The National Early Childhood Worker Register: What Approved Providers Need to Do Before 27 March 2026

The National Early Childhood Worker Register went live across Australia on 27 February 2026. Every approved provider operating under the National Quality Framework (NQF) must now record, maintain, and update worker information for everyone working at their service through the National Quality Agenda IT System (NQA ITS). Approved providers have until 27 March 2026 to enter their current workforce information. After that, the Register becomes a standing legal obligation with strict update timeframes. This article explains who must be included, what information is required, and what your service needs to do right now.

What the Worker Register Is

The National Early Childhood Worker Register (the Worker Register) is hosted by the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) within the National Quality Agenda IT System (NQA ITS). It gives regulatory authorities a consolidated, national view of everyone working in education and care services, regardless of which state or territory they are employed in.

The purpose is explicitly framed around child safety. The Register helps regulatory authorities identify risks earlier and respond appropriately, including at a national level, by giving them visibility of who is working in which services and where.

This is a significant shift from the previous arrangement, where most workforce information was held separately by each state or territory regulatory authority, with limited ability to track a person who moved between jurisdictions or service types.

The Key Dates

27 February 2026. The Worker Register became mandatory nationally. Approved providers began the one-month transition period from this date.

27 March 2026. Approved providers must have entered information about their current workforce into the Worker Register. This is the hard deadline for the transition period.

Ongoing from 27 March 2026. Once the transition period ends, approved providers must update the Worker Register within 14 days of a worker being employed, engaged, or appointed, and within 14 days of becoming aware of any change to a worker's information, including a change to their Working with Children Check status, teacher registration, qualifications, or training.

Who Must Be Included on the Worker Register

This is the area causing the most confusion among services, and it is broader than many approved providers initially expect. The Worker Register applies to everyone employed or engaged at a service either directly or indirectly, paid or unpaid, permanent or temporary, who contributes to the education and care of children in any capacity.

ACECQA's guidance specifies that the following groups must be included:

• Educators, whether permanent, fixed term, casual, or agency and labour hire staff
• Early childhood teachers, including provisionally registered, graduate, and unregistered teachers
• Volunteers, regardless of how often or how long they attend
• Students or trainees completing placements, practicum, or vocational training
• Non-educator staff such as cooks, cleaners, maintenance staff, administrative staff, and bus drivers
• Contractors and external service providers who attend the service, including inclusion support workers and allied health professionals
• Family day care educators and family day care educator assistants

For family day care specifically, there is one notable exclusion. Family day care staff who work solely at the principal office and do not usually visit family day care residences or approved venues are not required to be included. However, family day care staff based at the principal office who do usually visit residences or approved venues, including nominated supervisors, coordinators, educator assistants, and students, must be included.

The breadth of this requirement means most services will need to register people who would not previously have appeared on a formal staff list, particularly casual volunteers, regular contractors, and short-term student placements.

What Information Must Be Recorded

For each worker, approved providers must record key details including:

• Full name, including any former names or aliases, and date of birth
• Where they work, including the specific family day care residence or venue location, and their start and finish dates
• Whether they are directly employed or engaged through an agency or labour hire arrangement
• Qualifications they hold, and any qualifications they are actively working towards
• Working with Children Check or Working with Vulnerable People registration details, or teacher registration details where applicable

Approved providers are responsible for entering this information and keeping it accurate and up to date, in the same way they are already responsible for maintaining staff records under existing obligations.

How to Enter Information

Approved providers enter information into the Worker Register through the NQA ITS portal. Services can enter information individually for each worker, or use a bulk upload option through an Excel template or a JSON file exported from an existing HR system, which is likely to save significant time for larger services or those with multiple sites.

State-based workforce registers that existed before the national rollout, such as Victoria's Early Childhood Workforce Register on the Arrival system, do not automatically transfer into the new national Register. Information already held in a state-based system will not be migrated, so approved providers in those jurisdictions need to enter all current workforce details directly into the NQA ITS, even if the same information already exists elsewhere.

How the Worker Register Connects to Child Safety Training

The Worker Register launch is closely tied to the new national child safety training requirement, and the two obligations are easiest to manage together rather than separately.

A new national child safety training package, called Foundation child safety training, has been developed by the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia in partnership with the Queensland Government, on behalf of all Australian governments. It is delivered through Geccko, the Australian Government Department of Education's online learning platform for the early childhood education and care sector.

The Foundation module became available from 27 February 2026, the same date the Worker Register went live. An Advanced module is expected to be available from July 2026.

Foundation child safety training is broader than the child protection training many services already deliver. It covers building a child safe culture and child safe policies, expectations for staff conduct, children's rights, harm prevention, and the promotion of children's safety, health, and wellbeing, in addition to the response-focused content traditionally covered by child protection training such as mandatory reporting obligations.

Approved providers must ensure the following people complete Foundation child safety training: all educators and early childhood teachers, non-educator staff, contractors who regularly attend the service, and regular or semi-regular volunteers, including students completing placements as part of an approved education and care qualification.

