How to Start Out of School Hours Care in Australia: 8 Steps

Most people planning an out of school hours care service find the first approval. Fewer find the second. Provider and service approval come from your state or territory regulatory authority under the National Law. Child Care Subsidy approval is a separate application to the Commonwealth under Family Assistance Law. Miss the second and every family at your gate pays your full fee with no subsidy attached. You will not fill.

To start an out of school hours care service in Australia you need provider approval and service approval through the NQA IT System, plus separate CCS approval through the Provider Entry Point. Provider approval takes up to 60 days and service approval up to 90 days, so a realistic end to end timeline is 6 to 9 months. A school site setup usually lands between $15,000 and $45,000.

This guide is for two readers: someone starting an independent OSHC service, and a school, school council or P&C bringing care in-house.

The eight steps, in order

1. Test demand at the school gate before you spend anything.
2. Choose your model: a school site, an independent venue, or a school-operated service.
3. Set up the business, register for GST and get insured.
4. Apply for provider approval, then service approval, through the NQA IT System.
5. Apply separately for CCS approval, and price against the hourly rate cap.
6. Recruit educators and meet ratio, qualification and screening requirements.
7. Write your Regulation 168 policies and your Quality Improvement Plan.
8. Set fees, open enrolments and take bookings.

Steps 4 and 5 run on statutory clocks you cannot compress, so start them earlier than feels necessary. Everything else can run in parallel.

What counts as out of school hours care in Australia

Out of school hours care is one service type with three products: before school care, after school care, and vacation care during the school holidays. Depending on where you are, families and regulators call it OSHC, OOSH, BASC or ASC. It is all the same regulatory animal.

It sits under the same National Quality Framework as long day care, with the same National Law, National Regulations and assessment and rating process. Only the curriculum framework differs: school age care is guided by My Time, Our Place, not the Early Years Learning Framework.

The market is large and stable rather than booming. The Department of Education's Child Care Subsidy data report for the March quarter 2026 counted 5,118 OSHC services, 33.2% of every CCS-approved service in the country. OSHC also carries the lowest average hourly fee of any care type at $9.70, against $13.75 across all types.

Read those two numbers together. Real volume, thin margin per child per hour. Everything below comes back to that.

Step 1: Test demand before you commit anything

The Victorian Department of Education's guidance on deciding whether to establish an OSHC service sets out the method, and it generalises to any operator. Survey families at your target school on four things: before care, after care or both; which days; what hours; and how likely they are to book at a realistic price.

Then check the answers against something harder than enthusiasm. The ACECQA national registers and Starting Blocks show which services already operate within a few kilometres, what quality rating they hold and whether they run waitlists. A school of 400 students with no on-site care and nothing within 3 km is a different proposition from one with two providers already competing for the same afternoons.

Survey intent always overstates real bookings. Model on a fraction of the definite yes responses, then test that number against the break-even maths below. If the pessimistic case does not cover an educator's wages, the demand is not there yet.

One eligibility point to know early: CCS approval carries a minimum operating period, meaning a minimum number of weeks across twelve months, though there is no minimum on hours per day or days per week. A service also has to be primarily for school age children to be approved as OSHC. Check both against the department's eligibility criteria for administering CCS before you build an offer around the school holidays alone.

Step 2: Choose your model, school site, community venue or partnership

This is the biggest strategic fork you face, and it changes your capital requirement by an order of magnitude.

Operate on school grounds and expect a licence agreement. NSW's guidance for outside school hours care services confirms services on school grounds require one, that the department's school infrastructure team handles asset management, tender documentation and the agreements themselves, and that you must notify your contract manager before changing opening hours, the space you use, attendance levels or session fees. Those are contract obligations, separate from anything the regulator asks.

