Daycares in California

24,556 licensed child care providers in California, drawn from the state licensing agency's public records. Each profile carries the license number, status, and capacity on record. Where the state publishes nothing for a field, or the daycare is not licensed, the profile says so plainly.

Averaged across every licensed provider on record, excluding this state from the comparison.

Parent sentiment

-0.5 vs Other states average

Average parent review rating on Google or Yelp.

California3.0
Other states3.5

3,750 providers sampled

Daycare Index Rating

-2 vs Other states average

Composite of licensing, inspections, reviews, accreditation, transparency. See scoring guide.

California51
Other states53

1,345 providers sampled

What changed in California this year

The share of dated parent reviews mentioning each theme, over the last twelve months against the twelve before them. Shares rather than totals, because we hold more recent reviews than old ones and counting raw mentions would show everything rising. Only themes with enough mentions to be worth reading appear here.

Praised more than last year

Facility and cleanliness9% of reviews, from 8%+1.4 pts

Complained about less

No complaint fell enough to report.

California over time

Every dated record we hold for California, bucketed by calendar year. A year appears only once it carries enough observations to be a point rather than an anecdote, so the lines start where the state's published record does.

Parent sentiment trend

20122026

Average star rating across every dated parent review on record for California. Reviews are counted individually here, unlike the state averages above.

Show the figures

Average parent review star rating for California daycares, by year, by year, with sample sizes
Year	Average rating	Sample
2012	4.69	52
2013	4.58	106
2014	4.65	112
2015	4.72	187
2016	4.56	346
2017	4.51	542
2018	4.56	651
2019	4.59	579
2020	4.57	274
2021	4.52	273
2022	4.51	379
2023	4.64	933
2024	4.71	1,318
2025	4.77	2,420
2026	4.72	2,071

Where they are in California

Every California provider we hold a location for. Click a pin for the license record, and pan or zoom to load more.

Where this record comes from

Licensing in California is administered by the Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division under Cal. Code Regs. Title 22, Div. 12. This directory republishes the public record and labels every absent field "Not listed" rather than filling it in. Verify current status with the agency before enrolling.

Primary source: https://www.ccld.dss.ca.gov/carefacilitysearch/

California averages