The Feasibility Study Consultant's Role in Child Care Center Feasibility Studies

Forty-six per cent of American children under six live in a licensed child care desert. Fifty-five per cent of child care programme administrators report being underenrolled relative to the capacity they would prefer to run. Both figures are current and both are correct, and reconciling them is the entire analytical problem. When NAEYC asked underenrolled programmes why, lack of demand for services was the least often selected reason, at 7%.

The paradox, stated precisely

The demand data is unambiguous. The Center for American Progress, working with the W.E. Upjohn Institute and Stanford, estimated in 2025 that 46% of children under age 6 lived in a licensed child care desert — a community with more than three young children for every licensed slot — down from 51% in 2018. In remote rural areas the figure reaches 70%.

The supply-side data is equally unambiguous and points the other way. NAEYC's 2024 workforce survey of 10,128 educators found that 55% of programme administrators were underenrolled relative to their preferred capacity. The reasons they gave, in order:

• Parents cannot afford to enrol their children — 41%
• Compensation is too low to recruit and retain enough qualified staff — 37%
• They do not have enough staff — 36%
• A lack of demand for services — 7%, the least often selected reason of all

So the desert is real, and it is not a shortage of customers. It is a shortage of care that families can afford delivered by staff the centre can afford to employ.

This is the single most consequential thing a feasibility consultant can get right in this sector, because the intuitive analysis — count the children, count the slots, find the gap, size the centre to the gap — produces a projection that will not be met. A desert justifies the need. It does not underwrite the loan.

Staffing is the binding constraint

Not demand. Not capital. Not real estate.

The wage problem is structural. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median childcare worker wage at $15.41 an hour, or $32,050 a year, in May 2024, against an all-occupation median of $23.80 an hour and $49,500 a year. Preschool teachers sat at $37,120. Childcare workers occupy roughly the bottom 5% of occupational median wages, comparable to cashiers and fast-food workers.

Which means centres compete for staff directly against retail and quick service, and frequently lose.

The consequence is measurable in unfilled licensed capacity. Per the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, most Wisconsin centres operate at around 75% of licensed capacity, leaving over 33,000 seats unfilled that would require an estimated 4,000 additional educators to fill — while one quarter of the state's early childhood workforce left the field permanently in 2024.

And the wage-to-vacancy relationship has been quantified. Research led by Daphna Bassok at the University of Virginia, studying Louisiana programmes in 2024, found that among programmes paying lead teachers $8.50 an hour, 40% had at least a quarter of positions vacant, over half had closed classrooms, and 70% had turned families away.

Even at $15 an hour, 47% still closed classrooms and 59% still turned families away.

That finding deserves to sit at the centre of any child care feasibility model. Raising wages helps and does not solve it. A projection that assumes full staffing at prevailing local wages is assuming something that, on the evidence, most operators cannot achieve.

Turnover compounds it. Roughly 160,200 openings are projected annually between 2024 and 2034 — despite a projected 3% decline in employment over the same period. The churn is the story, not the growth.

Three capacity numbers, and only one produces revenue

The most valuable discipline a consultant brings to this asset class is separating figures that sponsors and lenders routinely conflate.

Licensed capacity. What the state permits given square footage, egress and facility standards. Most states require roughly 35 square feet of indoor space per child and 75 square feet of outdoor play space per child, with total building area running roughly 70 to 120 square feet per child once kitchen, office and circulation are included. This is a property fact, not a forecast.

Staffed capacity. What the centre can actually operate given the educators it can recruit and retain at wages the tuition supports. Almost always lower than licensed capacity, and the gap widens in tight labour markets.

Enrolled capacity. What is actually filled, by age group, net of attrition and seasonality.

Revenue is a function of the third. A pro forma computing revenue as licensed capacity multiplied by tuition multiplied by twelve months is describing a building.

What the consultant establishes: the staffing plan room by room at licensed ratios, the local wage required to fill those positions, whether that wage is supportable by the tuition the market will pay, and how long a full complement realistically takes to hire. Where the answer is that the wages the revenue supports will not attract staff in that labour market, that is the finding — and it is worth far more to the sponsor before the loan than after.

