CACFP reimbursement rates

Center rates, July 2026 – June 2027

USDA publishes the national average payment rates for centers in a Federal Register notice each July. The rates below are for July 1 2026 through June 30 2027, contiguous states, and come from notice 2026-15071 published 2026-07-27.

Centers are reimbursed per meal at one of three rates depending on the child's eligibility category, and a program may claim up to two meals and one snack, or two snacks and one meal, per child per day.

Rates are adjusted annually on July 1 to the Consumer Price Index. This year's center rates reflect a 3.54% increase in the Food Away From Home series between May 2025 and May 2026.

Child care centers, outside-school-hours care centers, at-risk afterschool centers and adult day care centers. Contiguous states; the District of Columbia uses these figures. Alaska and Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are higher. Rates exclude the value of USDA Foods or cash-in-lieu.

Day care home rates and the two tiers

Day care homes are reimbursed on a different basis and at two tiers. Tier I applies to homes in lower-income areas or to providers meeting an income test; Tier II applies to the rest. The gap between them is substantial.

For the same period, contiguous states: breakfast $1.74 Tier I and $0.62 Tier II; lunch or supper $3.31 and $1.99; snack $0.98 and $0.27.

Home rates are adjusted to the Food At Home index rather than Food Away From Home — this year a 2.74% increase. That is why home and center rates drift apart slightly over time.

Day care homes, contiguous states, July 1 2026 – June 30 2027. Homes participate through a sponsoring organization rather than directly.

Sponsors, and how homes actually join

A day care home does not join CACFP directly — it joins through a sponsoring organization that handles the claims, the training and the monitoring visits. The sponsor is paid separately by USDA for that administration.

Sponsor administrative payments for the same period, contiguous states: $157 a month for each of the first 50 homes, $119 for the next 150, $93 for the next 800 and $82 for each additional home.

For a provider, the practical question is which sponsor operates in your area and what their monitoring cadence is. The reimbursement is set by USDA and does not vary between sponsors; the paperwork burden does.

What it comes to in practice

A center serving a breakfast, a lunch and an afternoon snack to a free-rate child claims $2.54 plus $4.76 plus $1.30 — $8.60 a day, or $43 across a five-day week, for one child.

At the paid rate the same three meals come to $0.99 a day. The spread between the categories is the whole reason the eligibility paperwork matters, and it is why programs serving lower-income communities gain most.

Against a food line that exists either way, that is the single clearest improvement available to a childcare budget. The cost is the record-keeping: menus, meal counts, eligibility forms and the sponsor's or state agency's review. Plan the week against the meal pattern before you claim it with the daycare menu planner.