Best placesChildcare Cost

Counties With the Cheapest Childcare in the United States (2026)

Mercer has the lowest childcare of any county in the United States, at $1,227, followed by DeKalb and Carter. Source: DOL Women's Bureau National Database of Childcare Prices, 2022. The full ranking of the top 25 counties is below.

Data updated 2022 - Source: DOL Women's Bureau National Database of Childcare Prices

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Cheapest counties for childcare in the United States

Top 25 of 3019 counties with data.

Ranked by childcare cost (DOL Women's Bureau National Database of Childcare Prices, 2022), lowest first.

Cheapest counties for childcare in the United States
RankCountyValue
1Mercer$1,227
2DeKalb$2,184
3Carter$2,455
4Atchison$2,700
5Gentry$3,102
6St. Francois$3,547
7Cole$3,839
8Jasper$4,111
9Worth$4,173
10Cass$4,184
11Wayne$4,453
12Haines$4,550
13Sebastian$4,550
14Adair$4,734
15Clinton$4,734
16Cumberland$4,734
17Green$4,734
18McCreary$4,734
19Casey$4,734
20Russell$4,734
21Hancock$4,767
22Niobrara$4,856
23Buchanan$4,867
24Calhoun$4,947
25Newton$4,947

How this ranking works

This page ranks every US county by childcare cost, sorted so the cheapest places appear first. Click any county to see its housing, schools, crime, and demographics in detail.

For childcare, a lower value is generally more favorable, so the top of the list is the lowest. Want to weigh childcare against schools, taxes, commute, and more at once? Use the live map to build a custom match.

Data comes from public sources. Source attribution and the exact data vintage are shown above and on the full map of childcare cost.

Related

Counties With the Cheapest Childcare, state by state

The same ranking, scoped to a single state.

Compare childcare with everything else that matters on the live map.

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