Ratios are mandated, not managed. Infants typically run 1:3 to 1:4, with Massachusetts at the strict end at 1:3 and some states permitting 1:6. Toddlers roughly 1:4 to 1:6. Preschool roughly 1:8 to 1:10. School-age up to 1:26 in Texas. NAEYC accreditation is stricter still — infants at 1:3 in groups of 6 to 8, preschool at 1:8 to 1:10 in groups of 20. Head Start requires 1:4 for Early Head Start in groups of 8, and roughly 1:8 in groups of 17 for preschool.

Unlike almost any other business, an operator cannot improve margin by serving more customers per employee. The ratio is the regulation.

Some states did relax ratios or qualification requirements after 2020 — NIEER noted several state pre-K programmes lowering educational requirements or raising child-to-staff ratios in 2023 and 2024. Relaxation improves unit economics and is quality-constrained and politically contested, so it should be treated as a state-specific fact rather than a trend to project.

The sector after the funding cliff

$37 billion in American Rescue Plan Act child care stabilisation funding expired on 30 September 2023. The Century Foundation projected in June 2023 that more than 70,000 programmes could close and roughly 3.2 million children could lose slots.

The realised damage was less severe than projected, because states backfilled — Wisconsin redirected $170 million in FEMA funds — and because providers raised prices rather than closing.

But the supply trend has turned. Child Care Aware of America recorded licensed centres rising from 84,592 in 2020 to roughly 92,550 in 2024 across the 40 states with complete data — an increase of about 1.5% to 1.6% from 2023 to 2024, with licensed family child care homes up 4.8%.

CCAoA's 2025 report, released 14 May 2026, reversed that. Licensed centres declined roughly 1% nationally from 2024 to 2025 — the first decrease after several years of growth — with centre supply falling in 26 of 43 states. Family child care homes rose modestly.

So the sector is flat to shrinking on centres, against near-universal desert coverage. Demand is not translating into supply growth, and the reason is the wage and affordability squeeze rather than a lack of interest in opening centres.

Prices have risen faster than families can absorb. The national average price of care was $13,128 in 2024 and $13,184 in 2025. The 2020 to 2024 increase was 29%, seven points above the 22% general price rise; CCAoA's 2025 framing put the 2021 to 2025 increase at 23% against 24% general inflation. Centre-based infant care averaged roughly $14,760 a year, and exceeded in-state public college tuition in 41 states plus the District of Columbia. State range: roughly $5,436 in Mississippi to $24,243 in DC.

The national average already exceeds the 7% of household income the federal government defines as affordable — it represents about 10% of a married couple's median income and 35% of a single parent's.

Which is the affordability ceiling the 41% figure above was describing. Tuition cannot simply be raised to fund wages, because the families are already past the affordability threshold.

The lending picture

The best available data comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which analysed SBA loan-level disclosure data for calendar 2023 and published in February 2025.

Total child care SBA lending in 2023 exceeded $1.1 billion:

• $565 million via 7(a) across 793 loans, roughly 2% of all 7(a) dollars
• $538 million via 504 across 196 CDC and third-party loan pairs, roughly 4% of all 504 dollars

Average loan sizes by structure: 300-month 7(a) real estate loans averaged about $1.3 million, against roughly $1.4 million for non-child-care borrowers. 120-month loans at 75% guarantee averaged about $660,000. SBA Express-type 120-month loans at 50% guarantee averaged about $85,000. For 504, 300-month loan pairs averaged about $2.89 million.

The structure mix tells you what is actually being financed. The two most common child care 7(a) structures were 120-month at 75% guarantee for equipment and working capital, at roughly 25% of child care loans, and 300-month at 75% guarantee for real estate, at roughly 21%. Over 30% of child care 7(a) loans were real estate loans with terms of twenty years or more, and 100% of 504 loans were twenty or twenty-five year real estate loans.

This is a property-heavy asset class, and the analysis has to support the building as well as the operation.

The pricing penalty nobody mentions

This is the most actionable finding in the lending data and it is almost never discussed.

Child care businesses paid on average about 3% higher interest on 25-year 7(a) loans — 9.42% against 9.11% — and about 4% lower on 10-year loans, 9.92% against 10.30%.

A key driver: child care borrowers were about 30% more likely than other borrowers to take their 25-year loans from higher-cost nonbank lenders — 13% against 10%.

The numbers attached to that choice: on a $1 million 300-month loan, the child care rate premium has a net present value cost of about $36,000 over the life of the loan. Choosing a nonbank lender over a bank costs about $165,000 in net present value.

