Childcare Availability in Florida

Across Florida, 140,899 children under 5 live in neighborhoods where at least 3 children share every licensed place within five miles. They are spread across 575 neighborhoods. Within that group, 13,086 children live in 91 neighborhoods with no licensed place in range at all.

In those neighborhoods, no licensed provider falls within five miles of the point used to represent the neighborhood. A statewide count of childcare places cannot show where these gaps are.

Simply counting nearby daycares also misses how many children live around them. A provider can serve several neighborhoods, so we divide its licensed capacity among the young children nearby. The estimate gives each neighborhood a share of that capacity.

Five miles is a straight-line radius around a representative neighborhood point, not a drive from every child’s home. The three-children-per-place line is borrowed from childcare desert research; this study does not make a formal desert determination. See how we measured it.

At the lower-tenth cutoff, Florida neighborhoods have 27.7 licensed places for every 100 young children. At the upper-tenth cutoff, the figure reaches 105.9. That is about 3.8 times as much capacity relative to the child population. The midpoint is 71.7 places per 100 children.

These cutoffs follow where children live, so a sparsely populated area does not carry the same weight as a neighborhood with many young children. Among children in reliably measured areas, about a tenth live at or below the lower cutoff, and about a tenth at or above the upper one.

Florida averages 68.8 licensed places per 100 children. The chart shows how far neighborhoods can fall on either side of that average. These figures compare licensed capacity; they do not tell a family how likely they are to find an opening.

Poinciana’s 4,974 children under 5 have 19 licensed providers within five miles of the community’s representative point. Largo has 153 within the same distance for 2,785 young children.

Ruskin, Four Corners and Deltona also have fewer than half as many licensed places as young children. Ruskin has 29.1 licensed places per 100 children, Four Corners has 31.4, and Deltona has 41.8. Each is measured at the same five-mile distance.

Some smaller communities have a measured zero. Montura, with 236 young children, records 0 licensed places per 100 children. Big Pine Key, with 226, also records 0. In both, no licensed provider falls within five miles of the representative point.

City and community figures come from a separate model using Census places. Compare them with one another, not with the statewide distribution or county figures. This model divides capacity only among place residents, who do not cover the whole state, so its values tend to be higher. These figures do not rank childcare quality.

The differences also appear at county level. Polk has 44.2 licensed places per 100 children, compared with 71.9 in Hillsborough. Both use the same neighborhood-based model and five-mile distance.

A county figure averages its neighborhoods, giving more weight to those with more young children. Availability can vary within a county, and providers across county lines count when they fall within five miles of a neighborhood’s representative point.

Family childcare homes and large family childcare homes account for 2,267 of Florida’s 8,852 licensed locations in this study. That is 25.6 percent of locations, but their 22,270 reported places represent just 2.9 percent of licensed capacity.

A small home and a large center each count as one location, even though they can care for different numbers of children. Counting locations alone gives homes a much larger share of Florida’s childcare supply than counting licensed places.

That statewide share cannot tell us how much a particular neighborhood depends on its licensed homes. A nearby home may be one of the few options a parent can reach.

Two areas can have similar numbers of daycares and very different numbers of young children living nearby. Start with your county’s figure, then look at the providers close enough for your daily routine.

Ask whether there is an opening for your child’s age, whether the hours cover your workday and what the care costs. Check the trip, too: a place across a bay may look close in this study and require a long drive.

A high figure does not promise a vacancy, and a low figure does not mean every provider is full. Contact providers directly to find out which places could work for your family.

We combined Census estimates of children under 5 with Florida’s public provider records. We divided each provider’s licensed capacity among nearby neighborhoods, giving more weight to children who live closer. We used the same weights to add up each neighborhood’s share, so each place counts only once across the model. This article focuses on providers within five miles.

Population comes from the American Community Survey 2024 five-year estimates. Provider records were retrieved from the DaycareFacts database on September 11, 2026. Reported capacity is not age-specific. The study does not measure current openings, affordability, waitlists, actual applicants or quality.