Cost of Raising a Child in Canada

How much does it cost to raise a child in Canada?

For a typical middle-income Canadian household, raising one child from birth through age 17 costs roughly $269,500 in 2026 dollars, before post-secondary education. Spread across 18 years, that is about $14,972 a year, or $1,248 a month, for the entire time your child lives at home. The figure is built from Statistics Canada household spending data on families with children, brought forward to current dollars.

Where you live inside Canada moves this number a lot. Ontario and British Columbia, especially the Greater Toronto Area and Metro Vancouver, run well above the national average because of housing costs. Quebec has historically run below average thanks to its long-established low-fee child care system, and that gap is starting to appear nationally as the $10-a-day child care rollout matures. The calculator above adjusts for income, province, and family size, the three factors that move the number the most.

How the cost of raising a child in Canada calculator works

1. It starts from a Statistics Canada-based national baseline. We begin with Statistics Canada Survey of Household Spending data for a middle-income, two-child family, brought forward to 2026 dollars using the Consumer Price Index. That baseline is about $275,000 per child before adjustment.
2. It adjusts for your income. Spending on children rises with household income. Moving the income slider scales the estimate from $20,000 to $350,000-plus of household income.
3. It adjusts for your province. Ontario and British Columbia run above the national average; Quebec and Atlantic Canada typically run below it, reflecting both housing costs and child care policy differences.
4. It adjusts for the number of children. Bigger families spend less per child thanks to shared bedrooms, hand-me-downs, and bulk shopping, so the per-child figure rises for one-child families and falls for three or more.

You can also add an optional estimate for four years of post-secondary education living away from home, currently about $76,000 including domestic tuition of roughly $6,800 a year plus residence and living costs. That figure sits outside the birth-to-18 total and is clearly labelled.

A worked example

Take the default: a household earning $90,000, two children, national average province. That comes to roughly $269,500 per child to age 18, about $14,972 a year. Add four years of post-secondary and the combined figure rises to about $345,500.

Now change the province to Ontario. The same two-child family climbs to about $291,060, an increase of over $21,000 driven mostly by housing. Switch instead to Quebec and the total falls to roughly $242,550, a difference of nearly $49,000 between Canada's two most populous provinces, largely explained by Quebec's decades-old low-fee child care system and comparatively lower housing costs outside Montreal.

Where the money actually goes

The result panel breaks the total into categories using Canadian household expenditure patterns for families with children:

• Housing, about 29 percent. The single biggest cost, and the category most affected by province, especially Ontario and BC.
• Childcare and education, about 21 percent. The category most affected by the $10-a-day rollout and by whether you are in Quebec.
• Food, about 18 percent. Rises steadily through the teenage years.
• Transport, about 15 percent. Vehicle costs, fuel, and eventually driving lessons and insurance for a teen driver.
• Healthcare, about 4 percent. Lower than the US equivalent thanks to public healthcare; this share covers dental, vision, and other extras not covered by provincial plans.
• Clothing, about 6 percent, and miscellaneous, about 7 percent. Activities, school supplies, phones, and everything else.

$10-a-day child care and the Canada Child Benefit

Two forms of government support materially change the real-world number for many Canadian families, kept separate from our headline figure since eligibility and access vary.

$10-a-day child care. Under the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care agreements, provinces and territories are rolling out regulated child care spaces at an average of $10 a day, following Quebec's long-running model. Rollout speed and space availability differ by province and by neighbourhood, so many families are still paying market rates while they wait for a subsidized space. Our childcare category reflects a blended average that will keep falling as the rollout matures; check your province's current fee schedule for your real number.

Canada Child Benefit. Most Canadian families receive the Canada Child Benefit, a tax-free monthly payment worth up to about $7,787 a year for a child under 6 and $6,570 a year for a child aged 6 to 17, phased out gradually as household net income rises. Over 18 years, this can offset well over $100,000 of the totals above for eligible lower and middle-income families. We show it as a note rather than subtracting it, since the exact amount depends on income and province.

Assumptions and methodology

• Default values. The tool loads with $90,000 household income, the national average province, two children, and post-secondary off, producing a default estimate of about $269,500 per child.
• The baseline derives from Statistics Canada Survey of Household Spending data for families with children, brought forward to 2026 dollars using Statistics Canada's Consumer Price Index.
• Income and family-size adjustments follow the general income-elasticity relationship found in Canadian household spending research. Provincial adjustments reflect cost-of-living and child care policy differences and are approximate.
• Post-secondary costs assume a typical four-year degree with the student living away from home, at 2026 domestic tuition and residence levels.
• $10-a-day child care and the Canada Child Benefit are noted but not automatically subtracted, since eligibility, access, and take-up vary by family and province.

Frequently asked questions