Best placesIowaChildcare Cost

Counties With the Cheapest Childcare in Iowa (2026)

Floyd has the lowest childcare of any county in Iowa, at $6,993, followed by Palo Alto and Cherokee (data vintage 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 Iowa

Top 25 of 99 counties with data.

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

Cheapest counties for childcare in Iowa
RankCountyValue
1Floyd$6,993
2Palo Alto$7,023
3Cherokee$7,077
4Humboldt$7,108
5Winnebago$7,114
6Decatur$7,181
7O'Brien$7,185
8Cass$7,192
9Jones$7,204
10Clarke$7,206
11Wayne$7,207
12Union$7,213
13Carroll$7,213
14Franklin$7,220
15Howard$7,229
16Sac$7,233
17Montgomery$7,247
18Taylor$7,263
19Mitchell$7,271
20Wright$7,273
21Emmet$7,276
22Henry$7,277
23Ida$7,282
24Crawford$7,287
25Jackson$7,301

How this ranking works

This page ranks Iowa counties 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.

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