Purpose-built space is arriving slowly. NSW has committed over $20 million to OSHC hubs at schools within a $120 million before and after school care investment. Victoria's small and regional OSHC grants offer government schools up to $40,000 towards an on-site service, or up to $10,000 towards transport to an off-site one. Read the eligibility before you count on it: the school has to have already taken an establishment grant, and to have 200 or fewer full-time equivalent students, sit in one of the nine non-metropolitan areas, or show a specific barrier to running a viable service.

Space is set by regulation wherever you land. Regulation 107 requires 3.25 square metres of unencumbered indoor space per child and Regulation 108 requires 7 square metres outdoors. Unencumbered excludes corridors, storage and kitchens children do not use. On a shared school site a service waiver against the outdoor requirement is common, but raise it with your regulator before you sign anything.

Step 3: Set up the business and get insured

Sole trader, partnership, company or incorporated association. Most independent operators incorporate, for a practical reason: provider approval, a licence agreement and employing a team of educators all sit more cleanly with a company than with a person. Not-for-profits usually take the incorporated association route, which is what most P&C-run services already use.

Register an ABN and a business name, and register for GST once turnover passes $75,000, which a single service running five afternoons a week plus vacation care will clear in its first full year.

Insurance is not optional and it is not cheap. Budget for public liability at a $10 million minimum, with $20 million now common on school licence agreements. Add professional indemnity, abuse and molestation cover, management liability, and workers compensation, which is compulsory the moment you have an employee. A modest programme for a small service runs to a few thousand dollars a year, and operating from a building you do not own adds cover rather than removing it.

Get quotes before you commit to a venue. If you are still building the numbers, our guide to writing an after school club business plan covers the financial sections, and there is a broader walkthrough of starting a childcare business if you are weighing OSHC against other care types.

Step 4: Get provider approval and service approval

Two approvals, one system, two clocks. Both go through the National Quality Agenda IT System and are decided by your state or territory regulatory authority.

Before you apply, complete ACECQA's National Law and Child Care Subsidy Approval Course. New applicants need 4 of the 5 modules to receive the completion certificate, and ACECQA's guidance on opening a new service recommends doing it before you lodge anything.

Provider approval

This assesses you, not your building: whether each person with management or control is a fit and proper person, judged on criminal history, financial management capability and compliance record. Victoria's regulator publishes a typical document list, covering a fitness and propriety declaration for every person with management or control and every director, a criminal history check no more than six months old for each, a current Working with Children Check, proof of legal entity, and resumes and qualifications.

A decision is made within 60 days of a complete application. The clock only runs while the file is complete, and any time you spend gathering documents the regulator has asked for is excluded, so a thin application quietly stretches into months. Provider approval is then ongoing and recognised nationally, so opening a second service interstate later does not mean reapplying.

Service approval

This assesses the premises and the operation. It comes after or alongside provider approval, and the statutory timeframe is 90 calendar days from a complete application. You need a floor plan, evidence of the premises, your nominated supervisor, and your Regulation 168 policies, which is why Step 7 is not something you do after opening.

Fees, council and food

ACECQA charges transaction fees on each application plus an annual service fee, both indexed every 1 July. For 2026-27 most jurisdictions moved by CPI alone, but NSW and Victoria stacked a multiplier on top, scaled by provider size and type: 3.3 times for small not-for-profit providers, rising to 11 times for large for-profit providers. Price the current schedule, not last year's number.

Two more approvals sit outside the National Law. Council development and building approval typically takes 2 to 12 weeks, and is far more involved for an independent venue than an existing school hall. And if you prepare or serve food, including breakfast and afternoon tea, you need food business registration with your council under the Food Standards Code.

Step 5: Apply for CCS approval and understand the 3 Day Guarantee

CCS approval is a separate application, to a different level of government, under different legislation. Provider approval under the National Law does not grant it.

The process runs through the Department of Education's approval pathway for new providers. Register a PRODA account, link it to both the NQA IT System and the Provider Entry Point, then apply through the PEP. You are assessed against the fit and proper person test under Family Assistance Law, and since April 2025 new applicants must also supply a statement of tax record from the ATO.