That is a larger sum than most of the assumptions a feasibility study argues over, and it is entirely within the sponsor's control. Where the project is real estate-heavy and long-term, steering the borrower toward a bank 7(a) or a 504 structure is worth more than almost any operational refinement in the model.

The nonprofit exclusion

SBA 7(a) and 504 require a for-profit borrower. Roughly one quarter of the nearly one million US child care employer establishments are nonprofits and are structurally ineligible, and must route to conventional lending, USDA Community Facilities, or a CDFI.

This is a sponsor-structure question that should be settled before anything is ordered, because it determines the entire financing path.

A genuine data gap

There is no reliable child-care-specific SBA default or charge-off rate from a primary source. Anyone quoting one is triangulating.

For context, third-party aggregation puts the overall 7(a) lifetime resolved-loan default rate near 15.8% per PeerSense's July 2026 data, against a roughly 2% to 3% count-based annual portfolio rate — the two differ by methodology rather than by fact. The Chicago Fed identifies thin margins and limited collateral as the mechanisms typically associated with elevated child care risk, which is a mechanism rather than a measurement.

A study that asserts a child care default rate as though it were published is overstating what the data supports.

What changed on 1 June 2025

SOP 50 10 8 tightened practice across the programme, and several changes bear directly on child care.

A mandatory 10% equity injection for startups and complete changes of ownership, computed on total project cost. On a $2 million ground-up centre, that is $200,000 of documented equity.

Seller notes count toward the injection only on full standby for the entire life of the SBA loan, with no principal or interest, documented on SBA Form 155 — and capped at 50% of the required injection.

The 7(a) small-loan ceiling dropped from $500,000 to $350,000, so loans above that face full underwriting. The minimum SBSS score for scored loans rose from 155 to 165.

Collateral is now required on loans over $50,000, down from a $500,000 threshold, and owners holding 20% or more must pledge personal real estate where a loan is under-collateralised. This matters acutely in child care, where leasehold improvements — classroom build-out, playground, kitchen — have very little resale value.

SBA continues to expect debt service coverage of at least 1.15x on projections.

Note the interaction with the pricing data above. 100% financing, where available, is generally offered only to established operators expanding within the same NAICS code. A first-time sponsor now brings real equity, and the model has to show it.

The USDA routes

Community Facilities is the strongest option for the right sponsor and is consistently underused.

Eligible applicants are public bodies, nonprofit organisations and federally recognised Tribes — not for-profit operators. The applicant must be unable to obtain commercial credit at reasonable rates.

Population threshold: the facility must serve a rural area of 20,000 or fewer residents, with median household income below the higher of the poverty line or 90% of the state non-metropolitan median household income.

The grant formula is graduated and generous at the bottom. Up to 75% of eligible project cost where the community is 5,000 or fewer in population and median household income sits below the higher of the poverty line or 60% of the state non-metropolitan median. Up to 55% and up to 35% at higher population and income bands.

Direct loan rates are set quarterly by Rural Development based on community population and income, and are fixed for the life of the loan at approval. CF guaranteed loans are also available and can be combined with commercial financing.

A grant covering up to three quarters of eligible cost is the single largest non-dilutive capital source in this sector, and the reason the sponsor-structure question deserves settling early. A project that struggles as a for-profit credit may be straightforward as a non-profit with CF support.

Business & Industry is the for-profit rural route. Available in communities generally of 50,000 or fewer, with FY2026 guarantees at 85% for loans under $5 million and 80% at $5 million or above, and a maximum loan generally of $25 million.

And one thing that is not available: there is no standing general-purpose federal child care construction grant programme for operators. Federal money flows through operating subsidy, food reimbursement, Head Start grants and the tax code. Capital is overwhelmingly private, SBA, USDA or CDFI. Some states run facility grant or low-interest loan funds, and those are worth identifying, but they are state-specific rather than a national pathway.

The revenue stack

Very few financeable centres run on private tuition alone, and each layer behaves differently.

Private-pay tuition. The base, evidenced against what comparable local providers actually charge and collect — not against state or national averages, which conceal enormous regional variation.

Child Care and Development Fund subsidy. The 2024 CCDF Final Rule, effective 30 April 2024, pushed states toward cost-estimation methodology and required enrolment-based, prospective payment with family copays capped at 7% of income.

Paying on enrolment rather than daily attendance, in advance rather than in arrears, is the most operator-favourable regulatory change of the cycle — it smooths cash flow materially.

