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Childcare costs in Chelmsford

75 nurseries and pre-schools registered with Ofsted in Chelmsford, Essex. We hold a published fee we can stand behind for 7 of them; for the other 68 we don't (not found, or what we read did not pass our checks).

Published prices run from £5.53 to £8.57 an hour (the middle is £7.70); a full day at a day nursery from £55.32 to £84.82.

Read from the nurseries' own fee pages, most recently on 16 October 2026.

Work out the cost for your child's age and days

Funded hours, by age

AgeFunded hoursWho
Under 9 monthsNoneEvery family pays the full fee.
9 months to 2 yearsUp to 30 hours a week, 38 weeks a yearWorking parents (gov.uk)
2 yearsUp to 30 hours a week if you work; 15 hours if you get certain supportWorking parents, or families on some benefits (gov.uk)
3 and 4 years, until Reception15 hours a week for every child; up to 30 for working parentsEveryone (gov.uk)

Hours start the term after your child reaches the age: terms start on 1 September, 1 January and 1 April. 30 hours a week for 38 weeks is 1,140 hours a year, and many nurseries spread them over more weeks. Working parents apply on gov.uk for a code and reconfirm it every three months. Key dates works out when your child's hours start.

National rules for England from September 2025: gov.uk. Nurseries may charge for meals, nappies and activities on funded hours; those charges are not in the figures here.

Nurseries with a published fee (7)

Cheapest hour first. A fee is the nursery's published price on the date it was read.

"A year full time" is 5 days of 10 hours for 51 weeks (2,550 hours). With 30 funded hours (a child from 9 months to 4 years, parents working) 1,140 of them are free and 1,410 are paid at the nursery's hourly rate. Pre-schools open for sessions, not full days, so only their hourly rate is shown.

Nurseries whose fee we do not hold (68)

Their own fee page was not found, or what we read did not pass our checks, so we show nothing rather than a guess.

For comparison, a paid hour at a typical nursery in the South East region costs £8.06 for a child under 2 and £7.58 for a 2-year-old. That is a survey average, not any nursery's own price.

Source: Coram Family and Childcare, Childcare Survey 2026: average nursery price for 50 hours a week after the working-parent entitlement (paying for 20 hours), by region.

More in nurseries in Chelmsford, ranked by what Ofsted found, and private school fees.

Nurseries: Ofsted, Childcare providers and inspections. Fees: each nursery's own website, read by kinplace's fee reader; a fee is left out when the page is shared with other nurseries (unless it is a chain's own price list, checked again for each branch), on another website, for an earlier year, or read more than 120 days ago.

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Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Sources are named beside each figure. All sources.