The transition timeframe works as follows. People already working in education and care, and anyone employed, engaged, or appointed before 14 August 2026, must complete Foundation child safety training by 27 August 2026. From 14 August 2026 onward, new workers must complete the training within 14 days of being employed, engaged, or appointed, or before they start working directly with children, whichever comes first.

Because the people captured by the Worker Register and the people required to complete Foundation child safety training are largely the same group, the most efficient approach is to use your Worker Register entry process as the trigger for tracking training completion for each individual, rather than running two separate compliance processes.

What Approved Providers Should Do Right Now

Identify everyone who needs to be included. Pull together a complete list covering employees, regular casuals, volunteers, students on placement, and any contractors or allied health professionals who regularly attend the service. Remember this extends beyond your usual staff list.

Decide on your entry method. For smaller services, entering workers individually through the NQA ITS portal may be straightforward. For larger services or multi-site providers, investigate the bulk upload option using the Excel template or a JSON export from your HR system well before the 27 March 2026 deadline.

Cross-reference with Foundation training. As you enter each worker into the Register, note whether they have completed Foundation child safety training, and if not, when they are required to by under the transition rules.

Assign clear ownership. ACECQA's guidance specifically recommends appointing one accountable owner, such as a nominated supervisor, to oversee the completion of the workforce information entry and ongoing maintenance of the Register.

Build the 14-day update rule into your onboarding and offboarding process. Once the transition period ends, any new starter, leaver, or change to WWCC, registration, or qualification status must be reflected in the Register within 14 days. This needs to become a standing part of your HR and induction checklist, not an annual review task.

How One Child Supports Your Broader Compliance Picture

The Worker Register and Foundation child safety training are workforce compliance obligations, managed through ACECQA's NQA ITS portal and the Geccko platform rather than through documentation software. One Child does not replace or connect to these government systems.

Where One Child supports your service is in the educational documentation that authorised officers also assess during a visit, particularly under Quality Area 1. Strong observation, planning, and reflection records linked to EYLF v2.0 or MTOP v2.0 outcomes demonstrate that your service understands and responds to individual children, which is part of the same overall picture of a well-run, child-safe service that the Worker Register and training requirements are designed to support.

If your documentation system is making it harder to keep your educational program organised while you work through these new compliance obligations, you can try One Child free for 2 weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do volunteers who only attend occasionally need to be on the Worker Register? Yes. The Worker Register applies to anyone, paid or unpaid, who contributes to the education and care of children in any capacity, regardless of how often or how long they attend. This includes occasional and semi-regular volunteers.

Does the Worker Register apply to family day care educators? Yes. Family day care educators and educator assistants must be included. The one specific exclusion is for principal office staff who do not usually visit family day care residences or approved venues. Staff based at the principal office who do visit residences or venues, including coordinators and nominated supervisors, must be included.

What happens if our service misses the 27 March 2026 deadline? ACECQA has not published a specific penalty schedule tied solely to missing the initial transition deadline in the sources reviewed for this article. However, maintaining the Worker Register is a legal obligation under the National Quality Framework, and approved providers should treat the deadline as firm. If your service is behind, begin entering information immediately and contact ACECQA's dedicated support line for guidance.

Is the Foundation child safety training the same as state-based child protection training? No. Foundation child safety training is a new national requirement that is broader in scope than most existing state and territory child protection training, covering child safe culture and harm prevention in addition to response and reporting obligations. It does not automatically replace state-based requirements unless your regulatory authority confirms otherwise. Check with your state or territory regulatory authority for the specific requirements that apply in addition to the national training.

Can our service use information already entered into a state-based workforce register? No, not automatically. State-based systems such as Victoria's Arrival platform do not transfer data into the National Early Childhood Worker Register. Approved providers need to enter current workforce information directly into the NQA ITS, even where equivalent information already exists in a state-based system.

Who do we contact if we need help using the Worker Register? ACECQA has a dedicated Worker Register support line and email address for general questions, and a separate NQA ITS Portal pathway for technical issues with the system itself. Search "ACECQA Worker Register contact" or visit the ACECQA website directly for current contact details.

This article is part of One Child's NQF 2025–2026 compliance series. For the full overview of NQF changes, read our NQF Changes 2025–2026: What Australian Childcare Services Need to Do Right Now.

Related articles: NQF Changes 2025–2026: What Australian Childcare Services Need to Do Right Now The new Element 2.2.3 Child Safety and Protection: what it means for your documentation | Digital technology policies: what your Regulation 168 policy must include

References

1. ESB South Australia. National Early Childhood Worker register

2. ACECQA. National Early Childhood Worker Register: Operational Policy Guide (PDF)

3. ACECQA. National Early Childhood Worker Register

4. ACECQA. Information sheet: Early childhood worker register

5. Australian Government Department of Education. National early childhood worker register now live

6. Department of Families, Fairness and Housing / vic.gov.au. National Early Childhood Worker Register

7. ACECQA. Child Safety and Child Protection Training

8. Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority. National Child Safety and Child Protection training

9. ESB South Australia. National Child Safety Reform and Regulatory Changes