Once approved, the subsidy sets your commercial ceiling. From 6 July 2026 the hourly rate cap for school age children is $13.30, covering before school care, after school care and vacation care alike. Subsidy runs at 90% for family income up to $88,520, tapering one percentage point per $5,000 and reaching zero at $538,520. It is calculated on the lower of your hourly fee or the cap, so anything above $13.30 an hour is unsubsidised in full.

The 3 Day Guarantee changes your booking model

From 5 January 2026 the activity test was replaced. Under the 3 Day Guarantee, every CCS-eligible family gets 72 hours of subsidised care a fortnight per child regardless of work or study, rising to 100 hours for First Nations children, for families with more than 48 hours of recognised participation a fortnight, and where an exemption or exceptional circumstances apply. It applies to all service types, vacation care included.

CCS is still means tested and families still pay a gap fee. What changed is the floor. Families who previously failed the activity test and booked nothing can now afford a subsidised day or two, which shows up as casual demand rather than term-long blocks. Sell permanent weekly bookings and genuine casuals side by side, and keep a waitlist for full sessions so you can see the demand you are turning away.

Step 6: Staff the service, ratios, qualifications and checks

Ratios for children over preschool age are set by each state and territory in Chapter 7 of the National Regulations, so confirm yours with your own regulator rather than assuming the national default.

In NSW the 1:15 ratio has applied since 1 October 2018 under Regulation 123, set out in the department's guidance on children above preschool age at OOSH. One rule catches people out in every state: an educator counts towards ratio only while working directly with children. A coordinator doing invoices in the office is not in ratio, and neither is a nominated supervisor writing next term's programme.

Qualifications are state-set too, with no single national rule for school age care. Queensland requires a minimum two-year qualification, such as a diploma, for the educator leading and programming the service, and a one-year qualification such as a certificate III for supporting educators, with six months to commence the former and three months the latter. South Australia moved to a two-tier requirement in May 2024, with at least one diploma-qualified educator present whenever the service operates.

Everyone on the floor needs worker screening plus current first aid, CPR refreshed annually, anaphylaxis management and emergency asthma management training. A NSW Working with Children Check is $112 for paid workers and free for volunteers, valid five years. A Victorian employee check is $139.20 for 2026-27, and a Queensland blue card is $108.30 for paid work from 1 July 2026. All three are free for volunteers.

On wages, the Children's Services Award was restructured in March 2026 after the Fair Work Commission's gender undervaluation review, replacing more than 30 pay points with eight Children's Services Employee levels. From 1 July 2026, CSE Level 3, a qualified educator working directly with children, is $1,233.90 a week full-time, $32.47 an hour, or $40.59 casual under award MA000120. Split shifts make casual and part-time loading a real budget line here in a way it is not in long day care. One offset: the Commonwealth funds a 15% above-award increase for eligible OSHC workers through the ECEC Worker Retention Payment, now funded to 30 June 2028. It carries conditions, including CCS approval and a cap on how fast you may lift your fees.

Step 7: Write your policies and set up your quality paperwork

Regulation 168 requires a written policy for a defined list of matters, and those policies form part of your service approval application. The list covers health and safety including nutrition, sun protection, water safety and first aid; incident, injury, trauma and illness; medical conditions including anaphylaxis; emergency and evacuation; delivery and collection of children; excursions and transport; providing a child safe environment; the safe use of digital technologies and images of children; staffing arrangements; enrolment and orientation; governance; payment of fees and fee collection; complaints; and privacy.

Two of those are commercial documents as much as compliance ones. Your fee collection policy decides whether you spend Friday afternoons chasing balances, and your cancellation terms decide whether an empty session is paid or unpaid. Our cancellation and refund policy examples are a starting point to adapt.

You are then assessed and rated against the National Quality Standard across seven quality areas, with a Quality Improvement Plan in place. Around 90% of OSHC services are already rated Meeting NQS or above, per ACECQA's quarterly NQF snapshots, so Meeting is the floor here rather than the achievement.

