NAICS 624410 · California overview

Child Day Care Services in San Bernardino County

San Bernardino County had 258 Childcare establishments in 2023, ranking 11 of 53 California counties and accounting for 2.7% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
258
Rank 11 of 53 counties
Employees
4,069
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$101M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
1.2
2,224,091 residents

More recent reading

BLS QCEW, 2026Q1

The figures above are County Business Patterns, which carries the size distribution but runs about two years behind. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes quarterly, so this is the same industry roughly 3 years later. The two count different universes, Census counts establishments with paid employees in the March pay period and BLS counts worksites covered by unemployment insurance during the quarter, so the numbers are not directly comparable and either can be the larger.

Establishments
266
2026Q1
Employment
2,360
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$700
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
+4.7%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

0.44 location quotient. Childcare employment in San Bernardino County is about 2.3 times less concentrated than in the United States as a whole.

Computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not derived here. Above 1.0 means the industry is a larger share of local employment than of national employment.

Establishments by size

Employee-count distribution for Childcare in San Bernardino County. 73 of 258 establishments (28%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-414255.0%
5-94115.9%
10-194115.9%
20-492911.2%
50-9931.2%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net growth of 15.2% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
2020224n/a
2021227+3
2022228+1
2023258+30

How this market compares

San Bernardino County against every other county in California on the same measure. The median excludes places under 2,000 residents, where per-capita figures are arithmetically true but analytically useless.

Thinly served1.2 per 10,000 residents, against a state median of 2.6

Well below the state median. Either a genuine gap in provision or a market served from somewhere nearby. Worth checking the neighbouring places below before drawing a conclusion.

Vs state median
-55%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#11
of 53 counties
Rank by density
#52
of 53 ranked
Since 2020
+15%
Change in establishments

Density compares child day care services provision per resident. It does not measure revenue, profitability or whether a market is worth entering.

Business size mix

San Bernardino tracks the California size distribution closely.

Share of establishmentsSan BernardinoCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer55.0%53.2%+1.8%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target43.0%45.0%-1.9%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing28.3%27.3%+1.0%

What acquirers look at

License capacity is the asset and it does not transfer automatically in California. Staff-to-child ratio requirements cap margin structurally.

Cities in San Bernardino

The figures above cover the county as a whole. These are the places within it.

Other industries in San Bernardino

Sources

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 County Business Patterns. Establishment counts, employment and annual payroll by NAICS. Retrieved 2026-09-08.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (2026Q1). Quarterly establishment counts and employment for employers covered by unemployment insurance. Retrieved 2026-09-08.