Guidance

Claim an early years teacher recognition payment

How eligible early years teachers can apply for a recognition payment before 31 July 2026.

Overview

Eligible early years teachers can apply for a recognition payment before 31 July 2026 in phase one of this payment scheme.

What you’ll get

Eligible teachers can apply for a payment of £4,500 after tax deductions.

Eligibility criteria and expectations of teachers

To be eligible for the recognition payment in phase one, you must work within at least one of these eligible local authorities:

• Sandwell
• Middlesbrough
• Tameside
• Rochdale
• Bolton
• Hartlepool
• Rotherham
• Dudley
• Luton
• Barking and Dagenham

You must also:

• hold qualified teacher status (QTS), early years teacher status (EYTS) or early years professional status (EYPS)
• be directly employed to work in an eligible early years group-based settings that offers the early years entitlements

Early years teacher recognition payment: methodology gives further information on how local authority areas and early years group-based settings were selected.

You must also confirm that you meet the following expectations:

• that you are fulfilling the role of an early years teacher, as outlined in the Early years teacher standards, for at least half of your time at work
• that you are not currently subject to any formal performance measures as a result of continuous poor teaching standards or disciplinary action

You should also consider DfE’s Good practice for teachers and settings guidance.

Breaks in teaching

You’re still eligible if you have some statutory breaks in your normal employment, such as:

• sickness
• maternity or paternity leave
• parental or adoption leave

If you submit a claim during statutory breaks in teaching, answer the questions based on your normal employment.

You should apply for payments as usual during any statutory breaks in teaching, before the claim window closes.

Part time and temporary staff

All eligible staff directly employed by an eligible setting are able to claim a recognition payment, including those working part time or on temporary contracts. Agency staff that are not directly employed by the setting are not eligible to claim a payment.

What you need to make a claim

You’ll need:

• your teacher reference number (TRN) - you’ll have one if you have early years professional status (EYPS), qualified teacher status (QTS) or early years teacher status (EYTS)
• a GOV.UK One Login account to prove your identity - you’ll need a UK passport, UK photo driving license or biometric residence permit to set it up
• your bank details, including the full name on the account, sort code and account number
• your gender as it appears on payroll
• a recent payslip from the last 2 months

If you need to find a lost TRN, do this before you claim. It can take 5 working days to recover your TRN.

If you need to set up a GOV.UK One Login account, this can take 2 weeks.

How long it takes to claim

If you have your TRN and GOV.UK One Login account it takes around 10 minutes to submit a claim.

After you have submitted

If your claim is successful you will receive a single payment within 16 weeks of submitting your claim.

Payments are subject to available funding and eligibility criteria. The Department for Education (DfE) reserve the right to close the scheme or prioritise applications if demand exceeds available funding.

Your claim may be verified with your employer by DfE or Ofsted. If a payment is made and you are later found to be ineligible, we reserve the right to recover the payment. If we receive 5 or more claims from teachers at one setting, we'll review these applications and reserve the right to limit the number of claims per setting.

Taxable income and National Insurance

We’ll pay National Insurance and basic rate Income Tax for the payment on your behalf. If you are or become a higher-rate taxpayer, you’ll need to pay any Income Tax at the higher rate through PAYE.

The payment is not part of your salary from your employer. You, your employer or the government will not make a contribution to your pension as part of this payment.

Your payment, along with the Income Tax and National Insurance contributions paid on your behalf, will all count towards your income. You should consider how this will affect any other benefits or tax credits.

Student loan deductions

If you have a student loan you’re currently paying off, a deduction will go towards repaying it. This is automatically taken from your payment.

Apply for an early years teacher recognition payment

You need to apply before 31 July 2026. Applications submitted after this date will not be considered.

You should ensure you have set aside time to complete your application before the closing date.

This is an initial pilot of the service and we plan to launch the full service later in 2026. If you are eligible for the pilot but did not make a claim, you may be able to claim when the full service is live.

Contact us

If you have any questions, email EY-teacher.recognitionpayment@education.gov.uk.