Pay your child care fees

Families with one or more children enrolled at a municipal child care centre or who receive child care fee subsidy, can pay child care fees online or through pre-authorized payments. Review the steps below to make your payment.

Before you begin

Visit Get help with your child care costs to learn more about child care fee subsidies.

Payment policy

Child care payments are due to be paid in full on the 1st of the current month. Parent fees are due immediately for children who start care after the 1st of the month.

Children who do not attend the entire month will be invoiced the full fee daily cost of care, up to the maximum of their family’s parental fee.

Failure to make your monthly payments could result in your account being transferred to the City’s collection department, where it will accrue interest at 1.25% monthly. Continued non-payment could result in the termination of your fee subsidy.

Eligibility

You are eligible for online or pre-authorized payment of child care fees if you:

What you need

Your child care Applicant ID, which is made up of:

  • the first five letters of your last name
  • your date or birth, and
  • your 2-digit file number

 A child care Applicant ID is assigned to your child care fee subsidy file. You can find it:

  • On your:  
    • Waitlist confirmation letter
    • Confirmation of eligibility letter or
    • Confirmation of subsidized placement letter
  • In the subject line of any email received from FSU-childcare@ottawa.ca

Costs

When paying online by credit card, Mastercard Debit or Visa Debit, a service fee is applied by the service provider, Paymentus Corporation.

Pay

Online

Pay online with MasterCard, VISA, American Express (AMEX), Mastercard Debit and Visa Debit through the secure Paymentus payment system.

Pre-authorized payments

Pre-authorized payments run monthly from the date authorized until the child care services are no longer provided and all outstanding amounts due have been paid in full.

There are two ways to set pre-authorized payments:

What's next

When paying online, you will receive:

  • A confirmation number in receipt of your payment
  • An email confirmation of the payment transaction

Payments made before 10 pm will be credited to your account on the next business day. Payments made after 10 pm will be credited to your account within two business days.

If you made your payment by a pre-authorized bank debit or credit card your financial institution’s account summary is your receipt.

Contact

Email

FSU-childcare@ottawa.ca

Phone

Financial Services Unit at 613-580-2424, ext. 24276