Backgrounder: Alberta’s $15-a-Day Child Care program
February 12 2025
Starting April 1, 2025 the government will introduce a provincially set daily parent fee of $15.00 for full-time licensed early learning and care for children up to kindergarten age. The set fee applies to children who attend licensed child care centre and family day home programs during regular school hours. The monthly set fee amounts to $326.25 for full-time care and $230.00 per month for part-time care.
The Alberta government intends to bring the $15.00-a-day fee down to $10/day by March 31, 2026.
Alberta’s public funding approach
The public cost of the set fee will be paid through an affordability grant that will be provided to licensed child care programs that agree to be part of the province’s $15 a Day program. Programs are eligible to apply for funding for their full-time child care spaces (100 registered hours or more per month) or part-time child care spaces (50-99 registered hours per month).
According to the Government of Alberta media release, the grant is to cover the “reasonable costs associated with staffing, facilitating, operations, programming and administration,”
The media release says about 85 per cent of licensed daycare providers will receive at least a 2% funding increase once the new fee structure is in place on April 1.
Child Care Subsidy Program will be eliminated
The Alberta Government is eliminating the geared-to-income child care subsidy program. This means that low-income subsidised families now paying less than $15-a-day will suffer a fee increase. Jobs, Economy and Trade Minister Matt Jones, who is responsible for Alberta’s early learning and child care system, told media that the Alberta government feels there should be some cost [to all parents] so child care spaces are utilized appropriately. He said “there are thousands of children accessing a service that costs upwards of $18,000 for zero dollars today.” This suggests that thousands of families will be hurt financially by the elimination of the subsidy program.
While parents of children attending child care centres and home child care programs will pay the $15-a-day set fee, parents with a child in preschool will receive a reduction of up to $100 off their preschool program’s stated monthly child care fees. In Alberta a preschool is a facility-based program offered to preschool children (19 months) to kindergarten-aged (5 years old) for less than four hours per child per day.
Operators will be allowed to charge supplementary fees
Operators will be allowed to charge parents supplementary fees for services beyond what the Alberta government says are “core” program costs.” These services include transportation, field trips, meals and snacks, cultural activities, specialized classes, sunscreen, diapers, overnight care and extended hours care (weekends and after 6pm). Operators may also charge parents additional fees to join a waitlist for their programs, as well as fees for late pickup, late payments or insufficient funds and other punitive fees. Programs will continue to be prohibited from contract fees, termination fees, value-add fees, nap fees, technology fees, toy fees and supply fees.
The Government of Alberta has said that supplementary fees cannot be imposed on parents. However, the children of parents who do not pay the supplementary fees will be denied supplementary services. For example, an operator may introduce hot meals paid for through supplementary fees. A child whose family cannot afford the supplementary fee for hot meals will have to go without. Also, currently there is no regulatory framework in place to ensure supplementary fees remain optional and access to programs is not preferentially given to families who pay. Alberta does not currently regulate wait list fees which already grant preferential access to childcare for families who can afford them.
Permission to charge additional fees was provided for in a “cost control framework” that the Government of Alberta developed to allow for and encourage the expansion of for-profit child care in the province. The framework states that public funding to operators will be based on the cost of providing core services but does not define what is included in this core funding “envelope.” The framework allows for-profit operators to enhance their profits by selling additional services to parents. Not-for-profit operators may also charge supplementary fees for “non-core” services, however, the revenue they receive from these services must be invested in their programs.
Public funding only for operators in the Canada-wide ELCC program
Operators who choose not to participate in the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Program by refusing the new provincially-set fee and the Affordability Grant will not be eligible for other grants offered by the government, including wage top-up, professional development, release time, and employer contribution funding for certified early childhood educators.
How is the Affordability Grant rate calculated?
The amount of funding that operators will receive through the Affordability Grant depends on the type of program (preschool, full-day child care, half-day child care, family home child care), as well as the age of the children enrolled in the program, and also the geographic location of the program.
The Affordability Grant takes into account the current costs of delivering child care in different regions of the provinces and for different age groups.
The grant for each centre is calculated as: the determined 2025/2026 Child Care Fee minus the monthly parent fee of $326.25 per month for 100 + hours of registered child care.
The 2025/2026 Child Care Fee is determined using the program’s 2024/25 Affordability Grant Schedule A Child Care Fees combined with their existing Cost Increase Replacement Funding (CIRF) and the $150 infant care incentive (for children under 18 months), and an additional 2% inflationary increase.
This new comprehensive Child Care Fee will be assessed against 13 new regional minimum and maximum benchmarks for each age group to determine a program’s 2025/2026 Child Care Fees. If the total amount is lower than the lowest benchmark the overall funding will be increased to the lower limit, if it is in the benchmark range it will remain there, and if it is above the maximum for the benchmark it will be lowered to the maximum. The flat parent fee is then subtracted.
In summary, providers will all receive total funding (government + parent fee) that falls within the benchmark range for their region depending on the age of the child.
According to the Alberta government, these funding approaches were developed based on child care cee data provided in Affordability Grant Agreements, information collected from child care providers through the 2024 Child Care Cost Questionnaire, and insights gathered during the 2023 sector-wide engagements.
For family day homes, the Affordability Grant for day homes will vary according to location based on 7 regions, with different rates for infants (up to 18 months) and older children (19 months to kindergarten age). As with centres, part-time fees are equivalent to 65 per cent of the full-time rate.
The Affordability Funding Rate will be calculated in the following steps:
Step 1: Calculate Child Care Fees, which are determined by- 2024/25 Schedule A monthly child care fee multiplied by the Cost Increase Replacement Funding rate
- Additional $150 for infant age groups (0-18 months)
- Additional 2 percent for inflation
Each age group’s Child Care Fee (calculated in Step 1) is compared against the minimum and maximum regional benchmark fee. There are 13 regional benchmarks.
- If the fee calculated in Step 1 is above the maximum regional benchmark, the fee will move down to the maximum benchmark fee listed in the regional fee table. This becomes the final 2025/2026 Child Care Fee.
- If the fee calculated in Step 1 is below the minimum regional benchmark, the fee will move up to the minimum benchmark listed in the regional fee table. This becomes the final 2025/2026 Child Care Fee.
- If the fee calculated in Step 1 is between the region’s minimum benchmark and maximum benchmark, then this fee is the final 2025/2026 Child Care Fee
Subtract the full-time monthly parent fee of $326.25 per month from the final 2025/2026 Child Care Fee calculated in Step 2 to determine the Affordability Funding rate per enrolled child.
Part-time Child Care Fees are calculated at 65 per cent of a program’s 2025/2026 full-time Child Care Fee for each age group. The Affordability Grant rate is 65 per cent of the 2025/2026 Child Care Fee minus the part-time parent fee of $230 per month.
The new Affordability Funding approach eliminates existing government funding for overnight and extended care. Overnight and extended care will now be charged at a market rate with no government support.
Other administration changes
A new claims system should streamline some administrative tasks that allow providers to receive government funding. This includes investment in updated claims systems. The new claims system will be rolled out between March to June 2025 and be fully implemented by summer 2025.
For more information from the Government of Alberta please, read Introducing $15 a day child care for families
Read Child Care Now’s reaction to the funding announcement.
