded Entitlement updates - video
- Spring term 2026 actuals claims - action required
- How to check and submit 2 year old Local Authority Issued Early Years Funded Entitlement codes
- Term time only settings claiming 12 weeks in spring 2026
- Updated guidance and resources for Early Years Funded Entitlement claims
- Early Education and Childcare Statutory Requirements – from January 2026
- Maximum hours per week for each type of funded entitlement
- Parent declaration forms
- Early Years Pupil Premium
- Claiming Disability Access Fund
- Applying to amend your Early Years Funded Entitlement offer
- Help us to answer your queries more efficiently
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Please view the video below for a summary of EYFE updates and reminders for the spring term 2026.
Click the image below to watch the full video on YouTube. It will open in a new window.
 Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) Spring 2026 updates - YouTube
Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) Spring 2026 updates - YouTube
In newsletter #1/2026, we confirmed the Online Provider Portal is now open for you to submit your census and Early Years Funded Entitlement claims for the 9 month plus, 2 year old and 3 and 4 year old age groups.
To support your claim, please view the linked video in the ‘Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) updates – video' article. For a step-by-step guide on how to claim, please refer to the guidance available on our Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page.
As a reminder, please see the key dates below:
- headcount day: Thursday 15 January 2026
- deadline for submissions: Friday 30 January 2026 at 11.59pm.
Payment dates can be viewed on our how providers receive funding payments web page.
If you are unsure how to check a 2 year old LA Issued EYFE code is valid and how to submit it as part of your actuals, follow the guidance below.
Check validity
2 year old LA Issued codes do not work with the Working Families online eligibility checker. Please confirm the parent has a Local Authority letter or email showing the child’s name, date of birth, and the 2 year old LA Issued code.
Enter the code
When adding the child as part of your actuals claim, go to the Notes tab and type the 2 year old LA Issued code exactly as shown on the letter. There is no separate box for these codes.
Eligibility check
There is an option to check if a child is eligible for 2 year old LA Issued funding when adding children to your actuals claim, but this is only for children who are already approved for EYFE for Working Families and do not yet have a 2 year old LA Issued code. If the parent has evidence of LA Issued funding (from West Sussex County Council or another local authority), you do not need to run this check. The check uses one parent’s details and an email address for confirmation. It only checks economic criteria but the child may qualify under other criteria.
Key reminders
LA Issued codes apply only to the 2 year old Local Authority Issued EYFE offer and should not be confused with Working Families codes.
For full details and guidance, go to the Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page and look for the 'existing children' and 'new children' help guides under the Accessing the portal and completing your termly census section.
A reminder that, due to the length of the spring term 2026, term-time-only Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) settings can offer only 11 weeks of funding. However, term-time-only settings can claim 12 weeks instead of 11 if:
- they plan to deliver the twelfth week during the half-term break
- they plan to deliver the twelfth week in summer, combined with the 12 weeks which can be claimed in summer, this will mean providers can deliver 13 funded weeks instead.
We have updated our guidance documents to include instructions on how to submit your termly census and the new 'Special Needs' fields that are available when submitting actuals. New video guidance is also available which cover how to submit your census and how to submit actuals. These and the updated step-by-step written guidance can be found on our Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page.
The following resources are now available:
The statutory guidance published by the Department for Education in February 2025 requires early years and childcare settings to clearly display any additional charges related to the Early Years Funded Entitlements on both invoices and their website.
If you do not have a website, you should have received an email from the Family Information Service (FIS) with instructions on how to list charges on the FIS website. If you have not received this email, please contact the FIS team at family.info.service@westsussex.gov.uk.
For further guidance on how providers should list additional charges, please refer to newsletter #48/2025.
As a reminder, the increase to 30 hours for under-3s with Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families eligibility took effect last term. Below are the updated total funded hours per week for each entitlement.
- 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE - available to all 3 and 4 year olds - up to 15 hours per week based on term time only
- 2 year old Local Authority (LA) Issued EYFE - available to eligible 2 year olds only - up to 15 hours per week based on term time only
- 3 and 4 year olds with EYFE for Working Families - up to an additional 15 hours per week Extended EYFE, totalling up to 30 hours per week based on term time only
- 9 months plus and 2 year old children with EYFE for Working Families - up to 30 hours per week based on term time only
- 2 year olds with both LA Issued EYFE and EYFE for Working Families - up to 15 hours per week of LA Issued EYFE, with up to 15 additional hours of EYFE for Working Families, totalling up to 30 hours per week based on term time only.
There has been no change to the number of hours that can be claimed for 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE and 2 Year Old LA Issued EYFE. The number of funded hours is still limited to 15 per week for these types of funding.
