Apprenticeship funding: price, band, service and evidence

Each apprenticeship has a price you agree with the employer.

Every apprenticeship standard sits in a funding band with a maximum. Government funding only goes up to that maximum. Anything above it, the employer pays themselves.

Part of the price is paid monthly while the apprentice is on programme, and part is held back until they complete. That is why late completion recording has a direct cash effect rather than only a performance one.

Where the employer does not pay the levy, or is a levy payer without enough funds, what the government pays depends on the rules for the year the apprenticeship started. For starts from 1 August 2026, the government funds all of the cost, up to the band maximum, where the apprentice is aged 16 to 24 at the start; for apprentices aged 25 or over it funds 95% where the employer does not pay the levy and 75% where a levy payer has insufficient funds. For starts in 2025 to 2026, the employer co-investment rate is 5%, waived for employers who do not pay the levy where the apprentice is aged 16 to 21, or 22 to 24 with an EHC plan or care experience. In every case the employer pays any price above the band maximum.

The negotiated price is recorded on the ILR as TNP1 (training only) and TNP2 (end-point assessment). 80% of the total negotiated price, up to the band maximum, is paid in monthly instalments and 20% on completion. Any amount above the band maximum is agreed with the employer outside the ILR and the apprenticeship service.

Provision runs under ILR funding model 36. The band maximum that applies is the one in force for the standard when the apprenticeship started.

For apprenticeships starting from 1 August 2026, you enter the details once, on the ILR. The employer then has to approve them in their apprenticeship service account.

Until the employer approves, you are not paid, even if your ILR is perfect.

For those new starts, the old rule that the price on the ILR and in the apprenticeship service must be the same has gone. What matters is that the employer has reviewed and approved what you sent, and a later price change needs their approval only when the total price goes up.

Apprentices who started before 1 August 2026 stay on their original rules: the details in the apprenticeship service must still match the ILR, including the same price, or payments are withheld. During 2026 to 2027 you will be running both checks.

Unapproved records are a cash problem, not a validation problem. They will not appear in a validation report. They appear as an apprentice who exists, looks correct, and earns nothing.

Each month, list apprentices starting from 1 August 2026 whose details the employer has not yet approved, and chase them. Payments withheld for lack of approval are paid once the data is approved and matches, but only if that happens within the same funding year, by the final ILR return (apprenticeship funding rules 2026 to 2027, paragraphs 195 to 195.1).

For apprentices who started before 1 August 2026, keep reconciling the ILR against the apprenticeship service on ULN, standard, start date and price, as the earlier rules require (apprenticeship funding rules 2025 to 2026, paragraphs 169 and 179.3).

At the start, agree with the employer who approves records in their account and how quickly, before delivery begins, rather than discovering it at the first funding report.

Apprentices pause, change employer, change standard and leave. Each of those is recorded differently and each has a different funding effect.

The most consequential distinction is between a break in learning, where the apprentice is coming back, and a withdrawal, where they are not.

A break pauses earnings and preserves the aim. A withdrawal ends earnings and closes the aim into the achievement rate as a non-achievement.

For apprenticeships some breaks are required. You must record a break when no off-the-job learning is planned within a calendar month, and when an apprentice's job ends (other than by redundancy) and they have no new job within 4 weeks. If they have not restarted with a new employer within 12 weeks of the job ending, you must withdraw them. Redundancy has its own rules, which can keep training funded. Do not record a break for annual leave, public holidays or short absences.

Otherwise the test is the genuine intention at the time, evidenced. A break that has run far beyond any realistic expectation of return has become a withdrawal that has not been recorded, and that pattern is well known to auditors.

Record a break as a temporary withdrawal with the appropriate status and dates, and record the restart when the apprentice returns so the aim is treated as a continuation rather than a new start.

Review every open break monthly: confirm the expected return date or convert it. The correction is always cheaper now than at year end.

An apprentice has to spend a required amount of their paid working time on training that is not their normal day-to-day job.

It has to be planned and recorded, and the records are a standard audit test.

The requirement is about the training being genuine, within working hours, and away from routine duties. Recording it after the fact, or reconstructing it, is the common failure.

For apprentices starting from 1 August 2025, the minimum is the number of hours published on each apprenticeship standard on the Skills England website. It can be reduced only for recognised prior learning, and no programme may fall below 187 hours. Apprentices who started up to 31 July 2025 keep the previous rule of 20% of normal working hours, capped at 30 hours a week.

Maintain a training plan and a contemporaneous record of delivery against it. Reconcile the two periodically rather than at audit.

Off-the-job records are tested alongside the apprenticeship agreement, the training plan and the evidence of employment.