One practical point almost nobody makes: the evidence a regulator asks for at assessment is the same evidence you generate every session. Attendance records, medical action plans, authorised collection records, ratio evidence, incident records. Decide before you open whether those live on paper (a printable attendance sign-in sheet will get you through day one) or in a system you can search.

Step 8: Set your fees and open bookings

Start from the market, then work back to the cap. Published provider fee schedules commonly run $17.50 to $35 for before school care and $20 to $38 for after school care, and vacation care averages around $134 a day nationally, with wide state variation. Those look nothing like the $9.70 national average hourly fee because OSHC sessions are short: a $30 after school session is two and a half hours.

Figures published by School Holidays Australia in its comparison of vacation care costs, compiled from CareForKids fee data and quoted before subsidy.

Now apply the cap test. Divide your session fee by the session length and compare it to $13.30.

• A 2.5 hour after school session at $32.50 is $13.00 an hour. Under the cap, so the whole fee is subsidisable and a family on 90% CCS pays a gap of about $3.25.
• The same session at $37.50 is $15.00 an hour. Subsidy applies to $13.30 and the family pays the $1.70 difference in full, so the gap jumps to roughly $7.58. You added $5 to the fee and the family felt closer to $4.30 of it.
• A ten hour vacation care day at $134 is $13.40 an hour, just over the cap. Extending the session to eleven hours brings it to $12.18 and pulls the whole day back under. Session length is a pricing lever, not just a rostering decision.

Nationally, 84.6% of OSHC services price below the cap. That is your benchmark, and going above it needs a reason a parent can see.

Settle the rest of your fee architecture up front: permanent versus casual pricing, an annual enrolment fee, sibling discounts, a late collection fee, and how much notice cancels a session without charge. Plan the collection method too, because Family Assistance Law requires you to take all reasonable steps to collect gap fees electronically. Direct debit or card on file, not cash in an envelope.

Then market it. The school newsletter, the pickup gate and a booking page families can actually use will do more than anything else in your first term.

What it actually costs to start an OSHC service

General childcare startup guides quote $150,000 to $1,000,000 and up. That figure is real, and it is long day care: property acquisition, purpose-built fit-out, commercial kitchens, nursery rooms. An OSHC service in a school hall under a licence agreement is a different business with a different balance sheet, and taking the generic number at face value talks viable operators out of viable services.

Ranges below are indicative for 2026 and vary by state, venue and how many of your opening team already hold qualifications.

Working capital is the line people underestimate, because enrolments build over a term or two while wages start on day one. On a school site the two largest items on any long day care budget, property and fit-out, are the two you mostly do not have.

How many children do you need to break even?

Nobody publishes this number, so here is the arithmetic.

Take one educator at CSE Level 3, $32.47 an hour under the award from 1 July 2026. Add on-costs, meaning superannuation, leave loading, workers compensation and payroll tax where you are over the threshold. A multiplier of about 1.25 puts a permanent educator near $40 an hour fully loaded. A casual starts higher at $40.59 but carries fewer on-costs, because the 25% loading already stands in for leave, so budget nearer $48.

A 2.5 hour after school session with one permanent educator therefore costs roughly $100 in direct wages. At a $30 session fee, four children cover that. Ratio allows fifteen, so a full session grosses $450 against $100 of direct wages.

That looks comfortable, and it is not the whole picture. It excludes the coordinator's non-contact hours for programming, enrolments, medical plans and CCS reconciliation, often the largest single wage line in an OSHC service, along with food, rent or licence fees, insurance, software, the annual service fee and utilities. It also assumes one educator is enough, when most services staff two adults regardless of ratio so one can leave the room for toileting or first aid without breaching supervision. Two educators on that session costs $200, and break-even moves to seven children.