Children aged from 9 months to 2 years old who are not approved for EYFE for Working Families or 2 Year Old LA Issued EYFE will not be able to access any funded hours. They must be approved for one of these types of funding or reach the age eligibility for 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE to access funded childcare.
Please remember, for the spring term, new parent declaration forms should be completed in the following scenarios:
- for all children claiming Early Years Funding Entitlement (EYFE) for the first time at your setting
- for children who have changed the number of EYFE hours being claimed, or there is a change to their details
- for children wishing to claim Disability Access Fund.
In all circumstances, the parent declaration form needs to be completed fully and signed by the parents/carers and setting by no later than headcount day (15 January 2026).
Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) and deprivation supplement combined is an additional payment of £1.50 per funded hour for up to 15 hours. It is available for children of all age ranges who are eligible and in receipt of Early Years Funded Entitlements (EYFE). EYPP is not applied to the 3 and 4 year old Extended EYFE for Working Families. Children may be eligible for EYPP if they meet certain economic criteria. In order for us to check a child's eligibility under this criteria, you must ensure that you tick the ‘EYPP' consent box under the parent/carer details tab. For more support and useful help guides, visit our Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page. Our 'existing children' and 'new children' help guides will help you with these steps.
Children may also be eligible if they:
- have been in local authority care for one day or more in England or Wales
- have been adopted from care in England or Wales
- have left care under a special guardianship order or child arrangements order in England or Wales.
To identify children eligible for EYPP under these criteria, please ask families if they meet any of the criteria. They will need to give you evidence to confirm this. Please check this evidence and once you are satisfied, you will need to submit this as part of your actuals claim. Please see our updated guidance on our Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page for more information.
The Disability Access Fund (DAF) helps children access early years places. It can support settings by making reasonable adjustments to their setting or building, either to support the individual child or to benefit all children at the setting. DAF is available to all age groups who claim Early Years Funded Entitlement, from 9 months plus to 3 and 4 year olds. If you wish to claim a DAF payment for a child this term, you will need to complete the DAF evidence form, and provide the following when completing the form:
- a copy of the letter confirming the child's current Disability Living Allowance award
- a copy of the child's parent declaration form (using the current September 2025 version, signed by the parents/carers and provider, no later than headcount day (15 January 2026)).
Please ensure that the parent declaration form is completed in full. If an out of date or incomplete version of the parent declaration form is provided, the claim will be declined, but you will be able to submit the correct paperwork the following term. If you send in the evidence by 15 January 2026, we will aim to check the evidence and give you the opportunity to rectify issues before headcount. If issues are resolved, we will be able to approve your claim and add the awarded DAF claim to your actuals payment.
If you need to re-sign up to offer Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for any of the following reasons:
- the ownership of the setting has changed. This includes new owners, changes to the registered person or premises, and changing from an organisation or committee-run to business-run
- changing your pattern of delivery. This could include adding a stretched or self-stretched offer, changing from stretched to self-stretched, adding a term time only offer
- adding or removing an age group from your offer. For example, if you do not currently offer EYFE for 9 month olds but would like to do so, you will need to re-sign up.
You should read our apply to offer Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) web page and contact us to re-sign up by Friday 20 February 2026 for these changes to apply from summer 2026. Please note that approval of your application will be conditional on any actions identified during the review of your policies being actioned and evidence provided.
Settings who are changing ownership should contact us as soon as this is confirmed to avoid any delays to funding payments.
To help make sure that your query is dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible, please would you do the following when emailing the Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) team:
- make sure that you are using the correct email address - EYFE@westsussex.gov.uk should be used for all EYFE matters, apart from emails that are directly sent to you by the EYFE Finance Team
- make sure you include the email trail relating to your query, so we can understand what has already been discussed
- if the query is about a new topic, please start a new email.
Please also ensure you give us as much information as possible, such as:
- children's initials and dates of birth
- name/address of the setting you are sharing funding with
- what setting you are contacting us from.
Following these steps will allow us to give you tailored advice without multiple emails needing to be exchanged to find out further information before we can assist you.
The EYFE Finance Team deals with specific queries regarding individual estimate and actuals submissions (for example clash of hours queries). They will contact you via their team inbox EYFE.FinanceTeam@westsussex.gov.uk. Please respond to them directly and include the email trail, so they can identify which issue you are responding to. The issues that the EYFE Finance Team contact you about will impact your payments, so please respond fully and without delay. If they have requested the parent declaration form for a specific child, please ensure that it is attached to your reply. They will only contact you regarding specific queries with your submitted claims, and we ask that you only respond to answer these queries so that all issues can be resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible.
If you need general EYFE related support and guidance, please email the Early Years Funding Team at EYFE@westsussex.gov.uk.
If you need support with EYFE for Working Families eligibility codes, which you have checked using the Working Families eligibility checker, please use our new Working Family eligibility code support form.
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