MapleCub Data Lab · City snapshot · 2026

Saskatoon child care, in numbers — 2026 snapshot

Saskatoon has 469 licensed child-care programs, 35.5% of everything Saskatchewan publishes — with what the registry does, and does not, record about them.

  • Computed 2026-08-11
  • N = 469 programs
  • 20,516 across eight registries
  • CC BY 4.0

469

licensed programs

89

centres

380

licensed family homes

7.9%

publish opening hours

81% of Saskatoon’s licensed programs are family homes: 380 of them, against 89 centres. That is the highest family-home share among Canada’s 30 largest municipal child-care markets. That mix is set by provincial licensing law more than by local demand: some provinces license each home individually, others license home care through agencies that never appear as separate records. Altogether MapleCub lists 469 licensed child-care programs in Saskatoon, 35.5% of all the licensed programs Saskatchewan publishes.

Saskatoon publishes opening and closing times for 37 of its programs (7.9%) and age ranges for 24 (5.1%). Where hours are known, 11 programs open by 7 a.m. and 13 stay open past 6 p.m. The remaining 432 programs have not published a schedule anywhere we can read it. Both counts are floors.

The numbers

Licensed child-care supply and published-data coverage, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 2026
Licensed child-care supply and published-data coverage in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 2026
MeasureValueWhat it means
Licensed programs46935.5% of Saskatchewan's 1,320 licensed programs.
Centres8919% of the city's licensed programs.
Licensed family homes38081% of the city's licensed programs.
Age ranges published24 (5.1%)Programs whose served age groups are recorded, so an infant or school-age filter can find them.
Opening hours published37 (7.9%)Both an opening and a closing time on file. 432 programs publish neither.
Open by 7 a.m.1129.7% of the 37 programs with known hours. Partial data — a program with no published schedule is not counted either way.
Open past 6 p.m.1335.1% of the 37 programs with known hours. Same partial-data caveat.
Reduced-fee programsNot publishedSaskatchewan's registry does not distinguish which licensed programs offer the reduced fee.
French-language programsNot recordedSaskatchewan's registry does not record the language of instruction, so no count can be published without inventing one.
Programs with a public rating22 (4.7%)Average 4.38 out of 5. Matching requires name agreement, so this undercounts rather than overcounts.

Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 469 · CSV · Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; visible listings only

Centres or homes: where Saskatoon sits

Saskatoon sits at 81%. The 30 largest municipal markets hold 9,998 licensed programs between them, 48.7% of the national dataset, and they do not run on the same kind of supply: Saskatoon and Regina are family-home cities, while 4 Quebec cities have no individually licensed homes at all.

Licensed family homes as a share of licensed programs, 15 highest shares of the 30 largest markets, 2026
Licensed family homes as a share of licensed child-care programs, 15 highest shares of the 30 largest markets, 2026Saskatoon81%Regina79%Prince George54.8%Delta46.2%Maple Ridge46.1%Nanaimo41%Abbotsford40.3%Coquitlam38%Chilliwack37.2%Winnipeg36.5%Surrey34%North Vancouver31.7%Kamloops30.4%Langley28.4%Victoria27.9%0%25%50%75%100%Share of the city's licensed programs that are licensed family homes

Source: MapleCub Canadian Childcare Dataset — Aug 2026 · computed 2026-08-10 · N = 9,998 · CSV · community = normalized city name within a province

What this snapshot cannot tell you

Program counts are not space counts: no province in this dataset publishes licensed capacity for Saskatoon in a form that survives comparison, so 469 counts licences a parent can look up rather than rooms with a free spot. Opening hours come from provider-published schedules rather than the registry, which is why 432 of 469 programs have none on file. And every figure here is a snapshot of 2026-08-11 — licences open and close weekly.

Saskatchewan's registry does not distinguish which licensed programs offer the reduced fee. Every row in that column carries the same value, so any percentage computed from it would carry the look of a finding without the substance of one. This page prints the sentence instead.

Looking for a place, not a statistic?

Browse all 469 licensed programs in Saskatoon with filters for age group, hours and subsidy, or read the national picture these numbers came from.

Cite as: MapleCub, “Saskatoon child care, in numbers — 2026 snapshot,” 2026-08-11, https://www.maplecub.ca/research/saskatoon-childcare-snapshot. Released under CC BY 4.0. More open data: MapleCub Data Lab.