MapleCub Data Lab · Province data · 2026
How many licensed daycares are in Nova Scotia?
The smallest licensed system in this dataset is also, on one specific measure, the best-documented one.
- Computed 2026-08-10
- N = 348 Nova Scotia programs
- 20,516 across eight registries
- CC BY 4.0
348
licensed programs
8.4
per 1,000 children aged 0–4
117
communities with licensed care
58.1%
of them have exactly one option
The short answer, with everything behind it
As of 2026-08-10, MapleCub counts 348 licensed child-care programs in Nova Scotia — 334 centres and 14 licensed family homes. That is 8.4 licensed programs for every 1,000 of the province’s 41,311 children aged 0–4, the seventh-highest rate of the eight provinces that publish a licensing registry. They sit in 117 communities; 68 of those (58.1%) have exactly one licensed program and no second choice, while 41.4% of the province’s licensed programs are in its five largest cities.
Nova Scotia publishes licensed capacity in its open data: 19,216 spaces behind those programs. Nova Scotia’s 2026 price position: not at $10/day. Fixed dollar-per-day reductions subtracted from each provider's own fee — $18.25/day for full-day centre toddler and preschool care, $17.00/day for family-home infant care — unchanged since December 31, 2022. Because the reduction comes off whatever the provider charges, there is no single provincial daily figure. The province's own page still says fees will move to $10 a day on average by 2026; they have not. Which individual programs offer that price is not distinguishable from public registry data — no fee-program field in the Child Care Directory — so every row in the file carries the same value.2†,1
On inspections, Nova Scotia is one of the three provinces that publish records as open data: as extracted on 2026-07-11, 645 records covering 339 facilities, November 2010 – August 2025. The source is updated bi-annually; the directory was refreshed on 2026-07-19 and is now current to June 30, 2026, so today's file will differ. Online, MapleCub has matched 231 of Nova Scotia's 348 programs to a Google place record (66.4%), and 17 of those (7.4%) carry a rating, averaging 4.50 across 546 parent reviews. 73 programs (21%) have a website recorded in the frozen quarterly snapshot. Because match coverage here is above 60%, the rated share is a statement about Nova Scotia and not only about our queue: even if every unmatched listing turned out to be rated, the province would top out at 38.5%.2†
Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 348 · CSV · Nova Scotia; visible listings only
The numbers
| Measure | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed programs | 348 | 1.7% of the 20,516 licensed programs across the eight provinces that publish registries. |
| Centres | 334 | 96% of the province’s licensed programs. |
| Licensed family homes | 14 | 4% of the province’s licensed programs. Whether homes appear at all is a licensing rule, not a measure of how much home care exists. |
| Children aged 0–4 | 41,311 | Statistics Canada, Table 17-10-0005-01 (July 1, 2025 estimates)4 |
| Programs per 1,000 children | 8.4 | Licensed points of access a parent can look up, not licensed spaces. Registries differ in what they record, so read it alongside the provider mix above. |
| Communities with licensed care | 117 | A community is a normalized city name — lower-cased and trimmed — so registry case variants do not count twice. |
| Communities with exactly one option | 68 (58.1%) | One licence serves the whole community: no comparing, no waitlist hedging, no second choice. |
| Share in the five largest cities | 41.4% | How concentrated the province’s licensed supply is in its biggest municipal markets. |
| Published licensed capacity | 19,216 spaces | Stated in the province’s own machine-readable file, so spaces can be counted here and in only two other provinces.2† |
| Inspection records | 645 records, open data | Inspection records covering 339 facilities, November 2010 – August 2025, as extracted on 2026-07-11.2† |
| Programs with a website | 73 (21%) | Harvested conservatively, requiring name agreement, so this undercounts rather than overcounts. |
| Matched by MapleCub to a Google place | 231 (66.4%) | Above the 60% floor this Lab requires before it will say anything about a province's own visibility. |
| Rated among the matched | 17 of 231 (7.4%) | Average 4.50 out of five across 546 parent reviews. Across ALL of Nova Scotia's listings the rated share is 4.9% — a floor set by our matching, and a ceiling of 38.5% if every listing we never matched turned out to be rated. |
Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 348 · CSV · child population: Statistics Canada, Table 17-10-0005-01 (July 1, 2025 estimates)
How Nova Scotia compares on supply
Nova Scotia comes in at 8.4, between New Brunswick’s national high of 27.7 and Ontario’s national low of 6.1. Licensed programs per 1,000 children aged 0–4 is the cleanest cross-province supply signal this dataset supports, and it has to be read with the registry differences in mind: some provinces license each family home individually, others license home care through agencies that never appear as separate records.
Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 20,516 · CSV · child population: Statistics Canada, Table 17-10-0005-01 (July 1, 2025 estimates)4
What makes Nova Scotia’s registry different
348 licensed programs — 334 centres and 14 family homes — serving 41,311 children aged 0–4, a rate of 8.4 per 1,000 and the seventh-highest of the eight. Its 117 communities are widely spread for a province this size, and 68 of them (58.1%) hold exactly one licensed program.
Yet it belongs to the minority that publishes both licensed capacity (19,216 spaces) and inspection records as open data: as extracted on 2026-07-11, 645 records at 339 facilities, 328 annual and 317 unannounced, running November 2010 – August 2025 — the longest window any province in this dataset makes available. The directory is updated bi-annually; the directory was refreshed on 2026-07-19 and is now current to June 30, 2026, so today's file will differ. A parent can ask a historical question here and get an answer.
Price and presence are the thin parts. The Child Care Directory records two inspection dates and a capacity figure and no fee-program field, so Nova Scotia’s not at $10/day arrangement — fixed dollar reductions off each provider’s own price — cannot be traced to a named centre, which is precisely why two centres on one street can charge differently. And Nova Scotia is the one province where MapleCub can say something about online visibility rather than about its own matching queue: we matched 231 of its 348 programs (66.4%), and only 17 of those (7.4%) carry a Google rating. Even if every listing we never matched turned out to be rated, the province would reach 38.5% — still the lowest ceiling of any province we have covered well enough to bound. Here the registry is not one signal among several, it is the only one.
Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 348 · CSV · registry structure and published fields as documented by each province
Where to go from here
Nova Scotia beyond the arithmetic: the programs themselves, and the rules behind them.
- Licensed daycares in Nova Scotia — browse the 348 programs themselves, with age, hours and subsidy filters.
- What child care costs in Nova Scotia — the fee rules and subsidy thresholds behind the price line above, with official sources.
- Nova Scotia’s one-option communities — the 68 places with a single licensed program, named.
- $10-a-day: claimed vs. measured — what the registries can and cannot confirm about the price each province advertises.
- The State of Licensed Child Care in Canada, 2026 — the national report these figures were computed for.
Cite as: MapleCub, “Nova Scotia child care by the numbers, 2026,” 2026-08-10, https://www.maplecub.ca/research/nova-scotia-child-care-data. Released under CC BY 4.0. More open data: MapleCub Data Lab.
Sources
Every external claim in this report — every dollar figure, every inspection count, every rule — is cited to the government page it came from. Each entry records the publisher, the document, and the date we last fetched it. Sources were audited 2026-08-11. A dagger (†) marks the 2 sources that need a caveat: either the source has been updated since our figure was computed, or we could not open the page ourselves and have said so. The reason is printed with the entry.
- 1. Government of Nova Scotia — Department of Education and Early Childhood Development · How it works: 50 per cent fee reduction · fetched 2026-08-11 · https://childcarenovascotia.ca/families/50-percent-fee-reduction
- 2†. Open Data Nova Scotia — Department of Education and Early Childhood Development · Child Care Directory · fetched 2026-08-11 · https://data.novascotia.ca/api/views/3j9v-yimg.json† Source has moved on since our figure was computed. Our number is published as a dated extract, not as the current record.
- 3†. Government of Nova Scotia — Department of Education and Early Childhood Development · How it works: 50 per cent fee reduction — fee reduction table · fetched 2026-08-11 · https://childcarenovascotia.ca/families/50-percent-fee-reduction† Not verified: this page could not be opened on 2026-08-11 from our environment, so the claim it supports is stated in its narrowest form and flagged in the text.
- 4. Statistics Canada · Table 17-10-0005-01 Population estimates on July 1, by age and gender · fetched 2026-08-11 · https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501