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Philadelphia County, PA — Day care Saturation

How many day care exist per person present — residents plus daytime workers — by ZIP code, compared with the U.S. average. Establishment data: Census ZBP 2023. Population: ACS 2024 5-year. 54 ZIP codes analyzed.

Includes: Child day care centers · Preschools & pre-K · Family home day care · After-school programs. Counted together because official statistics use one 624410 code.

Measured density: High density — 1.89× the U.S. rate (between 1.89× and 1.90× once withheld ZIP cells are counted)

Why a range: Census does not publish a ZIP-by-industry count when that ZIP has 0–2 businesses. 9 ZIP cells in this county are withheld, 2 of them with residents. Each could hold 0, 1, or 2 businesses: counting them all as 0 gives the low end, counting them all as 2 gives the high end — the data cannot say where the truth sits. The density range uses only the populated cells, since ZIPs without residents are excluded from per-person rates. How ranges work

High density   Philadelphia County day care — 189–190% of the U.S. rate

739 day care are counted in Philadelphia County — 3.8 per 10,000 people present (residents + daytime workers), 189% of the U.S. rate of 2.0.

On the comparable ZIP set (ZIPs with a published count in every year), the total has risen 18% between 2015 and 2023 (627 → 739). That set is smaller than today's county total. 2020–2021 were pandemic-distorted, and Census rounds counts, so small moves are within noise.

Measured supply density is highest in 19139 (Philadelphia), 19151 (Philadelphia), 19144 (Philadelphia) — well above the national rate. On measured density alone, the lowest-density residential ZIPs with a published count are 19154 (Philadelphia), 19114 (Philadelphia), 19148 (Philadelphia).

Census County Business Patterns (2023) puts the county-wide count at 740 establishments, including locations in ZIP codes that do not map to a ZCTA — so it can run slightly above the sum of the ZIP rows on this page. It is annual, so it lags more than QCEW.

Measured density: Philadelphia County sits at 189% of the U.S. rate for day care. 2 ZIPs with population have no published count (each 0–2 businesses), so the true per-capita rate is between 189% and 190% of the U.S. rate. Why. The highest measured density is in 19139 and 19151; the lowest measured density is in 19154 and 19114.

This is a supply-side read: it counts existing day care and the people present, not foot traffic, income, rent, or whether locals want more. Treat low density as a question to check, not an answer.

Day care
739–757
published count; upper bound counts each withheld ZIP cell as 2 (9 cells) (2023)
Per 10,000 present
3.8
residents + daytime workers
U.S. average
2.0
per 10,000 present
County index
1.89×
vs. U.S.
Latest year (CBP)
740
2023 — $229M annual payroll
Residents
1,580,199
47 ZIPs with data
Workers
690,182
jobs located in county

Is the area growing?

Population
1,573,916
Census PEP, July 1 2024
Change since 2020
−1.7%
−26,872 people
Net migration 2024
+5,989
international +21,321, domestic −15,332
Jobs located here
720,974
LODES 2022, −1.4% since 2019

Philadelphia County had an estimated 1,573,916 residents on July 1, 2024 — 1.7% fewer than in 2020 (−26,872). In the latest year it gained 10,567 people: births minus deaths +4,645, international migration +21,321, domestic migration −15,332. Components are published separately and may not sum exactly.

720,974 jobs were located in the county in 2022 (−1.4% since 2019), and 644,369 employed residents lived there (−2.0% since 2019). LODES counts wage and salary jobs covered by unemployment insurance plus federal jobs; it excludes the self-employed and military, and counts jobs rather than unique people. 2019→2022 spans the pandemic, so read it as one change, not a trend.

Population and migration say whether the customer base is growing. They do not say whether people want another business of this type. Definitions and limits →  ·  Full county detail →

ZIP gaining residents
2015–19 → 2020–24
Change
19121 Philadelphia
+28.4%
19144 Philadelphia
+15.3%
ZIP losing residents
2015–19 → 2020–24
Change
19134 Philadelphia
−13.7%

ACS 5-year estimates for 2015–2019 and 2020–2024. Only ZIPs with at least 2,000 residents in both windows and a change larger than the survey margin of error (90%) are listed — small ZIPs move a lot on paper without a real signal.

Nonemployer businesses (no paid employees)

Nonemployer businesses
2,210
no paid employees (2024)
Receipts
$42.5M
published gross receipts
Receipts per business
$19K
gross, not profit

Census Nonemployer Statistics counts businesses with no paid employees — a separate universe from the employer establishments counted above; a business is in one or the other, never both. They are not storefronts by definition: many are home-based, mobile, or part-time.

We show them beside the density index, not inside it. In categories such as nail and beauty salons, child care, and pet care, one-person businesses can outnumber employer establishments, so the employer-only count understates how many businesses exist. That is not evidence of higher demand.

