The child counts run a year ahead of the places. Approved places are counted at 30 June 2026, but ABS population is published more than a year behind the register, so the 2026 figure for children aged 0–4 is the ABS estimate at 30 June 2025, carried forward to line the two series up. Every children-per-place figure on this page pairs 2026 places with 2025 children. Nothing is projected.
Between 30 June 2016 and 30 June 2026, Australia added 291,084 approved long day care places (+65.1%). Over the same decade, the number of resident children aged 0–4 fell by 35,284. National totals cannot say where those places went, so this page follows all 338 regions.
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Places rose 65.1% while the number of children fell 2.3%
Each bar is the approved long day care places added in the year to 30 June. Each dash is the change in resident children aged 0–4 over the same year, on the same axis.
The population count runs 12 months behind the register, so it is brought forward to match. The child count for the final chart year was taken at 30 June 2025.
The gap, accumulated across the decade
The two lines start together. Switch the view to see the decade as one number.
Children per approved place fell from 3.47 to 2.05.
Rising use of care can explain the total, not the location
If more families use care, you would expect fewer children per place. That is exactly what a decade of rising participation should produce: more families using formal care, more days per child, and the Cheaper Child Care changes from July 2023 can each raise demand per child without adding a single child. So the fall from 3.47 to 2.05 children per place is not, by itself, evidence of oversupply.
That argument is about how much capacity Australia needs in total, not where it went. Even so, of the 291,084 places added, how many went to areas with more children, and how many to areas with fewer?
More than half of the net increase went where children fell
Every one of the 338 SA3 regions is on the chart: the change in its number of children aged 0–4 against its net gain in long day care places. The number of small children fell in 242 regions, and 222 of them added places anyway: 157,655 net places between them.
of all net new places went to regions where the number of children aged 0–4 fell.
Capital cities and the rest of the country
Where supply diverged from children, and where it did not
The left list ranks the regions that lost children by the net places they added. The right ranks the regions that gained the most children, with the places each one added.
Most places added where children fell
Net approved places gained, decade to 30 June 2026.
Where the number of children really grew
Largest increases in children aged 0–4, and the places each region gained.
The areas where children grew are real and mostly familiar: Melbourne's west and outer south-east, and Sydney's south-west and north-west. If those growth areas were visible, why did new places keep going elsewhere?
Did new places go where children per place were highest?
There is one serious defence of building where the number of children is falling: the area may have been underserved to begin with. That can be tested. Rank every region by its children per approved place in 2016, split each state’s regions into four equal groups, and see where the new places went.
Mostly, it was not catch-up.
Among regions where the number of children fell, the ones that started with the most children per place received the smallest share of the new places. A larger share went to regions that already had fewer children per place than their state’s median.
St Ives statistical area: one area, two counts
The St Ives statistical area covers a long-established, well-off part of Sydney’s upper north shore, the kind of area that looks attractive in a site model. A site assessed on the 2021 Census was assessed against 1,057 resident children under five. By the count taken at 30 June 2025, there were 785. The table shows what happened to approved places over the same years.
| Area and measure | 2016 | 2021 Census | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Ives | |||
| Resident children aged 0–4 | 1,238 | 1,057 | 785 |
| Approved long day care places | 495 | 1,011 | 1,036 |
| Children per approved place | 2.50 | 1.05 | 0.76 |
| Ku-ring-gai | |||
| Resident children aged 0–4 | 6,764 | 5,783 | 4,209 |
| Approved long day care places | 1,749 | 3,131 | 3,684 |
| Children per approved place | 3.87 | 1.85 | 1.14 |
Sources: ABS estimated resident population; ACECQA NQAITS quarterly register of approved long day care places. The first and last child columns are counts taken at 30 June 2015 and 30 June 2025.
Ku-ring-gai, the larger statistical area that contains St Ives, shows the same pattern. Among the 317 regions that began the decade with at least a thousand resident under-fives, it ranks 2 for the size of its fall in children. Only Daly - Tiwi - West Arnhem (NT) fell further, and it cut approved places by 60. Ku-ring-gai went the other way: resident children fell by 2,555 (-37.8%) while approved places rose by 1,935 (+111%).
Across Australia there are 2.05 children per approved place. In St Ives there are 0.76.
That compares approved places with resident children, not enrolment or occupancy.
Fewer children, more care per child
With fewer children, what kept care use up? Two national changes.
Fewer babies were born, and care use per child held up.
Fewer babies were born
Registered births peaked at 315,103 in 2018. By 2024 the number was 292,294, down 7.2%.
The five birth years behind today’s under-fives produced 1,484,216 babies, 2.6% fewer than the five behind the count at the start of the decade.
Births are only part of it: migration from overseas and moves between regions also change the count, and the more local the area, the more that matters.
More children in care, and more hours each
The number of children aged 0-4 in approved care rose from 748,580 in the June quarter 2021 to 770,450 in the June quarter 2025, up 2.9%.
Average weekly hours per child in centre based day care rose from 30.9 to 34.1, up 10.4%. That series is a different scope from the long day care places counted here.
More mothers of young children were in the workforce, and more of those in the workforce were in full-time work.
| Measure | June 2015 | June 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| In the labour forceshare of all such mothers | 58.7% | 72.6% |
| Employed full timeshare of the labour force | 36.8% | 43.4% |
In the labour force means in work or looking for work. Source: ABS 6224.0.55.001 Labour Force Status of Families, June 2025, Table 7. Percentages calculated by AreaSearch from ABS survey estimates. Mothers are wives and partners in couple families plus single mothers.
