Childcare worker profession data by country
Where childcare worker is a regulated profession, how foreign qualifications are recognised and which shortage lists name it, country by country, from official registers.
39 countries have an official record for childcare worker: 38 regulate it and 7 name it on a shortage list. Comparable country-level profession salaries are not published here, so a best-paying destination cannot yet be named.
- Countries
- 39
- Regulated in
- 38
- On a shortage list in
- 7
Country by country
Open a country for its full record and sources. A dash means the register has no entry for that field.
| Country | Regulation | Recognition route | Shortage list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | Regulated | Applicants with an overseas early-childhood qualification not listed as approved can apply for ACECQA qualification assessment; assessment outcome is used to establish equivalence for relevant approved-service educator roles.ACECQA for overseas early-childhood qualification assessment; the National Quality Framework and service/employer determine whether the qualification meets the relevant educator role. | Listed2025 Occupation Shortage List (ANZSCO 2022) |
| Austria | Regulated | Qualified preschool pedagogy follows competent institution and provincial rules; assistant Kinderbetreuer roles are distinct. General system of recognition - primary application.Office depends on exact early-childhood role, qualification and federal state; national guide routes the individual case. | — |
| Belgium | Regulated | Apply for foreign professional-qualification recognition through the competent Community authority for the exact role and facility. In Flanders, Opgroeien publishes role-specific qualifications; there is no single uniform national childcare credential.Authority depends on Community and facility. In Flanders, Opgroeien administers childcare-setting qualifications and foreign professional recognition. | ListedEURES labour shortages and surpluses dashboard — National Coordination Office submission |
| Bulgaria | Not marked regulated | Employer assesses the foreign professional qualification for the generic non-regulated role. NACID academic-degree recognition may be requested separately where a foreign degree needs equivalence; it is not a professional licence.For a non-regulated profession, NACID says the employer is competent to recognise the foreign professional qualification; no profession-wide national recognition authority is identified. | — |
| Canada | Regulated | Foreign-educated applicants submit qualifications for Ontario College assessment; the membership rule applies only to the RECE scope, not every assistant job.College of Early Childhood Educators assesses Ontario RECE applications; other provinces and territories set their own rules. | — |
| Croatia | Regulated | — | — |
| Cyprus | Regulated | For paid home childminding, register with Social Welfare Services; file the secondary-school qualification, child-care knowledge/experience, health and police documents, and demonstrate premises/equipment suitability. Care-centre employee qualification requirements are set separately by Social Welfare Services.Director of Social Welfare Services / Social Welfare Services, Deputy Ministry of Social Welfare, for paid home childminder registration. | — |
| Czechia | Regulated | Children’s-group caregiver eligibility can be met by listed pedagogical, healthcare, social or professional qualifications, including the recognised childminder qualification; preschool teaching follows separate teacher rules.MPSV administers the children’s-group childminder qualification route; MŠMT handles pedagogical-worker qualification recognition. Authority depends on setting. | — |
| Denmark | Regulated | — | ListedEURES labour shortages and surpluses dashboard — National Coordination Office submission |
| Estonia | Regulated | Foreign professional qualifications for covered preschool roles are recognized under the Recognition of Foreign Professional Qualifications Act.Ministry of Education and Research for foreign qualification recognition in covered preschool roles. | — |
| Finland | Regulated | General system of recognition - primary application. For ECEC posts with statutory qualification requirements, apply to EDUFI for recognition; distinguish ECEC educator/child-carer roles from broader childcare jobs.EDUFI for qualification recognition for covered ECEC eligibility; broader child-care jobs can have different requirements. | — |
| France | Regulated | The EJE State diploma route covers that specific qualification; the frozen target also includes broader child-care jobs, so this process is not applied to every target role.Authority depends on role: the State EJE diploma is awarded through State education authorities; child-minder approval follows a separate departmental route. | — |
| Germany | Regulated | For the regulated Erzieher/nursery-school-teacher role, the Land compares the foreign qualification and may require state recognition and compensatory steps. Child-care assistant/helper work is a separate occupational role; do not apply the Erzieher procedure automatically. General system of recognition - primary application.For the Erzieher/in (2342) role, the competent recognition office is in the intended Land; the exact authority is returned by the federal Recognition Finder. The childcare-assistant (5311) role needs its own duties and Land checked. | ListedEURES labour shortages and surpluses dashboard — National Coordination Office submission |
| Greece | Regulated | General system of recognition - primary application | — |
| Hungary | Regulated | Where a foreign higher-education credential needs formal recognition for work, OH-MEIK can determine qualification level and professional qualification; activity-specific legal authorisation, if any, remains a separate check.For foreign higher-education credentials used for employment or professional purposes, OH-MEIK in the Educational Authority is the official diploma-recognition authority; any activity-specific practice authority remains separate. | — |
| Iceland | Regulated | For a preschool-teacher post, obtain the national teacher licence under Act No. 95/2019; the Preschool Act separately permits non-skilled personnel to participate where skilled preschool teachers are unavailable.Ministry of Education and Children for the preschool-teacher licence; the checked sources identify no profession-wide licensing authority for every childcare-worker position. | — |