Receipts are gross revenue reported for these businesses — not profit, and not the size of the local market. Census publishes this only at county level, so it is not shown on the ZIP map. See methodology.

Saturation map

Each ZIP area is shaded by its density of this business type per person present (residents + workers) vs. the U.S. average. Click any ZIP to zoom to its boundary, see its numbers, and switch to aerial imagery. Individual mapped shops appear as dots at street level — Show locations zooms you in to them (scroll or double-click to zoom).

Basemap:
Under 50% 50–100% 100–150% 150–250% 250%+ 0–2 (not published) / no data ZIP total (dot size) Mapped shop (OpenStreetMap, street level)

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, tiles by OpenFreeMap.

White dots are ZIP totals from the official Census count — the bigger the dot, the more day care in that ZIP. They are aggregated, not individual shops. Turquoise dots are individual locations mapped in OpenStreetMap, shown only at street level; they are crowd-sourced and indicative, may be incomplete, and do not equal the official counts. Only the official ZIP totals feed the saturation index.

Market trend — up 18% since 2015

Number of day care in Philadelphia County across 2015–2023, on a consistent set of ZIP codes present in every year — so changes are real, not ZIP-boundary artifacts. 2015/2018 are pre-pandemic baselines; 2020/2021 are COVID-distorted.

627
2015
724
2018
740
2020
743
2021
769
2022
739
2023

Highest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
19139 Philadelphia
523%
19151 Philadelphia
459%
19144 Philadelphia
388%
19150 Philadelphia
386%
19126 Philadelphia
369%
19142 Philadelphia
363%
19141 Philadelphia
297%
19137 Philadelphia
289%
19132 Philadelphia
268%
19143 Philadelphia
259%
19129 Philadelphia
247%
19140 Philadelphia
244%
19124 Philadelphia
228%
19133 Philadelphia
215%
19136 Philadelphia
214%

Lowest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
19154 Philadelphia
48%
19114 Philadelphia
88%
19148 Philadelphia
88%
19128 Philadelphia
95%
19104 Philadelphia
95%
19115 Philadelphia
100%
19118 Philadelphia
120%
19116 Philadelphia
126%
19134 Philadelphia
130%
19146 Philadelphia
132%
19123 Philadelphia
142%
19125 Philadelphia
152%
19153 Philadelphia
153%
19120 Philadelphia
161%
19131 Philadelphia
164%
Low measured density is not evidence of opportunity. A ZIP with few day care may simply lack foot traffic, retail space, or demand. We rank only residential and mixed ZIPs here; employment hubs and visitor destinations are listed separately below. ZIPs where Census did not publish a count (0–2 businesses) are not ranked: they may be the least served of all, but the data cannot tell 0 from 1 or 2. Verify those locally.

Employment hubs & destinations

These ZIPs have far more workers (or visitors) than residents, so their counts are driven by daytime and visitor demand — not a place to read "shortage" from resident numbers alone.

ZIPNeighborhoodType ResidentsWorkersDay careIndex
19102Philadelphia Employment hub 6,19525,541 3 78%
19107Philadelphia Employment hub 14,82549,221 6 75%
19103Philadelphia Employment hub 25,900100,835 8 52%

Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.

All ZIP codes

Click a column header to sort. Index = day care per 10,000 people present (residents + 0.5×workers) ÷ the U.S. average. 100% = exactly average.

