Will TUI release more free child places for 2026?

TUI releases free child place allocations in waves through the year rather than all at once. Peak windows for new releases are September for the following summer, January for late spring and summer top-ups, and April to May for autumn and Christmas holidays. If a date and hotel you want does not show a free child place today, it is worth checking again after the next release wave.

How many free child places can I book per family?

Most TUI packages allow one free child per two paying adults, and some larger family rooms allow two free children when four adults are travelling. The rules vary by hotel; the price breakdown at checkout shows exactly how many free places have been applied.

Which age counts as a child for TUI free child places?

TUI applies its child pricing by date of birth on the return date of travel. Most free child places apply to children aged 2 to 11 inclusive, with some hotels extending to age 13 or 15. Infants under 2 fly and stay separately at a fixed low fee that does not count against the free child allocation.

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TUI free child places 2026

TUI's Kids Go Free scheme takes one or two children off a family package holiday's price entirely. It's the single biggest saving in mainstream UK travel, and it's the reason families keep coming back to TUI year on year. Here's how it works, when to look, and what to watch out for.

Last updated: July 2026. Free child place availability changes daily; we refresh this page as operators release new dates.

What TUI free child places actually are

A free child place is a discount that removes the entire accommodation and flight cost of a child from a package holiday, provided the child shares a room with adults paying full fare. TUI markets this as Kids Go Free. On a two-week Balearics package for a family of four it typically saves £600 to £1,200. On long-haul packages to Florida it can save more.

Free child places are not a discount code. They are a limited allocation of rooms, per hotel, per date. Once the allocation for a given hotel and date is booked, no more free places apply until TUI releases a new wave.

When TUI releases free child places

There is no single release day. TUI drops allocations in rolling waves aligned with when families book:

September: the main summer release for the following year. This is when most 2026 free places for July and August became available.
January to February: top-ups for late spring, summer and autumn. This is when the second-largest chunk of 2026 places is expected.
April to May: refresh for late summer, October half term and Christmas.
Rolling: cancellations and returns are re-released continuously, which is why refreshing a search two days apart often shows different results.

How to search TUI free child places properly

On TUI's site the important control is the free child places filter on the results page, not the deals landing page. The landing page shows a curated set. The filter shows everything TUI currently has.

Start with the destination and rough date range rather than a specific hotel. Free places move around, so a hotel with none for your first-choice week may have plenty the week before or after.
Uncheck "direct flights only" for a first look. Some of the strongest free-place inventory sits on one-stop flights that families skip on the first pass.
Consider Sundays and Wednesdays as departure days. Weekend departures are the busiest and the least likely to hold free places.

What "free" does and doesn't cover

The child's accommodation cost and flight fare are removed. What remains payable:

Air Passenger Duty and any government taxes on the child's ticket. On short-haul this is usually under £15.
Any board upgrade the child eats from. On all-inclusive stays some hotels charge a modest per-day supplement for a free-place child; this is disclosed in the price breakdown before you pay.
Optional extras: transfers, seat selection, hold luggage, in-resort excursions.

How it interacts with other TUI offers

Free child places usually stack with TUI's low-deposit terms and with any general-sale price reductions on the parent fares. They do not usually stack with named promotional codes such as sale-week percentage-off codes; the site will apply whichever gives the larger saving and show the winning combination at checkout.

TUI free child places FAQs

Yes. TUI's Kids Go Free scheme is active for 2026 and continues to be one of their biggest family incentives. Availability changes daily as allocations are released and booked, so the exact hotels and dates that qualify move constantly, but the scheme itself is a permanent fixture across TUI, First Choice and Marella Cruises.

The child pays no accommodation cost and no flight fare, which is what "free" refers to. You still pay any government taxes and airport-level fees the child incurs, and if the child needs a specific meal plan such as all-inclusive there may be a small supplement charged locally. The saving on a two-week package is typically hundreds to over a thousand pounds for a family of four, depending on the hotel and season.

You book a package holiday that includes flights and accommodation, with at least two full-fare adults sharing a room with the child. TUI's search tool lets you tick a "free child places" filter which restricts results to qualifying combinations of hotel, date and room type. When you select one, the child's flight and hotel cost is removed from the price before you pay. You cannot combine it with every promo, but it stacks with standard low-deposit terms.

Compare across operators

Every big UK operator runs some version of a kids-go-free scheme. If you want to sanity-check TUI's inventory against the rest of the market, our free child places comparison runs through TUI, Jet2, easyJet and First Choice side by side, including which one wins on which destination and season.