National snapshot
NZ childcare & ECE statistics
Aggregated statistics from the Ministry of Education ECE Directory. All figures computed at build time from the current dataset.
National overview
4,378
Licensed ECE services
191,910
Children enrolled
sum across all services
4,376
Offering 20 Hrs ECE
100% of all services
3,132
Accepting under 2s
72% of all services
By service type
| Service type | Count | % of total | Avg roll size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Childcare Centre | 2,561 | 58.5% | ~75 |
| Kindergarten | 674 | 15.4% | ~41 |
| Kōhanga Reo | 515 | 11.8% | ~21 |
| Playcentre | 379 | 8.7% | ~26 |
| Home-based Care | 229 | 5.2% | ~8 |
| Hospital-based | 20 | 0.5% | ~10 |
Top 10 regions
Services by regional council
Auckland Region1,411(32.2%)
Canterbury Region492(11.2%)
Waikato Region481(11.0%)
Wellington Region405(9.3%)
Bay of Plenty Region354(8.1%)
Manawatū-Whanganui Region235(5.4%)
Hawke's Bay Region213(4.9%)
Northland Region208(4.8%)
Otago Region178(4.1%)
Taranaki Region107(2.4%)
Top 10 cities
Services by city
Auckland1,183(27.0%)
Christchurch296(6.8%)
Hamilton184(4.2%)
Wellington146(3.3%)
Tauranga142(3.2%)
Lower Hutt94(2.1%)
Rotorua82(1.9%)
Hastings76(1.7%)
Palmerston North74(1.7%)
Dunedin72(1.6%)
Children enrolled by ethnicity
National ethnicity snapshot
47%
20%
19%
9%
European / Pākehā112,487(47.3%)
Māori47,899(20.2%)
Asian44,758(18.8%)
Pacific21,855(9.2%)
Other10,686(4.5%)
Ethnicity data uses multiple-response classification — individuals may be counted in more than one group. Source: Ministry of Education ECE Directory.