The city will start charging a fee for non-cancellable childcare appointments – proceeds will be used for a cultural event for children

The city is starting a new practice of charging for unnecessary appointments during daycare centers' on-call hours. Such on-call hours include summer, school winter vacation, Christmas time, and autumn vacation. During these vacation times, only some daycare centers are open.

During on-call hours, early childhood education activities are planned based on advance care appointments made by guardians. Advance information is used to determine the number of personnel, plan work shifts, and order food.

"We have noticed in recent years that a significant portion of the reserved care places for on-call periods remain unused. For example, during the past operating year, reservations have been made for on-call periods for an average of approximately 250 children, but the actual number of children has been 24–60 percent lower. The large difference between reservations and actual early childhood education days makes planning operations difficult and causes significant additional costs for the city," says Terhi Joki, the city's head of early childhood education.

Cancel one week before

Riihimäki has decided to charge a fee for unused, uncancelled childcare reservations during on-call hours if the guardian has not notified the child of their absence at least one week before the reserved childcare appointment.

Cancellations are made to the early childhood education email address. early childhood education@riihimaki.fi.

No fee is charged if the absence is due to, for example, the child's illness or another unforeseen reason. In such cases, the absence must be reported to the emergency daycare center by telephone without delay.

The fee for a non-cancellable on-call appointment is half of the monthly early childhood education client fee assigned to the child. If the child would not otherwise be assigned a client fee, half of the minimum client fee according to law will be charged.

Based on the Act on Early Childhood Education Customer Fees, the municipality has the right to charge a fee for a reserved early childhood education place that is not used.

Cultural event with proceeds from fees

The fee revenue generated from non-cancellable reservations will be used for a cultural event aimed at children and families in autumn 2026.

We thank the guardians for their cooperation and accuracy in booking care appointments. Together, we can ensure the high-quality and sustainable organization of early childhood education, also during on-call times.

Riihimäki early childhood education client fees