ZIPNeighborhood ResidentsWorkersDay care Per 10kIndexStatus
19139Philadelphia 43,0906,211 49 10.6 523% Very high density
19151Philadelphia 33,2672,195 32 9.3 459% Very high density
19144Philadelphia 50,58010,536 44 7.9 388% Very high density
19150Philadelphia 24,3042,511 20 7.8 386% Very high density
19126Philadelphia 17,4832,435 14 7.5 369% Very high density
19142Philadelphia 28,8292,044 22 7.4 363% Very high density
19141Philadelphia 32,38511,455 23 6.0 297% Very high density
19137Philadelphia 8,0264,385 6 5.9 289% Very high density
19132Philadelphia 33,0063,822 19 5.4 268% Very high density
19143Philadelphia 62,5724,167 34 5.3 259% Very high density
19129Philadelphia 11,9374,043 7 5.0 247% High density
19140Philadelphia 53,38514,289 30 5.0 244% High density
19124Philadelphia 71,00413,411 36 4.6 228% High density
19133Philadelphia 24,8645,300 12 4.4 215% High density
19136Philadelphia 36,2625,790 17 4.3 214% High density
19119Philadelphia 28,3564,012 13 4.3 211% High density
19149Philadelphia 56,9145,944 25 4.2 206% High density
19152Philadelphia 35,9558,473 16 4.0 196% High density
19121Philadelphia 41,5743,106 17 3.9 194% High density
19135Philadelphia 33,8035,544 14 3.8 189% High density
19122Philadelphia 25,43918,394 13 3.8 185% High density
19138Philadelphia 30,8212,419 12 3.7 185% High density
19145Philadelphia 43,4409,285 18 3.7 184% High density
19147Philadelphia 39,70410,874 16 3.5 175% High density
19111Philadelphia 66,28311,917 25 3.5 171% High density
19130Philadelphia 30,1169,905 12 3.4 169% High density
19106Philadelphia 14,59724,084 9 3.4 166% High density
19131Philadelphia 43,77614,470 17 3.3 164% High density
19120Philadelphia 66,4697,777 23 3.3 161% High density
19153Philadelphia 13,01825,536 8 3.1 153% High density
19125Philadelphia 25,1408,017 9 3.1 152% High density
19123Philadelphia 19,68123,272 9 2.9 142% Above average
19146Philadelphia 41,0587,401 12 2.7 132% Above average
19134Philadelphia 53,59414,238 16 2.6 130% Above average
19116Philadelphia 33,65410,865 10 2.6 126% Above average
19118Philadelphia 9,9784,599 3 2.4 120% Above average
19115Philadelphia 35,2798,543 8 2.0 100% Below average
19104Philadelphia 55,172106,374 21 1.9 95% Below average
19128Philadelphia 38,0397,304 8 1.9 95% Below average
19148Philadelphia 50,40033,959 12 1.8 88% Below average
19114Philadelphia 30,41117,816 7 1.8 88% Below average
19102Philadelphia 6,19525,541 3 1.6 78% Below average
19107Philadelphia 14,82549,221 6 1.5 75% Below average
19103Philadelphia 25,900100,835 8 1.0 52% Below average
19154Philadelphia 33,79615,359 4 1.0 48% Far below average
19019Philadelphia —497 0–2 — — Not published
19101Philadelphia —197 0–2 — — Not published
19105Philadelphia —44 0–2 — — Not published
19108Philadelphia 154241 0–2 — — Not published
19109Philadelphia 01,873 0–2 — — Not published
19110Philadelphia —1,185 0–2 — — Not published
19112Philadelphia 08,750 0–2 — — Not published
19127Philadelphia 5,6642,263 0–2 — — Not published
19192Philadelphia —512 0–2 — — Not published

Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.

Find an actual space in Philadelphia

The numbers above tell you how the market looks. To find a specific storefront, these marketplaces list available retail space for lease.

LoopNet
Largest commercial marketplace
Browse Philadelphia retail space →
Crexi
Free listings + market data
Browse Philadelphia retail space →
CityFeet
Retail space for lease
Browse Philadelphia retail space →

Open vacancy data (actual empty units) is only published by some cities; where it exists we show it directly. Listings above are third-party.

Census withholds some ZIP-by-industry cells to protect small businesses. 0–2 means the cell was not published (Census publishes industry counts only at 3+ per ZIP), so the ZIP is left unranked rather than counted as zero. ~ means the count is estimated from the broader industry group and can be off by a business or two.

Follow Philadelphia County and day care

When a data vintage changes or a section of this report is revised, we post it to a public update feed. No email address, no account, no tracking — and nothing is sent unless something actually changed.

Subscribe to updates (RSS) How these numbers are built →

Methodology & sources

Establishments. U.S. Census ZIP Code Business Patterns (ZBP 2023), NAICS 624410 — child day care services. Counts establishments with paid employees. ZBP is published annually with a ~2-year lag.

Fresh county signal. This industry has no clean QCEW series, so the freshest county signal is Census County Business Patterns 2023: 740 establishments and $229M in annual payroll county-wide. This count includes locations in ZIP codes that do not map to a ZCTA, so it can be slightly higher than the sum of the ZIP rows. CBP is annual and slower than QCEW. It cannot be broken down by ZIP.

Population. U.S. Census American Community Survey 2024 5-year ZCTA population (table B01003). Workers are the ZIP's total employment from the same 2023 ZBP file.

Demand ("people present"). Demand comes from residents and daytime workers: residents + 0.5 × workers. This is the single documented assumption in the model and can be tuned.

Index. index = (ZIP establishments ÷ ZIP demand × 10,000) ÷ the U.S. average for this industry (2.03 per 10,000 present). It is a supply-side density measure; it does not capture income, rent, tourism, or whether locals actually want more.

Read the full methodology →  ·  Data sources & vintages →

BizGapMap — free, no-login small-business saturation reports for major U.S. counties. Built entirely from public U.S. Census, BLS, and IRS data (ZBP 2023, ACS 2024 5-year, PEP 2024, LODES, QCEW, IRS SOI). No forecasts, no revenue guesses — withheld cells are marked, and the few derived counts are labelled as estimates.