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CWELCC guide · 2026
What you can and cannot charge parents under CWELCC.
The $22 a day cap is the part everyone knows. The part that costs centres money is narrower: which charges count inside that cap, which sit outside it, and why every mandatory fee you keep charging reduces your funding by roughly the amount you collect. In 2026 there are no changes to child care fees — but the rules are applied at reconciliation, and that is when the arithmetic shows up.
The cap
The lower of $22 a day, or what you charged on December 31, 2024.
Centres in CWELCC must reduce the base fee for each eligible child to the lower of $22 a day or the reduced daily base fee the centre was charging on December 31, 2024. It is not a target to price up to — a centre already below $22 stays below $22.
The cap applies to licensed child care services provided within any 24-hour period. You can offer part-day, full-day, part-time, extended care and before-and-after-school care, but the total charged for care in a day cannot exceed the cap.
Centres that joined CWELCC after December 31, 2024 are set by regulation instead, and the figures are per service area, not provincial: s. 77.2(2) of O. Reg. 137/15 caps the base fee at the amount in its Tables for your own service manager. Full-day groups are $22 a day in Peel, Halton and Toronto alike. Before, after or before-and-after school care is $13.35 for kindergarten and $12.27 for school-age in Peel, $13.26 and $12.22 in Halton, and $15.26 and $12.55 in Toronto. Home child care has its own two Tables again.
Charging more and refunding it later is not a workaround
The guideline is explicit: charging families a higher fee and refunding or crediting the difference afterwards is not permitted. So is the related trap — fee deposits must be calculated on the reduced fee of $22 or less a day, whenever they were collected.
Every mandatory fee cuts your funding
Base fee revenue is subtracted from your allocation. A mandatory fee is base fee revenue. So a registration fee is not extra income — it substitutes for funding you would otherwise receive, and it has to be reported at reconciliation.
Peel's own advice is blunt: it strongly encourages providers not to charge mandatory fees at all.
If you were already at $22
A centre whose daily base fee was $22 or more as at December 31, 2024 cannot charge any further one-time or mandatory fees at all — doing so would breach the cap set in regulation.
Inside or outside
Which charges are base fees, and which are not.
| Charge | Treatment | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Daily fee, including extended care during posted operating hours | Base fee | Supervision during the hours on your licence is the service itself |
| Food, and the two snacks required for a child in care six hours or more | Base fee | Required under the Act and part of the program |
| Registration fees, deposits, mandatory fundraising | Base fee | Mandatory cost a family must pay to receive care — counts inside the cap and reduces funding |
| Mandatory key fob (non-refundable), parent communication apps | Base fee | Families cannot access the service without them |
| Annual handling fee for pre-authorised debit, if mandatory | Base fee | Becomes a non-base fee only if other suitable payment methods are genuinely available |
| Individualised plans — medical, anaphylaxis, extra support | Base fee | Developing and implementing them is part of the program |
| Optional field trips and transport, where families can opt out | Non-base fee | Optional only if opting out does not reduce service days or hours, or keep the child out of the program |
| Optional diapers, optional sunscreen, optional French, music or yoga | Non-base fee | Charged under the agreement with the family for an optional extra |
| Refundable key fob deposit | Non-base fee | Returned when the child leaves and the fob comes back |
| Late pick-up fees and NSF fees | Non-base fee | Penalty fees for not meeting the contract — but they must be set out in your parent handbook |
Anything not on the non-base list is a base fee. The test for "optional" is strict: a fee is optional only where a family can decline it without losing service days, losing hours, or having the child unable to take part in the program. A field trip fee that leaves the opted-out child with nowhere to be that day is not optional.
What you cannot change
The freeze on what is included.
- You cannot start charging a non-base fee for something that used to be included in your base fee. Moving snacks, or a music programme, from "included" to "extra" is the classic version of this.
- You cannot introduce new base or mandatory fees, or increase existing ones.
- You must maintain the services included in the base fee.
- Your parent handbook has to set out the CWELCC requirements, and any penalty fees you intend to charge, and be kept up to date. In Peel, the fee schedule and the Region's memo have to be communicated to families.
The deposit trap, worked through
Say your handbook asks for a two-week deposit at registration, applied to the last two weeks of care. A child registers in August 2025 and leaves on May 31, 2026. The deposit is applied to the last two weeks of May 2026, so the revenue is earned in 2026 and counts toward the 2026 base fee offset — not the 2025 one, and not the year you banked the cash. Centres that treat deposits as revenue on collection end up misstating the offset in both years.
Subsidy does not change the cap
For an eligible child receiving Child Care Subsidy, the subsidy is calculated against the reduced fee, not the old one. Fee subsidy revenue and mandatory fees both form part of actual base fee revenue at reconciliation.
Quick answers
The fee questions we get most.
Can a CWELCC centre charge a registration fee?
A mandatory registration fee is allowed only if it fits inside the cap — it counts as part of your base fee, amortised across the days of care. It also counts as base fee revenue, which reduces your CWELCC funding, which is why Peel encourages operators not to charge mandatory fees. If your daily fee was already $22 or more at December 31, 2024, you cannot charge it at all.
Can we charge for field trips?
Yes, where the trip is genuinely optional, the fee is separate, and a family that opts out still receives full child care that day with no reduction in hours or days. If opting out is not a real option, the charge is a base fee and sits inside the cap.
Are late pick-up fees allowed under CWELCC?
Yes. Late pick-up and NSF fees are penalty fees for not meeting the terms of the contract, so they are non-base fees. They have to be set out in your parent handbook.
What is the daily fee for before and after school care?
For centres that enrolled in CWELCC after December 31, 2024, s. 77.2(2) of O. Reg. 137/15 caps the fee at the amount in its Table for your own service area, not at a single provincial figure. For before and after school care that is $13.35 a day for kindergarten and $12.27 for school-age in Peel, $13.26 and $12.22 in Halton, and $15.26 and $12.55 in Toronto. Centres already enrolled hold at the lower of $22 or their December 31, 2024 reduced fee.
Can we raise fees in 2026?
No. There are no changes to child care fees for 2026, and you cannot introduce new base or mandatory fees or increase existing ones. You also cannot start charging separately for something previously included in the base fee.
Do fee deposits count against our funding?
They do, when they are earned. A deposit is deferred revenue and enters the base fee revenue offset in the year it is applied to a child's care. It must also be calculated on the reduced daily fee.
Sources: Region of Peel, 2026 CWELCC funding guideline, centre-based, section 4 and section 12.1; O. Reg. 137/15 under the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, s. 77.2, and O. Reg. 488/24 for centres enrolling after December 31, 2024; Ontario Ministry of Education, CWELCC Cost-Based Funding Guideline (July 2026). The fee rules are provincial; how they are administered and reported differs by service manager. General information, not advice for your situation.
Not sure a fee you charge is allowed?
Call 647-870-8498 or email info@ghayurtax.com. We can look at your fee schedule and parent handbook against the guideline before the Region does.