MapleCub Data Lab · City snapshot · 2026
Montréal child care, in numbers — 2026 snapshot
Montréal has 658 licensed child-care programs, 17.4% of everything Quebec publishes — with what the registry does, and does not, record about them.
- Computed 2026-08-11
- N = 658 programs
- 20,516 across eight registries
- CC BY 4.0
658
licensed programs
658
centres
0
licensed family homes
52.1%
publish opening hours
Not one of Montréal’s licensed programs is a family home. All 658 are centres, which puts the city among 4 of Canada’s 30 largest municipal child-care markets with no individually licensed family home at all. That mix is set by provincial licensing law more than by local demand: some provinces license each home individually, others license home care through agencies that never appear as separate records. Altogether MapleCub lists 658 licensed child-care programs in Montréal, 17.4% of all the licensed programs Quebec publishes.
Montréal publishes opening and closing times for 343 of its programs (52.1%) and age ranges for 658 (100%). Where hours are known, 307 programs open by 7 a.m. and 318 stay open past 6 p.m. The remaining 315 programs have not published a schedule anywhere we can read it. Both counts are floors.
The numbers
| Measure | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed programs | 658 | 17.4% of Quebec's 3,774 licensed programs. |
| Centres | 658 | 100% of the city's licensed programs. |
| Licensed family homes | 0 | Quebec licenses no individual family homes; home-based care runs through coordinating offices instead. |
| Age ranges published | 658 (100%) | Programs whose served age groups are recorded, so an infant or school-age filter can find them. |
| Opening hours published | 343 (52.1%) | Both an opening and a closing time on file. 315 programs publish neither. |
| Open by 7 a.m. | 307 | 89.5% of the 343 programs with known hours. Partial data — a program with no published schedule is not counted either way. |
| Open past 6 p.m. | 318 | 92.7% of the 343 programs with known hours. Same partial-data caveat. |
| Subsidized (subventionné) | 427 (64.9%) | The reduced-contribution network, where parents pay the set daily rate; the rest operate at market rates offset by the refundable tax credit. |
| French-language programs | Not recorded | Quebec's registry does not record the language of instruction, so no count can be published without inventing one. |
| Programs with a public rating | 405 (61.6%) | Average 4.58 out of 5. Matching requires name agreement, so this undercounts rather than overcounts. |
Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 658 · CSV · Montréal, Quebec; visible listings only
Centres or homes: where Montréal sits
Montréal sits at 0%. The 30 largest municipal markets hold 9,998 licensed programs between them, 48.7% of the national dataset, and they do not run on the same kind of supply: Saskatoon and Regina are family-home cities, while 4 Quebec cities have no individually licensed homes at all.
Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 9,998 · CSV · community = normalized city name within a province
What this snapshot cannot tell you
Program counts are not space counts: no province in this dataset publishes licensed capacity for Montréal in a form that survives comparison, so 658 counts licences a parent can look up rather than rooms with a free spot. Opening hours come from provider-published schedules rather than the registry, which is why 315 of 658 programs have none on file. And every figure here is a snapshot of 2026-08-11 — licences open and close weekly.
The subsidy figure above reflects what the registry records rather than what a given family will pay; fee rules and eligibility are covered in the cost guides.
Looking for a place, not a statistic?
Browse all 658 licensed programs in Montréal with filters for age group, hours and subsidy, or read the national picture these numbers came from.
Cite as: MapleCub, “Montréal child care, in numbers — 2026 snapshot,” 2026-08-11, https://www.maplecub.ca/research/montreal-childcare-snapshot. Released under CC BY 4.0. More open data: MapleCub Data Lab.