Brandenburg intends to reform the funding of childcare centres. Under the „Childcare Pact 2030“, agreed on 9 November 2026, the state, the local authority umbrella organisations and the LIGA der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege have agreed to introduce a third level of childcare from 1 August 2027. In future, the state is to cover the costs of childcare for periods exceeding eight hours a day, in order to ease the burden on local authorities and independent providers in particular.

Around 30,000 children stand to benefit from the new arrangements. The improvements are also to be funded by resources that become available as a result of falling child numbers. At the same time, particularly small nurseries with declining enrolment figures are to receive additional support if they are essential for providing local childcare services.

A change is also on the horizon regarding the cost of lunch: the SPD and CDU wish to abandon the originally planned new rules for calculating meal costs. The costs of meals that exceed the amount saved by families at home will therefore, in principle, continue to be borne by the childcare providers. The coalition parliamentary groups also cite the financial relief provided by the „2030 Childcare Pact“ as a reason for their change of course.

This provides for annual state funding of 870 million euros for early years education and childcare up to 2030. The necessary legislative and budgetary implementation has yet to take place. Changes to the funding of childcare centres are already planned to come into effect on 1 January 2027. However, the fundamental issues surrounding the funding of shortfalls at local authority level remain unresolved.