Getting a Kita place for your child in Germany

Does my child really have a right to a Kita place?

Yes, from the first birthday. § 24 (2) sentence 1 SGB VIII gives a child who has completed its first year of life a claim to early childhood support in a day-care facility or in childminding until it completes its third year, and the daily extent of that support follows the individual need of the family.

The claim belongs to the child, not to the parents. The Federal Court of Justice said so in its judgments of 20 October 2016 while at the same time holding that the duty behind it also protects the parents' interest in working.

From the third birthday the claim changes shape. § 24 (3) sentence 1 SGB VIII gives a claim to support in a day-care facility until the child starts school, so childminding no longer satisfies it.

What does not follow from that paragraph is a full day. Sentence 2 only obliges the authorities to work towards a needs-based supply of full-day places for that age group, which is an obligation to plan rather than a claim you can enforce for your own child.

Below the age of one there is no general claim at all. § 24 (1) SGB VIII limits support for that age to cases where the child's development requires it, or where the parents work, are taking up work, are looking for work, are in vocational, school or university education, or receive integration benefits under SGB II.

Does the claim apply to you if you have just arrived?

It applies once you are lawfully and habitually resident here, and not a day earlier. § 6 (2) SGB VIII states that foreigners can claim benefits under that book only if they have their habitual residence in Germany lawfully or on the basis of a toleration, so the claim travels with your residence status and your actual life here, not with your passport or your job offer.

This is the sentence English-language advice usually leaves out, and it decides the order in which you have to do things.

The office that owes you the place is fixed by § 86 (1) sentence 1 SGB VIII: the local authority in whose area the parents have their habitual residence. Moving districts moves the file.

In practice the registration of your address comes first. Berlin states that the family and the child must, as a rule, live in Berlin and be registered there, and other cities work the same way, which means the Anmeldung is not a formality you can leave for later if a Kita place matters to you.

Timing the notification of need against your arrival date is one of the things we work through with candidates in our placement service, which is free for you because the employer pays.

What is the office actually obliged to give you?

One suitable place, and that is the whole of it. The first official guiding principle of the Federal Administrative Court in its judgment of 26 October 2017 (5 C 19.16) is that § 24 (2) sentence 1 SGB VIII obliges the authority to point out a place in a publicly funded care arrangement matching the individual need of the child and of the parents.

You have no right to choose the form of care. The same judgment holds that the paragraph grants no right to choose between a place in a facility and a place with a childminder, and none between a public-law provider and a private one.

You also have no right to a cheap place. The court stated that under federal law the authority is not obliged to point out a free or even low-cost place, and that whether the fee is affordable for you is examined only later, in a separate procedure under § 90 (3) and (4) SGB VIII.

The facts of that case are worth knowing before you turn anything down. A mother in Munich notified a need for full-time care from 1 April 2014; the city named free places with six childminders and she refused them over their closing times; the family then used a private facility at 1,380 euros a month for 40 hours a week. The Federal Administrative Court refused reimbursement, because the authority only owes those costs the family would not have had to carry had the place been pointed out in time.

So the sentence to keep in mind is this: refusing a place that meets your stated need is allowed, but it is expensive, and it is measured against the need you put in writing rather than against the Kita you had in mind.

Who do you have to tell, and by when?

The youth welfare office, in writing, as early as you can — that notification is the act that carries legal weight. Both leading judgments hang on it: the Federal Court of Justice speaks of a need registered in time, and the Federal Administrative Court requires under § 36a (3) sentence 1 SGB VIII, applied by analogy, that the authority was informed before the family procured a place itself.

Applying to Kitas is not the same thing. A waiting list at a Kita is a private arrangement with that Kita; it does not put your authority on notice and it does not start any clock.

There is no nationwide deadline, and anyone who quotes you one is guessing. § 24 (6) sentence 2 SGB VIII only permits state law to require parents to give notice within a certain period before they want the place, which is why the answer is different in every state.

Berlin, according to the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family, gives a claim to up to seven hours a day from the first birthday, and the Kita-Gutschein can be applied for at the earliest nine months and should be applied for at the latest two months before the desired start, at the youth welfare office of your district.

Hamburg asks for the application three to six months before the desired start of care, and its Kita-Gutschein carries a five-hour general legal claim including lunch.

Munich runs on a single cut-off date. Its Rathaus-Umschau of 3 February 2026 tells parents to register in the kitafinder+ portal by 11 March to take part in the first allocation round, with the Kita year starting on 1 September and around a third of the city's roughly 120,000 places being allocated afresh. Arrive in May and the main round is behind you.

One thing you can ask for and rarely do: § 24 (6) sentence 1 SGB VIII obliges the authority to inform you about the places available in your local catchment area and the pedagogical concept of the facilities, and to advise you on the choice. That is a duty, not a courtesy.

What does a Kita place cost?

It depends on the state and the municipality, and the range runs from nothing to several hundred euros a month. Federal law fixes only the method: under § 90 (3) sentence 1 SGB VIII contributions must be graduated, and sentence 2 names the parents' income, the number of children in the family who qualify for child benefit, and the daily hours of care as the criteria.