But a 2026 CCDF rule change rescinded the mandate for four provider-stability policies. States may still adopt them, and NAEYC notes every state implements at least one — but it is now a state option rather than a federal requirement. Which state a project sits in now determines its cash-flow profile, and the current state CCDF plan has to be checked rather than assumed.

Nine states plus the District of Columbia — California, Colorado, DC, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina and Virginia — have implemented or are transitioning to cost-estimation models. Virginia's shift raised centre infant rates by $60 a week and family child care rates by $130 per infant.

Federal CCDF funding was roughly $12.2 billion in FY2025 — $8.75 billion CCDBG discretionary plus $3.55 billion mandatory — level with FY2024, which had itself risen 9% or $725 million over FY2023. Subsidies served about 1.62 million children a month in FY2023.

Only 15% of federally eligible children received a subsidy, per HHS ASPE. That figure uses FY2021 data and the series appears paused, so it is roughly four years old and should be treated as directional — but the "roughly one in six" shape has been stable for a long time.

CACFP food reimbursement, for the year running 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. Centres: breakfast $2.46 free, $2.16 reduced, $0.40 paid; lunch and supper $4.60, $4.20 and $0.44; snack $1.26, $0.63 and $0.11; plus $0.3050 cash in lieu of commodities per lunch and supper. Family child care Tier I: breakfast $1.70, lunch and supper $3.22, snack $0.96. Increases ran about 2.23% — a few cents per meal.

Modest per child, reliable, and it materially changes the food cost line.

State pre-kindergarten. Per NIEER's 2024 Yearbook covering the 2023–24 year, enrolment reached historic highs at 8% of three-year-olds and 37% of four-year-olds, with total spending above $13.6 billion including $257 million in COVID relief. Six states plus DC operate universal four-year-old pre-K. Where available, a pre-K contract is a stabilising revenue layer that frequently pays better than private tuition.

Head Start. FY2024 appropriation $12.3 billion, funded to serve 715,873 children, with 805,919 children and pregnant women served cumulatively across 2023–24. FY2025 was $12.27 billion. Head Start serves roughly a quarter of eligible preschoolers and Early Head Start about 10% of eligible infants and toddlers. A FY2026 Senate mark proposed $12.36 billion, an $85 million increase — that is a proposal, not enacted law, and should not be modelled as revenue.

Employer-sponsored care changed materially for 2026. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of July 2025 raised the 45F credit to 40% of qualified child care expenditures up to a $500,000 cap, and 50% up to $600,000 for small businesses with roughly $25 million to $31 million or less in gross receipts. Effective for costs after 31 December 2025, indexed to inflation, and newly permitting pooled or multi-employer facilities and third-party contracts. Dependent Care FSA limits rose from $5,000 to $7,500.

Historic take-up of the smaller pre-2025 credit was low — the GAO found few businesses used it. The expansion changes the arithmetic enough that employer partnerships are now genuinely more financeable, but projected employer demand should still be discounted until it is contractually committed.

Tri-share and public-private models. Michigan's Tri-Share splits tuition three ways between state, employer and employee, and has been replicated in several states. These can anchor enrolment and remain small in scale, so they belong in the model conservatively.

What the consultant actually does

Quantifies demand, then discounts it

The chain runs: children by single-year age cohort in the trade area, parental labour force participation, the desert ratio benchmark of more than three children per licensed slot, then a realistic capture rate against the gap — not the full gap.

Trade area is conventionally three to five miles or ten to fifteen minutes drive time in suburban markets, tighter in urban and wider in rural. Proximity to employment centres and commute corridors frequently matters more than residential rooftops, because parents choose care near work or on the commute rather than near home.

Establishes existing supply, including its utilisation

Licensed centres, licensed family child care homes, Head Start and school-based pre-K — with capacity by age group and, critically, actual utilisation.

A community with nominal capacity that is fully enrolled and holding waitlists is a genuine opportunity. One with vacant capacity is not, regardless of what the desert ratio says. The desert metric counts licensed slots; it does not tell you whether those slots are staffed and operating — and given the Wisconsin evidence, a substantial share are not.

Tests the local labour market

This is the section that distinguishes a serious study and it is routinely omitted.

What do comparable centres in this market pay lead teachers and assistants? What early childhood credentials does state licensing require, and how many credentialed candidates exist locally? Is there a community college or CDA programme producing them? What are competing employers — retail, quick service, school districts — paying for comparable-skill labour?

