Earlier this year education ministers across Australia met and agreed to increase the annual service fees charged to approved providers in all jurisdictions (other than Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory) on top of annual indexation, from 1 July 2026.
These fee increases are necessary to support child safety through increased regulation of the sector. Recent major reforms have strengthened the National Law meaning regulators have more powers to make sure that the safety, rights and best interests of children are paramount in all early childhood settings.
To implement the fee increases, amendments to the National Regulations are required, which means annual service fee invoices will be issued by ACECQA later than usual this year, once the regulations are finalised and updates are made to NQA ITS.
While VECRA is not able to give an exact timeframe, we expect ACECQA to issue invoices to approved providers operating services under the NQF in the coming months. We also won’t be able to give indicative service fees until this has taken place.
Services that operate under the Children’s Services Act, such as occasional care and limited hours care, will be issued invoices separately from July onwards. More information on these fees will be available shortly on this page of the VECRA website.
The payment due dates for the annual service fees will be deferred so that approved providers have time to pay their annual fees. These are no longer due on 1 July 2026, which has been the cut off date in previous years.
The new deadlines for fee payment for 2026 for Children’s Services Act services is 14 August 2026, for Services under the Education and Care Services National Law, the date for fee payments will be communicate shortly.
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