Fewer children attend Brandenburg day-care, but the region keeps its places

Brandenburg is caring for fewer children in day-care, but the number of available places across the Berlin-Brandenburg region has barely changed.

About 2.7% fewer children attended childcare in Brandenburg last year than in 2025, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office. The capital region still had around 429,000 places, including approximately 192,146 in Brandenburg, mostly in public and private facilities.

Coverage remained highest among children aged 3 to under 6. In spring 2026, 97.7% of children in that age group attended a childcare facility. More than half of the roughly 75,000 children under 3 also received care. Märkisch-Oderland recorded the highest rate for children under 3, at 60.1%.

The sharpest fall in demand came in childminding, where 15.6% fewer children were cared for. The number of childminders fell by almost the same proportion, dropping 14.1% to 480.

The figures also show a clear gap between Berlin and Brandenburg in services offered. More than half of children in Berlin received full-day care, compared with slightly more than one-third in Brandenburg. Nearly all children in Berlin had access to a lunch service, while the share in Brandenburg stood at around 80%. The regions differed in family background as well: 17% of children in Brandenburg had at least one parent with foreign roots, compared with 41.7% in Berlin.