HMRC apologises after childcare accounts website goes down in day-long outage

HMRC has apologised to customers who struggled to access its online childcare service to pay their nursery and childcare providers after its website experienced a day-long outage.

Parents discovered on Sunday that scheduled maintenance work to update the web link had gone on longer than expected and, by Monday morning, was still down with an unexplained '403 error'.

At least half a million families use the link to access free childcare if they are working, or pay for tax-free childcare.

HMRC said on Monday morning that it was "urgently working to fix" the issue, and subsequently confirmed with Yahoo News that the website was now fully operational.

In a statement, it said: “The childcare service has now reopened and customers can use their accounts as normal.”

Several parents had complained to the UK's tax and customs authority on social media, saying that they needed to pay their childcare providers as soon as possible.

One parent, James Roblin, wrote on X on Sunday: "Hello, I cannot access our childcare account. From yesterday evening it has been showing a '403 Error'. See attached. I need to pay our providers ASAP."

Sara Mateus, who has a one-year-old daughter and lives in London, said she first noticed the glitch on Sunday.

"I tried to log in a couple of times using different browsers, and then realised that none of the usual troubleshooting was working," she told Yahoo News. "I noticed on the service availability and issues page that there was some downtime scheduled on Sunday until 10pm. I tried again, closer to midnight, and then again this morning, and it still wasn't working.

Since then, she was been "worrying about when it will be fixed", adding that communication around the issue hasn't been clear.

She said: "We do have strict timelines to pay childcare providers. I don't have social media so that information wasn't available to me. Systems are fallible, but this information needs to be communicated as clearly as possible."

What is an online childcare account?

Parents can access an online childcare account for financial support paying for, and paying childcare providers.

If you get tax-free childcare, you'll set up an online childcare account for your child. For every £8 you pay into this account, the government will pay in £2 to use to pay your provider.

You can get tax-free Childcare at the same time as 15 or 30 hours free childcare if you're eligible for both.

If you’re eligible for free childcare if you’re working, you can also use the link to get a code to give to your childcare provider.