How much does it really cost to raise a child? Enter your family, where you live, your income and your kids’ ages to see what families like yours spend each year, where the money goes, and the total until your youngest turns 18.
Cost of raising a kid calculator
The short answer
A middle-income married couple with two kids spends about $332,000 on each child from birth to age 17, in 2026 dollars. That works out to roughly $18,450 a year. Families earning less spend closer to $248,000 per child, and higher-income families spend about $529,000. An only child costs about 27% more per year, so around $422,000 for a middle-income couple.
Housing is the biggest piece at about 28% of the total, followed by food (18%), child care and education (16%) and transportation (15%). Health care, clothing and everything else make up the rest.
Where these numbers come from
- The spending figures are from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Expenditures on Children by Families report, which is still the government’s most recent estimate. It is built from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and breaks costs down by age, income, region and family type.
- USDA published the figures in 2015 dollars. We updated them to 2026 prices using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (September 2026 versus the 2015 average, a rise of about 42%). The income brackets are updated the same way.
- Family size follows USDA’s own adjustments: an only child costs 27% more per year than one of two kids, and each child in a family of three or more costs 24% less. Single-parent figures use USDA’s separate single-parent table, which covers the whole country rather than separate regions.
- The future total adds up each remaining year as your kids move through the age groups, and drops each child from the count at 18. The figure with yearly price rises assumes the rate you enter. College is not included.
How to read your result
- Housing means the extra space a child needs, such as a bigger apartment or an extra bedroom, not your whole rent or mortgage.
- Child care and education is the average among families who pay for it, across all kinds of care. If you pay for full-time daycare, compare it with prices near you, since daycare costs vary a lot from one area to the next. Untick the child care box if you don’t pay for any.
- These are averages for families like yours, not a budget. Your own spending can sit well above or below them, which is exactly why it helps to compare.
Ways to lower the bill
- Check whether you qualify for the Child Tax Credit and the Child and Dependent Care Credit on the IRS website. Both can return a real share of what you spend.
- Look up child care help and licensed providers in your state at Childcare.gov.
- Hand-me-downs, shared rooms and buying clothes one size ahead all help, which is part of why each extra child costs less than the first.
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