In-Home Daycare Cost (2026): Family Daycare Prices by City

In-Home Daycare Cost by City (2026)

Average monthly tuition for full-time care at a licensed family child care home in the 44 metros we track, sorted from most to least expensive for infants. “vs. Center” shows how much less infant care costs in a home daycare than at a daycare center in the same metro. Select a metro to compare every care type and age.

Figures are 2026 metro averages built from Care.com's 2026 national rates. Infant figures that differed by more than 15% from local benchmarks — state market-rate surveys or U.S. Department of Labor National Database of Childcare Prices county medians — were re-anchored to those benchmarks (see our methodology). Individual providers price above and below these averages, and what tuition includes varies, so compare written rate sheets.

Why the Home-vs.-Center Gap Varies So Much by City

Center prices carry commercial rent and the cost of staffing separate infant, toddler and preschool rooms, while a home provider's main cost is their own time. Where centers are expensive, homes undercut them by a wide margin; where centers are already inexpensive, there is little room to price below them.

• Largest savings: Denver (48% less than a center, or $12,580 a year for infant care), Seattle (40%, $13,190), Minneapolis–St. Paul (40%, $8,370), Boston (37%, $10,040) and Chicago (36%, $7,750). Center infant care costs more than $20,000 a year in all five.
• Smallest savings: San Antonio (7%, $860 a year), Houston (8%, $890), Austin (10%, $1,450) and Dallas–Fort Worth (11%, $1,270), where center infant care is already among the least expensive of the metros we track ($11,580–$14,210 a year). Washington, DC is the other outlier: its home daycares are the most expensive in our data ($2,028 a month for an infant), only 13% below its centers.

What it means for your decision: in a low-gap metro, choose between a home and a center on fit — hours, group size, curriculum and backup coverage — rather than price, because a saving of under $1,500 a year can disappear if you have to pay for backup care when the provider closes. In a high-gap metro, the price difference matters on its own: the $7,750–$13,190 a year saved in the five metros above is several times what the maximum Dependent Care FSA saves a family in the 22% tax bracket (about $2,220 before state tax).

In-Home Daycare vs. Daycare Center: Key Differences

Ratio and group-size figures are the national health and safety recommendations in Caring for Our Children (standards 1.1.1.1 and 1.1.1.2), published by the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education. Your state's licensing rules set the legal limits and may differ. Prices are from the national table above.

What Home Daycare Tuition Covers — and What Costs Extra

Usually included

• Full-day care during the provider's posted hours, typically on weekdays.
• Meals and snacks at many licensed homes. Homes in the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) are reimbursed, through a sponsoring organization, for meals and snacks that meet federal nutrition standards — ask whether the home participates and which meals it serves.
• Nap time, play and early-learning activities, often including time outdoors.
• Daily updates on meals, naps and diapering, by app, notebook or at pickup.

Usually supplied by parents

• Diapers and wipes, plus any diaper cream.
• Formula or pumped breast milk, and bottles for infants.
• A labeled change of clothes and, often, crib sheets or a nap blanket.

Fees and policies to get in writing

• Registration fee and deposit: many homes charge a one-time enrollment fee, a deposit, or both. Ask whether the deposit is applied to your final weeks of care.
• Closure days: how many days a year the home closes for the provider's vacation, holidays and training, and whether you pay tuition for them.
• Absences: programs usually charge for your child's own sick days and vacations, because tuition holds the spot.
• Late pickup: whether late fees are charged per minute or as a flat amount.
• Rate changes: when the rate drops as your child moves out of the infant group, and how much notice you get before annual increases. Nationally, home daycare for a toddler averages 6% less than for an infant, and for a preschooler 16% less.
• Notice period: how much notice either side must give to end care.

How to Find and Vet a Licensed Home Daycare

1. Search your state's licensed-provider list. Federal Child Care and Development Fund rules require every state to publish a list of licensed providers that is searchable by zip code; find yours through ChildCare.gov's state resources page. Listing sites such as Care.com can help you discover providers, but a marketplace profile or background-check badge is not a state license.
2. Read the inspection reports. States must also post monitoring and inspection results online — at least three years of them where available (45 CFR 98.33). Look for repeated violations involving supervision, exceeding capacity, safe sleep or missing background checks; one corrected paperwork issue is less of a concern than a pattern.
3. Confirm the license type and capacity. Ask how many children are enrolled, their ages and how many are under 2, and whether that count includes the provider's own young children (national guidelines say it should).
4. Ask who else is in the home. In licensed and subsidy-eligible homes, federal rules require comprehensive background checks — FBI fingerprints plus sex-offender, criminal and child-abuse registry searches — for every adult 18 or older who lives there, not only the provider (45 CFR 98.43). Ask whether everyone has cleared.
5. Visit while children are there. Check that infants sleep on their backs in a crib or play yard with nothing else in it, that hazards are out of reach, and that the provider can see every child. Notice how the provider talks to the children.
6. Plan for closures. Ask how many days the home closed last year, whether a licensed substitute or backup arrangement covers provider illness, and whether you pay tuition on those days.
7. Call two or three current or former families. Ask how long their child stayed, how the provider handled problems, and how often the home closed unexpectedly.
8. Get it in writing. A clear contract lists the rate, payment schedule, fees, closure days, sick-child rules and notice period. For a full checklist, see our guide to finding daycare and daycare safety checklist.

Paying for In-Home Daycare: Tax Breaks and Subsidies

Tuition at a licensed home daycare qualifies for the same federal tax breaks as center tuition. For 2026:

• Dependent Care FSA: pay up to $7,500 per household ($3,750 if married filing separately) with pre-tax dollars through an employer plan. Estimate your savings with our Dependent Care FSA calculator.
• Child and Dependent Care Credit: 20% to 50% of up to $3,000 in care costs for one child or $6,000 for two or more, depending on income. FSA money you exclude from income reduces those limits. Try our child care tax credit calculator.

Worked example: a married couple with $120,000 of income and one infant in a home daycare at the national average ($13,690 a year) could claim a credit of $1,050 (35% of $3,000). Putting $7,500 through a Dependent Care FSA instead saves about $1,474 in federal income tax and FICA at their 12% bracket, plus state income tax where it applies — but it uses up the credit's $3,000 limit, so the FSA is the better choice for them. With two or more children the math can flip, so run both numbers.

Paperwork: you'll need the provider's name, address and taxpayer identification number (SSN or EIN) for Form 2441, which you file whether you claim the credit or receive Dependent Care FSA benefits. Request it at enrollment with IRS Form W-10. If a provider refuses, you can still claim the credit by reporting the information you have and showing that you asked for the rest.

Two IRS rules that matter for home daycares (IRS Publication 503):

• If the home cares for more than six people who don't live there, the IRS treats it as a dependent care center, and your payments count only if the home complies with state and local regulations — another reason to choose a licensed provider.
• Payments to a relative who runs a home daycare qualify unless the relative is your dependent, your spouse, the child's parent, or your own child under age 19.

Subsidies: many licensed family child care homes accept state child care assistance funded by the federal Child Care and Development Fund, and your state's assistance program can give you a list of participating providers. Check whether you're likely to qualify with our childcare subsidy eligibility calculator, then see how to find and apply for childcare subsidies.