Apprenticeship funding rules and assessment plan guidance: 2026 to 2027
The rules employers and training providers must follow to get funding for training and assessing apprentices in England.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The 2026 to 2027 funding rules apply to apprenticeships starting between 1 August 2026 and 31 July 2027.
These rules apply to:
- employers
- employer-providers
- main providers
There are different funding rules for different apprenticeship start dates. You must follow the funding rules that apply to each apprentice.
The guidance on the reforms to apprenticeship assessment is aimed at supporting employers, providers, and assessment organisations in understanding and applying the changes to apprenticeship assessment announced in February 2025.
Summary of changes
On 22 April 2026, we published Apprenticeship funding rules, 2026 to 2027 Version 1 and a summary of changes to make it easy to identify the differences between the 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027 rules.
On 15 July 2026, we published Version 2 of the rules. The summary of changes now includes the changes made in both Version 1 and Version 2.
Further guidance
We have published the rules for other years separately.
Updates to this page
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Published Version 2 of the Apprenticeship funding rules, 2026 to 2027. Updated the accompanying summary of changes to show the changes made between Version 1 and Version 2.
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Version 1 of the apprenticeship funding rules and a summary of changes have been added.
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Information added about the publishing of a new version of the funding rules.
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First published.