There is one part of the fee rules that is not discretionary. § 90 (4) sentence 2 SGB VIII treats the burden as unreasonable in every case where the parents or the child receive basic income support under SGB II, benefits under chapters 3 and 4 SGB XII, benefits under §§ 2 and 3 AsylbLG, the child supplement under § 6a BKGG or housing benefit — and sentence 1 then requires the contribution to be waived on application. Sentence 3 makes it the authority's job to tell you that this exists.

Berlin charges no fee at all. Its Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family states on the official Kita-Gutschein page that care in a Kita or with a childminder is free of charge and that parents contribute 23 euros a month towards the warm lunch.

Hamburg is free for the first five hours a day, lunch included, and asks for an income-dependent contribution above that; where more than five hours a day in a Kita or more than 25 hours a week in childminding are approved, the approval as a rule runs for a year.

Whatever you end up paying, keep the paperwork. § 10 (1) no. 5 EStG allows 80 per cent of childcare expenses to be deducted as special expenses, up to 4,800 euros per child under 14, and sentence 4 makes the deduction conditional on having received an invoice and having paid into the provider's account. Cash to a childminder is not deductible, and how the deduction works out in your own return is a question for a Steuerberater rather than for us.

How likely is it that you will actually get a place?

Likelier in the east than in the west, and the gap is large. The Federal Statistical Office reported in its press release no. 392 of 31 October 2025 that on 1 March 2025 the care rate for children under three stood at 54.9 per cent in the eastern states including Berlin and at 34.5 per cent in the western states.

Nationally the rate was 37.8 per cent, covering 801,300 children under three, according to the same release.

That rate is not the same as satisfied demand. The German Youth Institute reported on 26 August 2025, from an annual survey of around 33,000 parents carried out in 2024, that parents wanted a place for 65 per cent of one-year-olds and 82 per cent of two-year-olds.

The resulting gap is measurable and it is regional. In the same survey almost one in four families in western Germany with a one- or two-year-old child, 23 per cent, could not use a place despite wanting one, against 9 per cent in the east, with a further 6 and 4 per cent getting hours that were not enough.

If you are moving to a western city with a child under three, plan for that quarter rather than hope through it: a partner who cannot start work on the agreed date is the most common way a relocation goes wrong for reasons nobody wrote into the contract.

What can you do if no place is offered?

You can claim damages for the earnings you lose. In its judgments of 20 October 2016 (III ZR 278/15, 302/15 and 303/15) the Federal Court of Justice held that failing to provide a place to an entitled child despite a timely registration of need is already a breach of official duty, and that loss of earnings suffered by parents falls within the protective scope of that duty.

The usual defence does not work. According to the same judgments the duty is not limited by existing capacity, the authority carries an unconditional guarantee obligation, general financial shortages are no excuse, and there is prima facie evidence of fault once the place is missing. The three cases before the court concerned 4,463.12, 2,182.20 and 7,332.93 euros of lost earnings and were sent back for findings on fault and amount.

The second route is to arrange care yourself and ask for the cost. That is possible by analogy to § 36a (3) sentence 1 SGB VIII, on three conditions the Federal Administrative Court restated in 2017: you told the authority of the need before you procured the place, the conditions for the benefit were met, and meeting the need could not wait.

What you recover is narrower than what you pay. The reimbursement covers only the costs you would not have carried if a place had been pointed out in time, which is why the Munich family in that case recovered nothing despite winning the point of principle.

Both routes are court matters and both turn on your own file. If your notification is on record, the date has passed and your job depends on it, that is the point to pay a lawyer who practises social or administrative law for an hour — we cannot give legal advice, and a guide cannot judge your case.

What changed for school-age children this school year?

Children in year 1 now have their own claim. § 24 (4) SGB VIII gives a child attending the first year in the 2026/2027 school year or later a claim to support in a day-care facility from school entry until the beginning of year 5, and sentence 2 sets it at eight hours a day on working days.

Those eight hours are not eight hours on top of school. Sentence 3 treats the claim as fulfilled to the extent of lesson time and the offers of all-day primary schools, and sentence 5 lets state law close the facility for up to four weeks a year during the school holidays.

The rest of primary school follows year by year. The federal family ministry states that the claim is extended by one school year annually, so that from August 2029 every primary school child in years 1 to 4 has it, supported by up to 3.5 billion euros of federal investment aid and operating contributions rising to 1.3 billion euros a year from 2030.

The honest answer, in one paragraph

Write to the youth welfare office of your new district on the day you register your address, name the date from which you need care and how many hours, and keep the confirmation. That single letter is what turns a general legal claim into your claim: it is the fact both leading judgments turn on, it is what makes a later refusal a breach of duty, and it costs you nothing. Then apply to as many Kitas as you can stand, accept a place that meets the need you wrote down even if it is a childminder or the wrong side of town, and take the fee question to the separate procedure under § 90 SGB VIII where it belongs.