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Raising a Child to 18 Now Costs $303,418 on Average, LendingTree Finds
ReRaising a Child to 18 Now Costs $303,418 on Average, LendingTree Finds
LendingTree's 2026 analysis puts the cost of raising a child through age 18 above $300,000 for the first time, with housing the biggest driver and Hawaii the most expensive state.
The cost of raising a child through age 18 in the United States has reached $303,418, according to LendingTree's latest annual analysis. It is the first time the estimate has topped $300,000 since the company began tracking it in 2023. The figure works out to about $16,857 a year, up 1.9% from $297,674 in the prior year's report. Over a longer period the increase is steeper: the 18-year total has risen 27.8% since LendingTree's first report.
The latest figures, released in April and based mostly on 2024 data, reflect a slowdown from earlier sharp increases. Housing was the largest driver this time. The additional rent that households with children pay compared with households without children rose 48.9%, to $1,680 a year. Infant day care, by contrast, fell 3.2%, to $17,264 a year, and was the only category to decline by more than a fraction of a percentage point. LendingTree chief consumer finance analyst Matt Schulz told Fortune that inflation is « just taking a toll, clearly, on people ».
The estimate models a married, two-earner couple with one child and a national median family income of $99,999. It counts rent, food, infant day care, clothing, transportation and health insurance premiums, minus tax exemptions and credits. It does not include college, extracurricular activities or other extras, and the figures are not adjusted for inflation.
Where a family lives can change the total by more than $210,000. Hawaii is the most expensive state by a wide margin, with a projected 18-year cost of $412,661, nearly $50,000 more than second-place Alaska at $365,047. Six states face totals above $300,000: Hawaii, Alaska, Maryland, California, New Jersey and Kansas. At the other end, projected costs in New Hampshire ($201,963), the District of Columbia ($202,115) and South Carolina ($204,213) are less than half of Hawaii's.
Some states moved sharply in a single year. Projected 18-year costs in Kansas and Alaska each rose 23.5%, and Montana's climbed 21.7%. New Hampshire recorded the steepest drop, down 29.3%, followed by North Dakota, down 20.3%.
The early years are by far the most expensive, largely because LendingTree counts day care only for a child's first five years. Families spend an estimated $29,325 a year during that stretch, compared with $12,061 a year for the following 13. The early-years figure dipped 0.3% from last year's report but is up 35.3% from the 2023 analysis. On average, those costs consume 21.9% of family income, ranging from 13.9% in D.C. to 27.4% in Hawaii. In 22 states, parents should expect to spend at least 20% of their income raising a young child.
The annual cost of raising a young child rose in 39 states and D.C. compared with last year's report, including 14 states where it climbed at least 10%. The largest increases came in Nebraska (27.4%), Montana (24.5%), Maine (24.4%) and Wisconsin (23.3%), mostly sparsely populated states. Costs fell in 11 states, led by New Hampshire, down 19.5%.
The pressure is shaping family decisions. In a separate LendingTree survey, four in five parents said child-rearing costs are rising, and two in five said finances are limiting how many children they have.
The rankings contain some surprises. Massachusetts ranks third for the annual cost of raising a young child but 18th over 18 years. D.C. ranks ninth for a young child but 50th over 18 years. In both places, households with children pay less in rent than those without, about $684 less a year in Massachusetts and $4,140 less in D.C. Day care in both is among the most expensive in the country, but once those bills end after age five, lower rent pulls the long-run totals down sharply.
For families with young children, annual costs are lowest across much of the South. Mississippi ($17,148) and Alabama ($18,019) are the least expensive states, followed by South Dakota ($18,622), the only non-Southern state among the seven cheapest. All three have infant day care costs below $10,000 a year. New Mexico ranks 45th over 18 years at $218,588, though those figures largely predate the state's move to universal free child care, which began in November 2025 and is funded by an oil and gas windfall.
Among the four most populous states, California is the fourth most expensive over 18 years at $312,300. Florida ($280,280) and New York ($278,051) rank 14th and 15th, while Texas comes in 39th at $229,891. Florida recorded the largest increase of the four, at 10.3%.
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