Credential requirements vary widely by state, from a high school diploma to a CDA or associate degree, and a higher floor shrinks the hiring pool. This has to be localised.

If the tuition the market supports cannot fund wages competitive with the local employers hiring from the same pool, the project has a staffing problem that no amount of demand analysis solves.

Builds enrolment room by room

Not as a blended occupancy curve. Each classroom has its own ratio, staffed capacity, lease-up month and contribution margin.

Rooms open as staff are recruited, not on the day the building is finished. Preschool rooms fill fastest; infant rooms fill slowest and are the most staffing-constrained. That sequencing is a genuine planning question, not a modelling detail.

Full enrolment in practice means roughly 85% to 95% of licensed capacity for a mature, well-staffed centre. A model should rarely assume more than 90% sustained.

Break-even runs roughly 65% to 85% of enrolment depending on centre size and market. A 100-slot centre at around $1,000 a month typically breaks even at 60 to 70 children. The HHS Provider Cost of Quality Calculator's base scenario — a 66-child centre — breaks even at 0.5% net revenue. That is the margin this sector actually operates on.

Ramp to break-even typically runs 18 to 24 months.

A useful monitoring metric is RevPAS — revenue per available slot, being total monthly tuition divided by licensed capacity. It exposes the gap between the building and the business in a single number.

Models seasonality and the licensing gap

Centres experience meaningful summer enrolment decline as school-age children leave and preschool families take extended absences. An annual model conceals it; monthly modelling exposes the trough.

And there is a real gap between certificate of occupancy and licence. Inspections, staffing verification and background checks mean the centre frequently cannot enrol — or bill — for weeks to months after the building is finished. That interval has to be funded rather than assumed away.

The infant room problem

Infant rooms lose money structurally, and the arithmetic is worth stating because it drives the whole pro forma.

The Center for American Progress estimates it costs roughly $15,000 a year, or $1,230 a month, to provide infant care in a centre.

Infant care costs about 49% more to deliver than preschool care — but subsidies pay only about 26% more.

Michigan's high-quality cost model put the delivered cost at $17,629 per child per year for infants and toddlers against $11,410 for preschool.

So the tightest ratio applies exactly where parental need is most acute and willingness to pay is most constrained. Centres run infant rooms at a loss and cross-subsidise from preschool rooms.

Which means age mix, not headline capacity, is the most sensitive variable in the model. A project proposing to serve mostly infants — which is what most communities need — is proposing the least profitable configuration available, and the study has to show explicitly where the offsetting margin comes from.

A model that treats all slots as equally profitable is wrong, and a lender who has financed centres before will spot it.

Cost structure and capital

Personnel runs roughly 60% to 70% of operating expenses, with some sources citing 70% to 80% for infant-heavy programmes. It is the dominant line and the one most tightly bound by ratios — staff must be present to meet ratios regardless of daily attendance.

The remaining structure: occupancy, meaning rent or mortgage plus utilities, at roughly 15% to 25%; programme and supplies at 8% to 15%; administration at 5% to 12%; food partly offset by CACFP; and insurance, which is rising and which NAEYC's 2025 survey flagged alongside food, supplies, facility maintenance and wages.

Net margins are thin. Healthy operations are often cited at 8% to 15%, but many operators run near 1%.

Construction and buildout, 2025 to 2026 figures:

• Ground-up new construction: roughly $200 to $550 per square foot, totalling approximately $1.5 million to $5 million and above for a 7,500 to 12,000 square foot facility. Hard costs 60% to 70%, soft costs 15% to 18%, FF&E 8% to 12%, with around 10% contingency.
• Conversion or tenant improvement of an existing shell: roughly $400,000 to $600,000 for a mid-size centre, a 20% to 30% saving against ground-up.

On a per-slot basis, buildout commonly runs into the tens of thousands of dollars per licensed slot.

Working capital should cover three to six months of operating expenses — roughly $20,000 to $60,000 and above for a typical centre, considerably more for large ones — plus the certificate-of-occupancy-to-licence gap. This is the line most commonly cut and the one whose absence most reliably causes failure.

Where child care projects fail

Understaffing. The centre cannot fill the rooms it is licensed for. This is the dominant cause and it traces back to the wage arithmetic.

