Assistance program
Child Care and Development Block Grant
$98.7 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Administration for Children and Families, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 93.575
- What it does
- The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the primary federal funding source to help certain families with low incomes access child care and to improve the quality of child care for all children. As a block grant, CCDF gives funding to States, Territories, and Tribes to provide child care subsidies primarily through vouchers or certificates to families with low income. In addition, CCDF funds are used to improve the quality of child care for both subsidized and unsubsidized children. CCDF consists of both Discretionary funding authorized by the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act and Mandatory and Matching funding under the Social Security Act. In addition to the block grants to States, Territories and Tribes, a small portion of the CCDF is used by the Office of Child Care to provide technical assistance to lead agencies on administering the program. A small portion of CCDF is also used for child care research, demonstration and evaluation, and federal administration activities.
- Who benefits
- Children under age 13 (or, at the option of the Lead Agency, up to age 19, if physically or mentally incapable of self-care or under court supervision), who (1) reside with a family whose income does not exceed 85% of the State median income for a family of the same size, and (2) who reside with a parent (or parents) who is working or attending job training or educational program, or who are in need of, or are receiving, protective services are eligible. A Lead Agency shall re-determine a child’s eligibility for child care services no sooner than 12 months following the initial determination or most recent re-determination. Once determined eligible, children are expected to receive a minimum of 12 months of child care services, unless family income rises above 85% State median income or, at Lead Agency option, the family experiences a non-temporary cessation of work, education, or training.
- Who applies
- Eligibility for block grants: All 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Federally recognized Tribal Governments and consortia. Eligibility for technical assistance, research, demonstration, and evaluation projects can be found in the NOFOs. Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible and will be disqualified from competitive review and funding under this funding opportunity.
- Authorized by
- Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, as amended, 42 U.S. Code 9857
- Program site
- https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$728.4M
<1%
Grants
$98.0B
99%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
Administering agencies
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments