Working parents using Rishi Sunak's Job Support Scheme will still be eligible for help with childcare - even if their incomes dip below the threshold.
The Department for Education confirmed that parents using the new scheme would not lose out on tax-free childcare and 30 hours of support per week.
Workers placed on the furlough scheme - which winds up at the end of October - were able to continue to access childcare entitlements even if their income temporarily fell below the threshold.
Ministers have now confirmed that parents who take up the Chancellor's new Job Support Scheme from November 1 or the extended Self Employed Income Support Scheme will still be covered.
Children and Families Minister Vicky Ford said: "This Government is increasing the safety net available to families, protecting working parents and our dedicated early years sector.
"This has been our constant priority, which is why I am so pleased to see attendance rates rising, as more parents return to work and take up the formal childcare arrangements they used before Covid-19 struck.
"It's testament to the hard work of early years professionals that these numbers are returning to what we would have seen before the pandemic.
"We know challenges remain for many families, which is why we continue to protect parents' eligibility for our free childcare offers so they retain this vital support."
Parents of three and four-year-olds in England can apply for 30 hours of free childcare per week if they work at least 16 hours per week and earn more than the national minimum wage but less than £100,000 per year.
Tax-free childcare is also covered, where the government will pay £2 to your childcare provider for every £8 you spend.
Karl Khan, Director General of HMRC Customer Service, said: "Protecting the eligibility and giving vital support to many working parents across the UK with the costs of childcare - including parents with school aged children up to age 11 and disabled children up to 17 - helps those families return to work when they are able to."
The DfE said data shows attendance at early years settings is now at 86% of pre-Covid levels.
But childcare providers sounded alarm at a new DfE survey, which found that only 45% of nurseries and pre-schools and 55% of childminders open at the time predicted that could survive another year or longer.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: "For months, we have been warning the government that without greater support, many nurseries, pre-schools and childminders across the country could be forced to close as a result of the pandemic - and now we have the Department for Education's own research saying the very same thing.
"What more evidence does the government need before it accepts that urgent action is required if we're going to have any chance of preventing the sector entering a full-blown crisis?
"If government research suggested that half of all schools would be forced to close by next summer, there would be an outcry. The idea that any minister can look at figures as stark as this and do nothing absolutely beggars belief."
Shadow Children's Minister Tulip Siddiq said it was clear the sector was "on the brink of collapse".
“Our economy will not be able to recover from Covid-19 if families can’t get childcare, so targeted support for the early years sector is urgently required to prevent a wave of nursery and childminder closures," she said.
“Working families, young children and the brilliant early years workers who support them must not pay the price for this Government’s incompetence.”
