2026 Q3 baseline
Childcare supply and pipeline index
One comparable public snapshot for New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
Short answer
In the current baseline, NSW has the largest long day care supply base, Queensland has the largest reviewed saved pipeline, and Victoria has the highest median published fee. These are market benchmarks, not proof that a specific site is under- or over-supplied.
Review area
Australian market
Child Care Demand
Australian supply-demand context, made local
National datasets become useful only when they resolve into address-level catchments and source notes.
Supply
National
approved-service register
Demand
SA2+
ABS and CCS context
Pipeline
State-led
coverage shown clearly
Centre register
official supply base
Drive-time catchments
5, 10, 15 minutes
Planning sources
coverage-labelled
What this edition measures
A baseline with a clear comparison rule
Supply is active long day care services and their published licensed places. The demand base is ABS estimated resident population aged 0 to 4. The benchmark divides children by places. Pipeline totals include only reviewed projects with a published place count.
Published . This first edition establishes the quarterly baseline. It does not claim a quarter-on-quarter supply movement that has not yet been measured.
Download the 2026 Q3 CSVLicensed long day care places by state
Published capacity across active services in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.
Reviewed saved pipeline places by state
Source-backed projects with published place counts. NSW uses live report-time discovery, so its saved total is not directly comparable with the deeper Queensland and Victorian ledgers.
State and capital-city benchmark table
The population change column compares 2022 with 2024. Every other value is the current published snapshot described above.
| Geography | Type | LDC services | LDC places | Children 0 to 4 | Children per place | Child population 2022 to 2024 | Median daily fee | Fee coverage | Pipeline projects | Pipeline places |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | State | 3,733 | 226,621 | 473,340 | 2.09 | -1.4% | $153.00 | 61.7% | 8 | 708 |
| Queensland | State | 1,974 | 173,999 | 308,649 | 1.77 | +0.7% | $150.00 | 53.4% | 167 | 15,636 |
| Victoria | State | 2,173 | 203,142 | 389,431 | 1.92 | +1.1% | $158.64 | 56.3% | 29 | 2,717 |
| Sydney | Greater capital city | 2,205 | 128,766 | 309,182 | 2.40 | -2.7% | $155.00 | 63.2% | 8 | 708 |
| Brisbane | Greater capital city | 910 | 84,655 | 158,270 | 1.87 | +0.4% | $154.56 | 51.6% | 76 | 7,058 |
| Melbourne | Greater capital city | 1,563 | 145,822 | 301,385 | 2.07 | +1.2% | $160.45 | 56.3% | 24 | 2,325 |
What the index can and cannot answer
It is useful for market orientation and a consistent six-region comparison. It cannot decide a site because state and metro totals hide drive times, centre overlap, participation, utilisation, household growth and the chance that a proposed centre actually opens.
Reviewed pipeline coverage also differs. NSW planning discovery runs when a report is generated, while Queensland and Victoria have deeper persisted council-source ledgers. Read the state pages before comparing pipeline totals.
Source basis
Built from public, source-linked evidence.
Evidence ledger
What a user can trace before trusting the answer
Approved services
ACECQA register
National base
Demand model
ABS and CCS inputs
Weighted locally
Catchment
Drive-time geometry
Address-specific
Pipeline
Planning sources
Coverage labelled
Child Care Demand pages use the same evidence model as the product: official service search data, Australian population inputs, public planning sources where coverage is live, and clear limitations when a source is incomplete or still being enriched.
Evidence and source links reviewed .