Childcare Costs in North Carolina (2024): What Full-Time Care Really Costs, by Source
North Carolina families can see real, current childcare prices below, drawn from Child Care Aware of America’s “Child Care in America: 2024 Affordability Analysis,” based on a January 2025 survey of the state’s Child Care Resource & Referral network. The figures are broken down by a child’s age and by care type — center-based or family child care — and reflect what providers actually reported charging, not estimates or projections.
Average annual price of full-time child care in North Carolina
| Age group | Center-based care | Family child care (home-based) |
|---|---|---|
| Infant | $12,370/yr · $1,031/mo | $9,961/yr · $830/mo |
| Toddler | $11,694/yr · $974/mo | $9,591/yr · $799/mo |
| 4-Year-Old | $10,381/yr · $865/mo | $9,047/yr · $754/mo |
| Before/After School | $5,811/yr · $484/mo | $5,693/yr · $474/mo |
| Full-Time Summer | $1,941/yr · $162/mo | $1,898/yr · $158/mo |
Source: Child Care Aware of America, Tables I & II, “Child Care in America: 2024 Affordability Analysis.”
What this actually means for a family’s budget
In North Carolina, a year of center-based infant care costs $12,370, and putting two children in center-based care runs $22,751 a year, which is 63.16% more than the state’s annualized average rent and 21.46% more than the average annualized mortgage payment. That same infant care price is also 65.51% higher than the average annual cost of in-state public college tuition and fees. For a married couple earning the state’s median household income of $117,287, center-based infant care takes up 10.5% of that income each year; for a single parent earning the median income of $36,181, the same care takes up 34.2% of their income.
National context
This is the flat 2023 U.S. national average annual wage for childcare workers (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, occupation code 39-9011), not a North Carolina-specific figure. CCAoA’s report applies this single national number when ranking every state’s childcare-workforce affordability, so it is NOT evidence about NC wages specifically. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023 Annual Mean Wage: Childcare Workers, bls.gov/oes/current/oes399011.htm)
What we don’t have for North Carolina
The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices would let us show county-level prices for North Carolina instead of one statewide number, and it is generally the stronger source for local detail. We were not able to access that database this time, so the figures on this page reflect statewide averages only.
How we built this page
Every figure above comes from Child Care Aware of America’s published “Child Care in America: 2024 Affordability Analysis” report (Tables I, II, III, XI, and XII), which in turn cites U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 data for income and rent/mortgage figures, and BLS 2023 data for the national childcare-worker wage figure. Reused here under CCAoA’s own republishing terms, which require visible citation to Child Care Aware of America and a link to childcareaware.org — both are provided throughout this page.
- Child Care Aware of America, “Child Care in America: 2024 Affordability Analysis”. Prices from CCAoA’s January 2025 survey of Child Care Resource & Referral State Networks.
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023, Table B19126 (income) and related housing-cost tables.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023 Annual Mean Wage: Childcare Workers (occupation code 39-9011).