Model three scenarios against your Step 1 survey: pessimistic, expected and full. The constraint on OSHC viability is almost never the ratio. It is filling five afternoons consistently, week after week, and covering fixed overheads out of a per-child margin measured in single-digit dollars per hour.

A realistic launch timeline

Three to six months is the answer most sources give, and it is optimistic if you want to open on the first Monday of a term. Work backwards instead.

• 9 months out. Run the demand survey, open conversations with the school, and complete the ACECQA National Law and Child Care Subsidy Approval Course.
• 7 to 8 months out. Incorporate, get the ABN, collect insurance quotes, hold a council pre-application meeting and start drafting your Regulation 168 policies.
• 6 months out. Lodge provider approval in the NQA IT System. Up to 60 days.
• 4 to 5 months out. Lodge service approval with your floor plan, nominated supervisor and policies. Up to 90 days.
• 3 to 4 months out. Apply for CCS approval through PRODA and the Provider Entry Point, with your statement of tax record.
• 2 to 3 months out. Recruit and screen educators, book first aid, anaphylaxis and asthma training, and order equipment.
• 6 to 8 weeks out. Open enrolments, publish fees, and run the newsletter and pickup-gate campaign.
• 2 weeks out. Check ratios against actual bookings, walk the evacuation route, and brief the team on medical plans and collection procedures.

Two things push launches back a term more than anything else. A service approval application that comes back for more information quietly adds weeks, and CCS approval landing after enrolments open means families see an unsubsidised price and do not book.

Running day one without a clipboard

Sixty children arrive within ten minutes of the bell. Two have anaphylaxis action plans. One has a custody arrangement naming who may not collect. A parent walks up at 3:15 asking whether you can take their child today, and you need your headcount against ratio before you answer. At the end of the fortnight someone reconciles CCS payments against gap fees and works out who still owes you money.

This is where our out of school hours care management software fits, and it is worth being specific about what we do and do not do.

We sell permanent bookings, casual sessions and full vacation care from one booking page, with fortnightly direct debit, instalments or prepaid session passes and automatic sibling discounts. Enrolment forms capture allergies, medical conditions, medication, custody arrangements, emergency contacts, authorised pickups and pickup passwords, with file uploads for medical action plans. Educators sign children in and out from a phone or tablet, with those details visible on the daily attendance roll, pickup passwords verified on the spot, and live capacity and ratio for every session.

What we are not is a CCS submission system. Services keep submitting attendances through their CCS software or their approved provider, and use us for the family-facing booking, payment and roll-taking side: recording the CCS-paid portion against each booking, reconciling the gap fee and chasing balances automatically. If you want to compare the field before choosing, our roundup of the best afterschool program management software covers the alternatives.

Pricing is flat rather than per-child, starting at A$54 a month regardless of how many educators or sessions you run, with a 30-day free trial and no card required. Full detail is on our pricing page.

What actually decides this

Demand at the gate decides this. If you can fill five afternoons a week at a session fee that divides out under $13.30 an hour, an OSHC service on a school site is one of the least capital-hungry regulated businesses you can start in Australia. If you cannot, no amount of approval paperwork will fix it. Test that first, then start the clocks.

Key takeaways

• You need two approvals: provider and service approval from your state regulator under the National Law, and CCS approval from the Commonwealth under Family Assistance Law.
• Provider approval takes up to 60 days and service approval up to 90, so plan 6 to 9 months end to end.
• A school-site start typically costs $15,000 to $45,000 including working capital, an independent venue $65,000 to $200,000.
• The school age CCS hourly rate cap is $13.30 for 2026-27. Divide your fee by session length and stay under it, or the family pays the excess unsubsidised.
• Ratios are 1:15 over preschool age in most states, 1:11 in the ACT, 1:10 then 1:13 in WA. Qualification rules are state-set.
• The 3 Day Guarantee gives eligible families 72 hours a fortnight, so sell casuals alongside permanent bookings.
• Break-even is usually seven children a session with two educators, not four.