Baby vaccination schedule calculator

The childhood schedule is not universal, and the differences are large

Most people assume immunisation runs to roughly the same timetable everywhere. It does not, and if you have moved country, married across one, or simply read an American parenting site while living in Britain, the mismatch is disorienting.

A baby in Wellington has their first appointment at 6 weeks. A baby in London has theirs at 8. A baby in Boston has one at 2 months and another on the day they are born, because the United States gives hepatitis B before you leave hospital and the United Kingdom does not. New Zealand then runs 3 months and 5 months, an unevenly spaced pattern that exists nowhere else on this list.

Australia funds meningococcal B on the national programme only for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and hepatitis A only in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland. Ireland runs two entirely separate schedules depending on whether your baby was born before or after 1 October 2024.

Canada does not have a schedule at all

This surprises people, including Canadians who have moved province. Immunisation is a provincial and territorial responsibility, and there are thirteen programmes rather than one. The differences are not cosmetic. Ontario gives four doses of DTaP-IPV-Hib at 2, 4, 6 and 18 months; Quebec gives the six-in-one at 2 and 4 months and a DTaP-IPV-Hib at 12 months. British Columbia uses the 20-valent pneumococcal vaccine where most provinces use the 15-valent. Meningococcal C is at 2 and 12 months in BC, at 4 and 12 months in Alberta, at 12 months in Ontario and at 18 months in Quebec.

This tool therefore asks which province you are in, carries Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec in full, and tells you to check your own public health unit for the others rather than showing you a schedule that might not be yours.

The UK schedule changed, and your baby's birthday decides which version applies

The UK programme was revised in 2025 and again from 1 January 2026, and eligibility runs on birth cohorts rather than on a single switchover date. Two things changed that a parent will actually notice.

Children born on or after 1 July 2024 have an appointment at 18 months — a fourth dose of the six-in-one plus a dose of MMRV. Children born on or before 30 June 2024 have no 18-month visit at all.

Children born on or after 1 January 2025 are offered MMRV, which is measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox in one injection, at one year and again at 18 months. Older cohorts get their second dose at 3 years 4 months instead. The Hib/MenC booster that used to be given at one year has been removed from the schedule entirely; Hib protection now comes from the extra six-in-one dose.

If a relative tells you their grandchild had a different set of injections, both of you are probably right.

Premature babies are not delayed

Everywhere else on this site, a baby born preterm is measured from their due date. Immunisation is the exception, and it is worth stating plainly because the instinct runs the other way: vaccines are given by chronological age, from the birthday, on the same dates as everyone else.

Babies born very prematurely are more vulnerable to whooping cough, pneumococcal disease and the rest, not less. If anyone suggests waiting until your baby has caught up, that is a conversation to have with your GP or neonatal team before anything is postponed. Our adjusted age calculator explains where correction does apply.

Being late is not starting again

Appointments commonly slip by a week or two and that changes nothing. If you are further behind than that — because of illness, a house move, or a year that got away from you — every country here runs a catch-up programme, and the practice or clinic works out which doses are still needed. Australia funds catch-up free to age 20, and to 25 for HPV. You do not go back to the beginning.

Minor illness is usually not a reason to postpone either. A cold, a sniffle, a slightly raised temperature with nothing else wrong: the appointment normally goes ahead. Being seriously unwell or genuinely feverish is a reason to reschedule. Ring the clinic rather than guessing, and rather than simply not turning up — a missed appointment often takes weeks to re-book.

What it costs

Nothing, in most of these countries. NHS childhood vaccinations are free. Australia's are free with a Medicare card, though the practice may charge a consultation fee. New Zealand's are free for everyone under 18 regardless of visa status. Ireland's are free from your GP. Canadian routine childhood vaccines are publicly funded. In the United States, the Vaccines for Children programme provides them at no cost for children who are uninsured, Medicaid-eligible, American Indian or Alaska Native.