After-School Care in Frankfurt: Pakt für den Ganztag, Hort and Schulbetreuung from 2026/27

Three paths from 2026/27

From the 2026/27 school year, Frankfurt families choose between three arrangements for a primary school child, according to the state school authority’s presentation of January 2026.

Registration is voluntary, but after you register, attendance is compulsory. The day is organised in two resource blocks: from 7:30 to 14:30 on the state resource (lessons plus school or provider activities, including care before class) and from 13:00 to 17:00 on the municipal resource. There is a pedagogical lunch break of at least 45 minutes. The two blocks overlap between 13:00 and 14:30. Frankfurt’s council paper M 12/2026 describes a care offer of 9.5 hours a day, with the first common pick-up from 14:30.

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

How the city plans to meet the legal right

Frankfurt calls its approach the Frankfurter Weg. According to the authorities’ presentation of May 2025, about two thirds of the right is to be met by all-day schools in the Pakt für den Ganztag and about one third by Hort. This is a citywide orientation, not a rule for each school district. All primary schools are meant to become Pakt schools, and the city announced a place guarantee for children in each school’s catchment area, although in 2025 some schools could not yet meet it for lack of space. The rationale of the council paper M 12/2026 aims to raise the supply rate to 90 percent, and the city council approved point 1 of the resolution on 29 January 2026. The council papers do not explain how the 90 percent target relates to the 100 percent place guarantee. In August 2026 the education department told the Frankfurter Neue Presse that the citywide supply rate was about 105 percent in 2025/26 and that a rate of 94 percent meets the legal claim. The Magistrate reports B 210/2026 and B 238/2026 describe the Pakt as a guarantee of up to 100 percent for the children of each Pakt school. Our own reading, which no source states, is that 90 percent is a citywide planning rate and 100 percent a promise made per Pakt school. A Magistrate report of June 2026 counts 54 Pakt schools for 2026/27 and about 24 primary schools that cannot join yet.

Hesse as a whole is still catching up. In February 2026 hessenschau reported that the state education ministry said there were enough places for 69 percent of primary pupils, and in June 2026 it reported that the state expects about 60,000 first graders and about 48,000 places at 80 percent demand. In a survey of 27 responding districts and cities, 24 said they could meet the right and three only to a limited extent. Fees for eight hours on five days range from about 50 to 280 euros a month, depending on the provider.

What it costs

The city’s fee document lists four income tiers for Hort and school care. These are the monthly amounts for the care part, before any lunch.

Hort adds a lunch flat rate of 75 euros a month, and school care adds 2.08 euros for drinks, with lunch separate. The document says that from 2026/27, holiday care for grades 1 to 3 is included in the fee, and that grade 4 in school care is free until the end of the school year, with only the holiday programme charged. The Frankfurter Rundschau reported on 29 March 2026 that grades 3 and 4, free in the old school care, now pay, with a protection for children who were already in grade 3 or 4 at that time. We read the free grade 4 in the fee document as this protection, so later cohorts will probably pay in grade 4 as well, but no source says so directly. The document gives the income limits in the table without saying whether they are yearly, household or taxable income. The table is headed “Zweidrittelbetreuung” (two-thirds care), and the document does not explain what that covers for school children, so confirm that it matches the 14:30 to 17:00 offer. The first heading of the document refers to 2023 and belongs to the Kita section, and the school-age section has no date of its own, so confirm that these amounts apply from 2026/27. We found no euro figures for the Pakt schools. A 2024 city flyer lists 3 euros per school lunch, but it predates the 2026/27 rules.

Registration and holidays

For Hort and school care, the city’s parent flyer and the Hallo Grundschule page point to a pre-registration through the Frankfurt Kita portal for Hort and school care, and the parent page says you register for the Pakt at the school. The city’s sources disagree here: a 2025 presentation and the 2024 flyer also mention the Kita portal for the Pakt. Ask your school which route it uses. We could not confirm the exact window: the 2024 flyer, which predates the reform, says pre-registration is possible from school registration onward, and the Hallo Grundschule page says places are allocated from 1 February of the enrolment year. In June 2026 the city launched a new information page on the legal right, announced by rhein-main-service.info, covering registration, hours, lunch, holiday care and costs.

The school authority’s 2026/27 presentation names 20 closing days a year during the holidays, including teacher training days, while the city’s Hallo Grundschule page and its page on school care offers still say the extended school care may close up to 25 days a year. Newer documents give 20: a Magistrate answer of 2 June 2025 says closing days fall from 25 or 27 to 20 from 1 August 2026, council paper M 12/2026 notes a state maximum of 20 closing days for school-age care, and the Frankfurter Rundschau (29 March 2026) names the same maximum. The official web pages and the newer documents therefore differ. The 25 probably describes the old rule, but the pages themselves do not say so. Ask your school for its announced closing days. For the closure weeks themselves, see our guide to the summer closure gap and the emergency holiday care guide.

What parents and the press report

These are dated reports from newspapers, a parent group, a union and Frankfurt’s own council documents. They are not a survey, the city’s figures are the city’s own, and items marked older predate the reform.