Underpricing relative to true cost, particularly where infant enrolment is heavy and the preschool cross-subsidy is thin.

An infant-heavy age mix without a preschool base to carry it.

Over-optimistic lease-up, particularly a blended occupancy curve rather than a room-by-room build.

Thin working capital that cannot bridge the licensing gap and the ramp.

The common projection errors, stated directly: equating licensed capacity with staffed capacity; assuming a desert guarantees fill; blending infant and preschool economics into a single margin; ignoring enrolment-versus-attendance and subsidy timing mechanics; and assuming more than 90% sustained occupancy.

On size: larger centres of 100 slots or more spread fixed occupancy and administrative cost and can balance the age mix, which generally improves viability. But only if they can be staffed — scale multiplies the absolute staffing requirement in the tightest labour market the sector has faced. Very small centres lack the preschool base to cross-subsidise infants at all.

On structure: nonprofits access CF grants, philanthropy and some pre-K and Head Start contracts unavailable to for-profits, but cannot use SBA 7(a) or 504. For-profits access SBA and B&I and the 45F employer route. Neither structure is inherently more stable — revenue mix and management quality matter more than tax status.

What a lender is reading for

Can this centre be staffed? Not whether demand exists, but whether educators can be hired at wages the tuition supports, with the local wage comparison shown.

Is enrolment modelled room by room? With ratios, staffed capacity and lease-up month for each, and infant rooms shown losing money.

What is the revenue mix? Private pay, CCDF at the state's actual payment practice and rate, CACFP, pre-K or Head Start contracts, and employer commitments — with the last two counted only where contractually secured.

Is the state's current CCDF payment practice verified? Enrolment-based and prospective payment is now a state option rather than a federal mandate, and it materially changes cash flow.

Has the licensing gap been funded? Certificate of occupancy to licence, plus three to six months of operating expense.

Does the sponsor structure match the capital? Nonprofit sponsors reach CF grants of up to 75% of eligible cost; for-profit sponsors do not, and are ineligible for CF entirely.

Is the borrower going to a bank? Given the roughly $165,000 net present value cost of a nonbank 25-year loan against a bank one, this is a question worth asking on a real estate-heavy child care credit.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Center for American Progress, with the W.E. Upjohn Institute and Stanford University, child care desert analysis, 2025, and infant care cost estimates.
• National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2024 workforce survey (10,128 educators) and 2025 cost survey.
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024, and employment projections 2024–2034.
• Bassok, D. et al., University of Virginia, Louisiana early childhood programme staffing research, 2024.
• Wisconsin Early Childhood Association capacity and workforce data.
• Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, A Summary of Lending to Childcare Businesses Under Programs of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Chicago Fed Insights, February 2025.
• SBA Standard Operating Procedure 50 10 8, effective 1 June 2025.
• Child Care Aware of America, Price of Care and supply reports, 2024 and 2025 (2025 report released 14 May 2026).
• The Century Foundation, child care funding cliff analyses, June 2023 and 2024.
• US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families — CCDF Final Rule (30 April 2024) and 2026 rule change; CCDF appropriation and participation data.
• HHS ASPE, child care subsidy eligibility and receipt, FY2021 data.
• HHS Provider Cost of Quality Calculator.
• USDA Food and Nutrition Service, CACFP reimbursement rates, 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026.
• National Institute for Early Education Research, State of Preschool 2024 Yearbook.
• Office of Head Start appropriation and enrolment data, FY2024 and FY2025.
• One Big Beautiful Bill Act, July 2025, Section 45F employer-provided child care credit provisions.
• 7 CFR Part 1942 subpart A and 7 CFR Part 3570 subpart B, USDA Community Facilities; USDA Rural Development Business and Industry programme.
• Michigan child care cost estimation model.

Prepared by feasibility-study-consultant.com. Ratios, square footage requirements, licensing timelines, subsidy rates and payment practices vary substantially by state and change; national figures here are a starting point and must be localised to the specific state licensing agency and current CCDF plan. The HHS subsidy eligibility figure uses FY2021 data and that series appears paused. No reliable child-care-specific SBA default rate exists from a primary source, and none is asserted here. Construction cost and break-even ranges draw partly from industry sources and should be validated against local contractor bids. Programme terms are set by SBA and USDA and are periodically revised; confirm current requirements before relying on any detail. This is not legal, tax or lending advice. Last updated: August 6, 2026.