How Much Is a Childcare Centre Worth? (2025–2026 Guide)

The honest answer to “how much is a childcare centre worth” is a range, not a number — and which end of the range you sit at depends almost entirely on what you are actually selling. A leasehold business and a freehold property carry the same children through the same gate every morning, but they are priced in completely different currencies. Get clear on which one you own, and the question stops being a mystery and becomes arithmetic.

Here are the price ranges childcare centres are trading at across 2025 and 2026, and the handful of factors that decide where a particular centre lands.

First, what are you actually selling?

A childcare centre changes hands in one of two forms. A leasehold sale transfers the operating business only — the goodwill, the enrolments, the staff and the licence — while the buyer keeps paying rent in someone else’s building. A freehold going concern transfers the property and the business together. The two forms answer to different valuation methods and sit in different price brackets, which is why owners who lump them together end up confused about what their centre is “worth.” If you are unsure which category applies to you, our guide to leasehold versus freehold childcare sets out the distinction in full.

What leasehold childcare businesses are selling for

A leasehold business is priced as a multiple of its adjusted EBITDA — the centre’s normalised earnings. We won’t rebuild the method here; the way the multiple and the cap rate each work is covered in our breakdown of EBITDA multiples versus cap rates, and the figure you multiply only counts once it has been adjusted, which is its own discipline (the adjustments childcare buyers look for routinely move stated earnings by 20–40%).

On the numbers, specialist childcare brokers and valuers report that leasehold going-concern businesses commonly trade in a band of about three to five times adjusted EBITDA, with single-site centres frequently landing near four times and the strongest performers pushing higher. Translated into dollars, that puts most leasehold childcare businesses somewhere in the $500,000 to $3 million range, depending on size, location and how full the centre runs. A small regional centre with a short lease anchors the bottom of that band; a large, near-full metropolitan centre on a long lease with a settled team sits at the top.

The lease is the lever that moves a leasehold centre most. A centre with 15-plus years of term and options ahead of it is a far more financeable, far more saleable asset than the identical business with five years left — and the price gap between the two can be larger than any difference in their earnings.

What freehold childcare properties are selling for

When the building is included, the property is priced off its capitalisation rate — the net rent as a percentage of price, where a lower yield means a higher price for the same income. The mechanics and the drivers are set out in our piece on childcare cap rates in Australia; the relevant point here is what those yields have actually been.

They have been firm and, in the best cases, sharp. On Stonebridge Property Group’s 2025 review, metropolitan freehold childcare yields sat in the 4.25%–5.25% band and regional assets in the 5.25%–6.25% band, with yields tightening roughly 90 to 130 basis points across the year. CBRE Research, in its March 2026 Child Care Centres: Intelligent Investment report, framed the broad market at 4.00%–6.00% and noted that 2025 transaction volumes reached around $850 million — close to double a normal year of roughly $450 million — with the keenest metro deals going further still, including G8 Education’s Vaucluse asset in NSW transacting at a market-low 3.31%.

Those yields convert into real prices. Burgess Rawson and CBRE booked a combined $241.6 million across FY2024–25 and ran a record $151 million auction series in December 2025; a purpose-built centre at Charmhaven on the NSW Central Coast sold for $8.1 million on a 5.47% yield, and several Sydney centres traded above $10 million in early 2026. A useful sense-check sits underneath all of this: CBRE Research puts typical rents at around $4,500 per licensed place in metropolitan locations, about $4,000 in commuter suburbs, and $3,000–$3,500 regionally — so a 90-place metro centre carrying roughly $400,000 of net rent, capitalised at 5%, implies a building worth in the order of $8 million before the business value is counted.

Why two centres with the same revenue sell for very different prices

Owners are frequently surprised that a centre down the road with similar fees and similar enrolments fetched a very different price. Revenue is the headline; it is rarely the answer. The factors that actually separate two superficially similar centres — lease term, occupancy stability, NQF rating, staffing depth, location and competition — are covered in detail in what affects the price of a childcare centre. The short version is that buyers pay for certainty of future earnings, not last year’s turnover, and every one of those factors is really a measure of how confident a buyer can be that the income will still be there in three years.

This is also why a credible answer to “what is my centre worth” cannot come from a per-place rule of thumb alone. A rule of thumb gets you to the right suburb; it does not get you to the right house.

How to turn a range into a number

If you want to move from a broad band to a figure that reflects your specific centre, there are two practical steps. Start with a fast indicative estimate using our free childcare centre value estimator, which puts your size, occupancy and lease into the same framework a buyer would. Then, when the timing is real, get a specialist appraisal that normalises your earnings and reads your lease properly — because the difference between a stated number and an adjusted one is exactly where deals are won or lost. For the full method behind both, our complete guide to valuing a childcare centre walks through every step.

Key Takeaway

A childcare centre is worth a range, and which end of it you reach is set by what you are selling and how well you have prepared. Leasehold businesses largely trade at three to five times adjusted EBITDA; freehold properties have been clearing on metro yields around 4.25%–5.25% and regional yields around 5.25%–6.25% through 2025–2026. Know your form, fix your occupancy and lease before you list, and the number takes care of itself.

Want to know what your centre is worth in today’s market? Try our free childcare centre value estimator for a fast indicative figure — or talk to ChildcareLink for a confidential, specialist appraisal. Visit childcarelink.com.au or contact our team directly.

Sources

• Specialist childcare brokers and business valuers — adjusted EBITDA multiple benchmarks (~3–5x) and indicative leasehold business price bands for going-concern childcare businesses
• Stonebridge Property Group — 2025 childcare transaction review (transaction volume, metro and regional yield bands, yield compression)
• CBRE Research — “Child Care Centres: Intelligent Investment”, March 2026 (cap rate range, 2025 transaction volumes, G8 Education Vaucluse yield, rent-per-place benchmarks)
• Burgess Rawson / CBRE — FY2024–25 transaction turnover and December 2025 auction series; Charmhaven NSW sale and yield
• The Sector / market reporting — Sydney childcare transactions above $10M, early 2026

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. ChildcareLink recommends seeking independent professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances before making any business or investment decisions.