The Day-Care Centre Voucher (Kita-Gutschein) is an offer for families living in Hamburg. In individual cases, our day-care centres also accept children who live with their families in the surrounding cities and municipalities of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. This may make sense if the day-care centre is located on the city limits, or if one of the parents works in Hamburg and can drop off and collect the child on their way to and from work.

The Hamburg youth welfare offices are not responsible for these children. In this case, we therefore require a cost absorption declaration of the city or municipality of the family’s residence, instead of the Hamburg day-care centre voucher. The cost absorption declaration has to state the number of hours of day-care granted, as well as the financial amount of parental contribution. 

Whether the municipality of residence issues a cost absorption declaration, depends mostly on the local availability of an open spot at a suitable day-care centre, and on its regulations concerning the approval of day-care centre services in general.

If parents from the surrounding areas of Hamburg choose to take a spot at a day-care centre of the Elbkinder without public funding, but are willing to pay for it entirely through Private Funding, the same regulations as for parents in Hamburg apply.