Licensed Infant Care in Queens, NY

Infant Care in Queens

As of August 2026

Queens' child care directory on CloverMap looks different from its neighboring boroughs: of 727 total licensed and registered providers, 647 - about 89 percent - are center-based programs permitted by the city health department, with only 39 home-based and 41 school-age programs registered with New York State rounding out the total. Ratings coverage is strong too, with 360 providers carrying a Google rating and averaging 4.4 stars; 203 of those are rated 4.5 stars or higher. Forty-four providers also hold QUALITYstarsNY ratings.

What to know about childcare in Queens

Queens stands out for how lopsided its provider mix is toward center-based care. Of the borough's 727 total providers, 647 are DOHMH-permitted centers, while home-based programs (39) and school-age programs (41) registered with OCFS make up a comparatively small share. In practical terms, the vast majority of Queens listings on CloverMap are center-based, which makes the borough a good fit for parents who are specifically looking for that setting.

Ratings coverage in Queens runs high relative to the borough's size: 360 providers, close to half the total, carry a Google rating. The average across that group is 4.4 stars, and 203 of them, more than half of everyone rated, come in at 4.5 stars or higher. That combination of broad rating coverage and a strong average gives Queens parents a comparatively large pool of well-reviewed options to start from.

Forty-four Queens providers hold a QUALITYstarsNY rating, New York's statewide quality rating and improvement system. It's a smaller number than the Google-rated group, but as an independently assessed signal it's a useful complement to reviews when comparing a shortlist of centers.

Even in a borough this center-heavy, both regulators are in play. DOHMH permits and oversees the center-based programs that make up most of Queens' listings, while OCFS licenses or registers the smaller set of home-based and school-age programs. The two systems operate independently of each other, and CloverMap draws from both so that the full range of legally operating options, not just the majority category, shows up in one place.

Because centers dominate the Queens list so heavily, families searching for a home-based setting specifically will want to filter down early, since that group represents a small fraction of the total. A provider like KIDS 'N SHAPE sits among the borough's rated centers, and given how many Queens providers carry both a Google rating and, in some cases, a QUALITYstarsNY rating, cross-checking both is a fast way to build a shortlist worth visiting.

It's worth remembering that Queens' small home-based and school-age categories aren't interchangeable with each other, even though both sit outside the dominant center-based group. The 39 home-based providers and 41 school-age providers registered with OCFS serve different age ranges and settings, so a parent looking specifically for one or the other should filter directly rather than treating the non-center group as a single pool. Paired with the borough's strong rating coverage, that kind of targeted filtering tends to work well even within a smaller category.