Childcare costs in the United States

There is no national average, and that matters

Start here, because it saves you a lot of misleading arithmetic: the federal government does not publish a single national average price for childcare in the United States. What it publishes is a range. The Department of Labor's Women's Bureau maintains the National Database of Childcare Prices (NDCP), which it describes as the most comprehensive federal source of childcare prices at county level, broken down by provider type, age of child and county characteristics. Data run from 2008 through 2022.

Prices are published as weekly, full-time medians. Any national figure you see quoted as "the average cost of childcare in America" has been constructed by somebody else, usually from survey data with a different definition, and it will not match the federal source.

What the 2022 data actually shows

From the Department's state-level estimates for 2022, median weekly prices for center-based care spanned:

• Infants: from $118.68 a week in Mississippi to $461.55 in Massachusetts. Only 32 states had a valid infant estimate.
• Toddlers: from $108.02 in Mississippi to $450.60 in the District of Columbia, with a state-level midpoint around $210.
• Preschoolers: from $108.02 in Mississippi to $392.50 in the District of Columbia, with a state-level midpoint around $194.

Family (home-based) care is consistently cheaper: median weekly infant prices ran from $102.40 in South Dakota to $284.37 in California in the same year.

Multiply the infant center figures by 52 weeks and the spread is roughly $6,200 to $24,000 a year for one child — but treat that as arithmetic on published weekly medians, not as a federal annual statistic, because DOL does not publish it that way. Note also that these are 2022 prices in 2022 dollars. Four years of wage and rent inflation sit between them and what a center will quote you today, and no newer federal release has closed that gap.

Where your county sits

State medians hide enormous within-state variation. The NDCP is built at county level precisely because the price of an infant place in a metropolitan county can be double the price in a rural county in the same state. The Women's Bureau publishes interactive county factsheets and downloadable data files; those are the numbers to use when you are budgeting, rather than a state or national figure.

What the federal government helps with

There is no federal childcare entitlement in the United States comparable to funded hours elsewhere. Federal support runs through the tax code and through block grants to states.

The Child and Dependent Care Credit

You may be able to claim this credit if you paid for the care of a qualifying individual so that you, and your spouse if filing jointly, could work or look for work. A qualifying individual includes your dependent child who was under age 13 when the care was provided.

For the 2025 tax year, the IRS caps the expenses you can count at $3,000 for one qualifying individual or $6,000 for two or more, and the credit is a percentage of those expenses that depends on your adjusted gross income, up to 35%. The care provider cannot be your spouse, the parent of your qualifying child if that child is under 13, your own child under 19, or anyone you claim as a dependent. You must give the taxpayer identification number of each qualifying individual. These limits are set annually, so check the Publication 503 for the year you are actually filing.

Employer dependent care benefits

Separately, employers can offer a dependent care assistance program, usually a dependent care flexible spending arrangement funded by pre-tax salary. For 2025 the maximum you could exclude from income was $5,000, or $2,500 if married filing separately, reported in box 10 of your Form W-2. Anything above the limit is added back into your taxable wages.

The two do not stack freely. If you exclude or deduct dependent care benefits, the amount excluded reduces the $3,000 or $6,000 expense cap available for the credit. With two or more children the exclusion is always less than the dollar limit, which leaves some room; with one child a full $5,000 exclusion wipes out the credit entirely.

Subsidised care through your state

The Child Care and Development Fund is administered by the Office of Child Care within the Administration for Children and Families, and passed to states, territories and tribes, which set their own income limits, copayments and waiting lists. Eligibility, the size of the subsidy and how long you wait are all state decisions, so the only reliable answer comes from your own state's child care agency.

Building a realistic budget

Four things routinely make a childcare budget wrong, and all four are avoidable.

• Using an old or national number. The federal data stops at 2022 and is county-specific for good reason. Call three providers in your own county and ask for current rates in writing; that beats any published average.
• Budgeting the infant rate forever. Infant care is the most expensive tier because ratios are tightest. Prices fall as your child moves to the toddler and then the preschool room, which is visible in the federal data and worth modelling into a multi-year plan.
• Ignoring the extras. Registration fees, annual re-enrollment fees, supply and activity fees, holiday closures you still pay for, and late-pickup penalties are not part of the quoted tuition.
• Assuming full-time is the only option. Family child care homes are consistently cheaper than centers in the federal data, and part-week schedules are widely available.

Waiting lists are the other planning risk. In high-demand areas infant rooms are frequently full months in advance, and some centers accept applications during pregnancy. Joining a list early costs little and rarely commits you.

Where to get help

The Department of Labor's Women's Bureau is the governing authority for federal childcare price data, and the IRS is the authority on the credit and the exclusion. Your state child care agency, reachable through the Office of Child Care, handles subsidies and the licensing records that tell you whether a provider is in good standing. Ask any center for its current rate sheet in writing, including registration fees, supply fees and late-pickup charges, because published price data covers tuition and not the extras.