• Capacity at the start (Frankfurt, August 2026). According to the Frankfurter Neue Presse of 11 August 2026, the education department put the citywide supply rate at about 105 percent for 2025/26 and said 81 percent of children use the offer. In the same article, the department gives the Riederwald supply rate as 54 percent, rising only to 74 percent after planned expansions. A high citywide rate can therefore sit next to a large gap in one district.
• Districts with and without Pakt (Frankfurt, 2026). A Magistrate report of 19 June 2026 lists 54 Pakt schools for 2026/27, with 11 joining subject to state approval, and says about 24 primary schools cannot join yet. There the right starts step by step with first graders. An answer to a council question gives construction reasons for 23 of them and says nearly all need more lunch capacity. The FAZ of 14 September 2026 reports the education department saying that the city can currently meet the right for first graders and has no parent lawsuits on file. The headline says 2,600 places are still missing, and the teaser adds that many places are lacking at 24 schools in the coming years. The article is paywalled, so we read only the teaser and cannot say how the figure is calculated. Older: the Franckeschule district was at 60 percent supply measured against resident school children in a Magistrate answer of 2 June 2025, and it is on the 2026 list of schools that cannot yet join.
• Older children and existing places (Frankfurt and Hesse, 2026). A Magistrate answer of 13 February 2026 says Hort and school care take first graders first, unplaced children in grades 2 to 4 can only be admitted in districts with enough supply, and Pakt districts guarantee a place for all four grades. Another answer of 5 January 2026 says a care contract applies for the whole primary school period and that registering in both a Hort and a school care is not possible. For Hesse as a whole, the GEW Hessen press release of 15 June 2026 reports waiting lists, fewer places and shorter care times, mainly for older primary pupils, based on feedback from schools and providers.
• The 14:30 rule (Frankfurt, 2026). Magistrate report B 238/2026 of 3 August 2026 says that for the Pakt a binding basic registration for five days until 14:30 is the condition for drawing the full state funds, that pick-up times from 14:30 to 17:00 are agreed between school and provider, and that sharing a place may be discussed. The Frankfurter Rundschau of 29 March 2026 described a more flexible open model, with children staying until 17:00 on some days and leaving earlier on others, though signing up for an afternoon club usually commits for a half year or a year. The two descriptions differ, so ask your school how fixed its pick-up times are.
• Parent reactions (Frankfurt). KitaEltern Frankfurt, the city’s parent representation for day care, wrote on 29 May 2026 that scepticism is growing among day-care parents about costs and about whether clubs and music schools can reach every school, and that binding children until 14:30 pushes course times later. Older: the Stadtelternbeirat survey of 2023, reported by the Frankfurter Rundschau on 25 April 2023, had 2,582 parents, mostly from Sachsenhausen, Nordend and Bornheim, and found 84 percent wanting mandatory attendance only until 15:00 at the latest. In the Frankfurter Neue Presse of 5 February 2025, the Stadtelternbeirat chair said she knew no primary school that could move into the all-day model without problems and that parents were unsettled. We found no Stadtelternbeirat statement on the 14:30 rule itself since the start.
• ESB conversion and fees (Frankfurt, 2026). Report B 238/2026 says the ESB must become a youth welfare offer with an operating licence (Betriebserlaubnis) to keep its status as a programme that meets the legal right, and that the additional funding described in M 12/2026 is a precondition for doing this on time. The report gives no figures on places or costs per child. The Frankfurter Rundschau explainer of 29 March 2026 reports a maximum fee of about 118 euros a month with lunch at 3 euros a day on top, and that grades 3 and 4, free in the old ESB, now pay, with protection for children already in those grades. In the interview of the same day the education councillor called a free all-day offer the goal but said it cannot be financed at present.
• Staff and group sizes (Frankfurt, August 2026). In the Frankfurter Neue Presse of 11 August 2026, the head of the ESB at the Pestalozzischule in the Riederwald said groups of 27 or 28 children are looked after by two staff each, against a former maximum of 20, that four of six staff were off in one week, and that his provider could not staff an expansion. The education department rejected the charge that it did too little and cited 134 Erzieher trained by Kita Frankfurt since 2021 and a monthly allowance of 200 euros gross. This is one school’s account. Older: the spokesperson of Frankfurt’s primary schools also named missing rooms and staff in the Frankfurter Neue Presse of 5 February 2025.
• Closing days and holiday care (Frankfurt, 2025 and 2026). The Magistrate answer of 2 June 2025 says closing days fall from 25 or 27 to 20 a year from 1 August 2026, and that care before holidays and on training days must be provided unless the day was announced as one of the closing days. The Frankfurter Rundschau of 29 March 2026 names a maximum of 20, set by the state. The city’s own web pages still say 25 (see above).
• A small after-school club closes (Frankfurt, 2026). The Schülerladen Räubernest in Bornheim, with 25 places, loses its premises in summer 2027. A parent initiative told the Journal Frankfurt on 18 August 2026 that the places are full. The education department answered that the lease could not be renewed, that 19 children attend and that neighbouring districts are well supplied. The Frankfurter Rundschau of 22 September 2026 adds a petition with 1,300 signatures and that the councillor advised families to accept the places already offered.

Practical steps

1. Ask your school whether it is a Pakt school and which of the three paths it offers.
2. Decide on the 14:30 commitment. Once you register, your child must attend until then.
3. Ask for the fee tier in writing and for the lunch price, since neither is published for the Pakt schools.
4. For enrollment itself, use the Frankfurt enrollment guide, and read the legal background in our guide to the federal right.
5. For an international school, ask the school and the city in writing.

We found no published waiting-time statistics for Frankfurt for 2026/27 and no parent survey on the 14:30 rule since it started, so the reports in the section above are the closest we found to how it works in practice.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Fees, hours and dates are set by the city, the state and the schools, so check the current official source before you decide.