NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said from July families would be able to access two Active Kids vouchers with the twin aims of encouraging children to play sport from January to December and to further ease the cost of living for NSW families.

More than 5200 vouchers were redeemed in the Dubbo electorate in 2018, figures provided by the government show.

“The program has been hugely popular with more than one million vouchers issued since launching,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“This is all about making sports more accessible for more children across the state and by making it affordable for parents, we are doing our part to help make kids active and healthy.”

The two $100 vouchers issued under the Active Kids program can be used by every school age child towards the cost of sports registration, membership expenses and fees for physical activities such as swimming, football, netball, dance lessons and athletics.

Minister for Sport Stuart Ayres said the expanded program would benefit sports which traditionally sought registrations in the second half of the year because families would have access to two vouchers per year.

“If your child plays cricket in the summer and football in winter, you can choose to use a $100 voucher to pay for cricket registration fees and then use the second $100 voucher to help offset the costs for the football season,” Mr Ayres said.

In 2019 a second $100 Active Kids voucher will be available for the six-month period from July 1 to December 31.

From 2020 two $100 Active Kids vouchers will be available from Service NSW for the entire calendar year.

The aim of the expanded program is to pay for two separate sports such as netball in winter and swimming in summer, or two separate seasons or terms of the one sport such as winter football and summer football.