Casual or irregular hours of work

Casual or irregular work hours may affect your subsidised hours of care for Child Care Subsidy.

If your work hours change each fortnight, you need to give us an estimate of your hours. Estimates should be the highest number of hours you expect to work in a fortnight over the next 3 months.

If your Centrelink online account is linked to myGov, sign in now to update your estimate.

Sign in to myGov

You can also tell us using either:

Read more about what you can do using self service.

If you don’t have access to a self service option please call the Centrelink families line.

Example of giving an estimate for irregular work hours

Suzie is a single parent working at a supermarket. Her work hours vary from 15 to 45 hours per fortnight. Suzie declares the highest number of hours she expects to work within a fortnight over a 3 month period. In Suzie’s case, this is 45 hours per fortnight.

This means Suzie can access 72 hours of subsidised child care per fortnight.

Contact numbers available on this page.

Centrelink families line

Use this line if you need help with family payments, such as Family Tax Benefit, Child Care Subsidy or Parental Leave Pay.

Monday to Friday 8 am to 8 pm

If your child’s Youth Allowance payment has been suspended, it may be because we still need information about your income. We may have sent your child a letter asking for this in September or October, read how you can update your income details online.

There are other ways you may want to contact us.

Page last updated: 3 January 2025.
QC 49421