Daycare in Somerville.

Somerville is a small, dense city stacked on a hill across the river from Boston, with Cambridge to the south and Medford to the north. The triple-decker is the dominant housing form, and the neighborhood compass runs from Davis Square at the northwest to Union Square in the south, with Powderhouse, Winter Hill, East Somerville, Ten Hills, and Magoun Square in between. The Red Line, the Green Line extension to Union Square and Tufts, and the 87 and 88 buses shape commutes. Somerville's daycare market is unusually deep for its size: a dense family child care home network on the residential side streets, several long-running community centers, and the Somerville Public Schools Pre-K program with school-day classrooms in elementary buildings. The city has invested heavily in early education over the last decade, and the supply reflects it.

What you'll actually pay

In 2026 dollars, full-time center-based daycare in Somerville runs roughly $2,200 to $2,800 per month for infants and roughly $1,800 to $2,300 per month for preschool-age children, drawing on the National Database of Childcare Prices for Middlesex County and on EEC licensing data. EEC-licensed family child care homes price lower, in the $1,500 to $1,850 per month range for infants, and they are the largest single share of supply across the city. Nanny shares run $1,800 to $2,250 per child per month.

Somerville tuition sits slightly below Cambridge for comparable programs, a gap that reflects more home-based supply and smaller average site footprints. The triple-decker housing stock has made family child care home licensing under 606 CMR 7.00 unusually practical here, and the city's Somerville Family Learning Collaborative has invested in coaching, peer networks, and quality improvement for home-based providers. The Pre-K program through SPS adds a free school-day option for four-year-olds at participating sites.

EEC licensing and the quality floor

Every Somerville center and family child care home is licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care under 606 CMR 7.00. The regulation sets ratios, background checks, square-footage minimums, curriculum standards, and incident reporting. EEC publishes each provider's licensing history on its public portal, and a Somerville family should pull the report before signing a deposit. Somerville also has a higher-than-average concentration of QRIS Level 3 and 4 providers, in part because the Somerville Family Learning Collaborative has invested in quality coaching across the home-based supply, and in part because the SPS Pre-K and CPPI partnerships set high quality standards.

Somerville Public Schools Pre-K

Somerville Public Schools runs a Pre-K program for four-year-olds in elementary school buildings, with a smaller number of three-year-old seats. Pre-K is tuition-free for Somerville residents, is school-day rather than full-day, and follows the SPS school-year calendar. The application runs through the SPS Family Welcome Center on a centralized timeline in the winter before the fall start. Somerville also participates in the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative, the state grant that funds high-quality preschool seats at community providers partnered with public schools. A Somerville family with a four-year-old should apply to SPS Pre-K and rank multiple sites; a family with a three-year-old should ask about the SPS three-year-old seats and CPPI partners.

Massachusetts Child Care Financial Assistance

Income-eligible families can apply for Child Care Financial Assistance (CCFA), the Massachusetts subsidy administered through the Child Care Resource and Referral network. CCFA pays part of the cost at a participating EEC-licensed provider, with a family copay set on a sliding scale based on household income and family size. The subsidy can be used at a center or an EEC-licensed family child care home with an open contracted slot. Somerville has a strong CCFA supply across both centers and family child care homes, partly because the Somerville Family Learning Collaborative has actively recruited home-based providers into the subsidy network.

Federal credits and the Massachusetts stack

Three federal tools stack on top of any SPS Pre-K seat or CCFA subsidy: the federal Child and Dependent Care Credit on IRS Form 2441, the Dependent Care FSA (up to $5,000 per household per year of pre-tax savings), and the federal Child Tax Credit. Massachusetts adds a state Dependent Care Tax Credit at $310 per qualifying child as of the 2024 tax year, expanded to apply to every qualifying child, plus a refundable Massachusetts Earned Income Tax Credit at 40 percent of the federal EITC. A two-earner Somerville household paying the full private rate typically recovers $1,800 to $2,400 in combined federal tax savings on the $5,000 FSA alone, plus the state credit.

Sample Somerville centers

Listings reflect editorial picks, not paid placements, and pricing is the published rate before any subsidized seat or federal and state tax credit. Verified by DaycareSquare editorial — last reviewed May 2026. Full Somerville listings directory is in progress.

Frequently asked

Where to go next

Walk through the cost calculator to model your Somerville year with the FSA, the federal Child and Dependent Care Credit, and the Massachusetts state credit factored in. Read our Massachusetts UPK explainer, the Boston-area cost overview, the broader cost pillar, and our daycare comparison checklist before you book visits. For neighboring areas, see Cambridge daycare and Brookline daycare, or step back to all Boston.