If your child goes to kindergarten in Bavaria, your fee statement probably carries a line few parents notice: €100 a month that the nursery deducts from your contribution. From 1 January 2027 that obligation ends. The cause is a reform of the Bavarian childcare law (BayKiBiG), which the state parliament passed on 22 July 2026 and which was published in the law gazette on 30 July.
Scrapped, or just rebooked?
That is what the state government and its critics dispute. Family Minister Ulrike Scharf (CSU) called the claim that the subsidy is being cut “false” in May: the money stays in the system and reaches providers through the quality bonus. The social ministry’s funding page says the subsidy is abolished only “as a separately shown funding component”. State operating-cost funding is also due to rise by 25 per cent in total by 2029.
The catch: the deduction on your bill is no longer compulsory. Whether your fee falls, stays or rises is now up to the provider and the municipality. In Bayreuth it looks like a rise. A six-to-seven-hour place is listed at €260, and parents pay €160 thanks to the deduction. Providers decided on 9 October not to pass the relief on, and the city says it cannot cover the amount from its own budget. The parents’ council speaks of a “hidden de facto increase in parental fees of €100 per child per month”. It also calculates that the quality bonus per child rises from about €268 a year in 2026 to about €693 in 2027, so, it argues, the money is there.
Elsewhere councils are pushing back. In Landshut the ÖDP tabled a motion in late September to amend the fee statute before 1 January so that parents do not pay more solely because the deduction lapses. According to the motion, the explanatory notes to the law say the end of the deduction alone is no reason for higher fees. That is a motion, not a decision. Munich has its own debate, which we covered here: Munich kita 2027: register by 3 March, new fees.
What you can check now
Ask your nursery or its provider (municipality, church, association) whether the fee schedule changes on 1 January 2027 and what the fee would be without the deduction. Such rules are usually set by the local council or the provider’s board, often in late autumn, and parents’ councils can ask questions.
If you receive Bürgergeld, social assistance, asylum-seeker benefits, child supplement (Kinderzuschlag) or housing benefit, you pay no kindergarten fee under section 90 of Book VIII of the Social Code; hand the notice to the provider or the youth welfare office. That includes Ukrainian families on such benefits. Everyone else can ask the youth welfare office to cover the fee in full or in part if it is unreasonable for the family.
For nurseries (under-threes) it is different: the Bavarian Krippengeld (up to €100 a month, income limit €60,000 plus €5,000 for each further child receiving child benefit) now exists only for children born before 1 January 2025. Apply online at krippengeld.bayern.de by 31 August of the year the child turns three at the latest; up to 12 months back is possible.
Our assessment, with medium confidence: there will be no uniform picture. Municipalities and providers with room to manoeuvre will probably hold fees steady, while cash-strapped ones are more likely to raise them. If you get an increase in January, ask how the higher quality bonus was factored into the calculation.
Sources: Bavarian Social Ministry, Bavarian state government, ZBFS, Bayreuther Tagblatt, Klartext.la