The share of children aged 0-5 in approved care was in the and in the . That difference of points is smaller than the 2.0-point swing within a single year, so it shows a level, not a trend.
The Child Care Subsidy began on 2 July 2018, so there is no comparable reading for the first part of this decade, and no June report for the pandemic year.
The latest reading is one year, not a trend
For children aged 0-5, the most recent comparable share was in the March quarter 2026, against in the March quarter 2025: down 1.7 percentage points. One year does not make a trend. The national figures are consistent with demand being held up by more mothers in work and more hours of care per child. Both depend on household income and jobs, so a downturn that cut either would weaken that support. That is a risk to weigh, not a forecast.
Much of the sector still plans on the 2021 count
Much of the childcare sector still plans on the 2021 Census. It is the best public starting point, but a Census comes only every five years, and any decision built on it carries whatever gap has opened since. Site selection, feasibility studies, lending assumptions and planning submissions still cite the 2021 baseline. AreaSearch sees development applications still being lodged in catchments that already have plenty of places, while areas that need more capacity go without.
The 2026 Census took place on 11 August 2026, and its first results are due in June 2027, at suburb level. Once they are public, operators, landlords, lenders and boards will re-run their assumptions, and some tenancy decisions made on the old count will be revisited. The shift has been in the ABS figures every year, and it is on this page now.
You do not have to wait for June 2027.
One conclusion, and its limits
What the data does show
The data supports one precise conclusion.
More than half of the net increase in approved long day care places over the decade was in SA3 regions where the number of resident children aged 0–4 fell.
Those places did not mainly go to the regions that started the decade worst served. That is a finding about where places were added compared with where children lived, not about oversupply, occupancy or whether any individual centre should exist.
Full or empty is the question this data cannot answer
Fewer children do not automatically mean less demand. If the new places in regions with fewer children are full, the market judged demand correctly and the difference shown here is not a problem. Enrolment and occupancy figures are not published region by region, so nothing on this page is evidence of vacancy, oversupply or unprofitability in any named region.
Children live in one place, care in another
Families cross region boundaries all the time, for care near work, near a grandparent, or on the commute. That matters most in employment centres such as Parramatta, where counting children by home address is least reliable. Residential regions such as Wanneroo and Knox have no such explanation, so they are clearer cases.
Approved places may not be operating
The register records the most places a centre is approved to offer, which includes a room the centre cannot staff, a centre approved but not yet open, and places for the wrong age group. This page measures approved capacity, not care that families can actually use.
SA3 areas are not the same thing as childcare markets
A different map area — SA2, SA4 or a drive-time catchment — would give somewhat different counts. Smaller areas usually make the mismatch look larger, because ordinary cross-boundary use of care becomes easier to see. The national totals would not change. The regional split is a reading of one particular grid.
Timing, and two changes in the sector
A centre opening in 2025 may be answering growth from 2021, even if its region ended the decade with fewer children. Two sector changes also moved children into long day care without any growth in population: family day care contracted after compliance changes in the late 2010s, and Victoria rolled out three-year-old kindergarten. This page does not measure either effect, so read Victorian regions with particular care.
Explore your region
Start with Australia’s 89 larger regions (SA4). Open one to compare the smaller regions inside it (SA3), and pick any of those to see how its places and its child count moved, year by year.
Every SA4 in Australia
Click an SA4 on the map or in the table to see its SA3 regions.
Hatched: no long day care places at all, so no ratio.
Boundaries are ASGS 2021, simplified for display. Children are counted where they sleep and places where parents work, so central business district SA3s overstate provision on a residence basis. Population lags 12 months and is brought forward to match the register: the 2026 child figures are the ABS counts taken at 30 June 2025. Family day care, preschool and outside-school-hours care are excluded, and the external territories are in every total but off the national frame.
Every region, every number
All 338 matched regions are here. Type a suburb or postcode to find its region, or narrow the list by state, city or trajectory, and sort any column.
Try Bondi, 3000 or Ku-ring-gai
How this was built
The place counts come from the ACECQA National Quality Agenda IT System quarterly snapshot. For each quarter we add up the maximum approved places at every long day care service, then compare that total with the previous quarter. Closures and capacity reductions at existing centres are netted off in that difference, so the result is the net change in places, not the number of approvals granted.
We put each service in an SA2, then add those figures into SA3s, SA4s and states, so the regional figures add up exactly to the national total. The build checks that reconciliation and refuses to publish if it fails.
Population is the ABS estimated resident population at 30 June, adding the estimates for each age from 0 to 4. Supply is measured in the June quarter each year, so both series use the same date. The SA3 figures add up to the national ABS figures in every year through 2026.
Approved places are counted at 30 June 2026, the latest complete financial year in the register. Population runs 12 months behind, so it is brought forward to line up: the child series uses counts from 30 June 2015 through 30 June 2025. Nothing is projected, and one further partial quarter is excluded.
The department publishes care use for ages 0–5. This page rebuilds the count on 0–4, because the wider total leans increasingly on school-aged children in outside school hours care. On the 0–5 basis the rise is 30,930 (3.6%).
Every one of these regions has a live benchmark page
Supply, demand, fees, provider share and school proximity, refreshed each quarter from the same register this article is built on.