| Ireland | Regulated | For regulated early-years services, the service must meet Tusla qualification requirements for the relevant staff role; the checked notices do not set a single individual recognition procedure for all childcare jobs.Tusla regulates early-years services and staff qualification requirements; no single individual recognition authority for every childcare-worker role is established by the checked leaves. | — |
| Italy | Regulated | General system of recognition - primary application | ListedEURES labour shortages and surpluses dashboard — National Coordination Office submission |
| Japan | Regulated | — | — |
| Latvia | Regulated | For a regulated teacher post, recognition is decided by the Ministry after AIC review; this route is not generalized to every childcare role.The Ministry handles regulated teacher recognition after AIC review. | — |
| Lithuania | Regulated | General system of recognition - primary applicationThe Ministry of Education and Science is the recognition authority for the regulated preschool-teacher/educator title; the frozen family also includes childcare-worker jobs outside that named route. | — |
| Luxembourg | Regulated | Foreign qualifications for the named social and educational professions must be recognised before a licence to practise is requested. General system of recognition - primary application.The Department for the Recognition of Diplomas under the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth recognises qualifications and issues licences for the named qualified-educator and care-assistant route. | — |
| Malta | Regulated | — | — |
| Netherlands | Regulated | EEA/Swiss-trained applicants apply to DUO for recognition for the named childcare roles; temporary/occasional service is notified separately. Diploma and eligibility in origin country are required.DUO handles recognition/notification for the named EEA/Swiss childcare qualification routes; employers and GGD assess certain language conditions. | ListedEURES labour shortages and surpluses dashboard — National Coordination Office submission |
| New Zealand | Regulated | Teaching Council overseas qualification assessment applies to early-childhood teacher roles; it is not a recognition process for every childcare-worker job in the frozen family.Teaching Council handles teacher registration for early-childhood teaching; ordinary childcare work in the wider frozen family has no single professional-recognition authority. | — |
| Norway | Regulated | HK-dir recognition is required for foreign-qualified head-of-kindergarten and educational-supervisor posts; regular childcare-worker posts are outside that route.HK-dir for foreign kindergarten-head and educational-supervisor recognition; ordinary childcare roles are outside that authorization route. | — |
| Poland | Regulated | For caregiver work in a nursery or children's club, meet one of the statutory qualification pathways or the specified training requirement; other childcare settings and ISCO 2342 teaching work differ.Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy describes caregiver qualifications for nurseries and children's clubs; local employer/registry duties can also apply. | — |
| Portugal | Regulated | The named ama activity requires authorization from Social Security and evidence of an eligible training, qualification or experience route; nursery teachers and other care roles differ.Instituto da Segurança Social authorizes the named ama activity; other childcare and school-teaching roles use other authorities. | — |
| Romania | Regulated | For educator-child-carer and preschool-teacher professions listed as regulated, recognition is handled by the Ministry of Education authority; other childcare roles may follow different rules. General system of recognition - primary application.Ministry of Education for the listed educator-child-carer and preschool-teacher subset; not every frozen childcare role. | ListedEURES labour shortages and surpluses dashboard — National Coordination Office submission |
| Saudi Arabia | Regulated | Use the ETEC teacher-licence assessment and issuance path only for the teacher/early-childhood-education subset. No universal recognition route is assigned to generic childcare-worker roles.ETEC for the teaching/early-childhood-education subset only; no family-wide authority is assigned to generic childcare roles. | — |
| Slovakia | Regulated | Use the exact child-minder or kindergarten-teacher profile; education and professional qualification recognition are title-specific. The frozen childcare group also includes generic childcare work outside those named titles.Ministry of Education / CRD for regulated pedagogical titles, including the distinct kindergarten-teacher and child-minder profiles. | — |
| Slovenia | Regulated | Preschool educator and assistant are separate regulated education profiles; recognition is through the Ministry of Education. Generic childcare work in frozen code 5311 is not assumed to use either profile.The Ministry of Education is the authority for the regulated preschool-teacher and assistant titles; generic childcare-worker scope is separate. | — |
| South Korea | Regulated | The childcare-teacher certificate is issued after review against statutory degree, subject-credit, practicum and class-level criteria.The Education Minister issues childcare-teacher certificates; the Korea Childcare Promotion Institute administers the delegated qualification review and certificate process. | — |
| Spain | Regulated | — | — |
| Sweden | Regulated | The recognition route applies to the preschool-teacher subset, which requires Skolverket certification. The sources do not establish one recognition process for generic childcare-worker roles in ISCO 5311.Skolverket for preschool-teacher certification only; no single authority for the full generic childcare-worker family was established. | — |
| Switzerland | Regulated | General system of recognition - primary application | — |
| United Arab Emirates | Regulated | For regulated nursery staff, the facility must obtain staff approval from the Ministry or relevant education authority and retain required employee records; no universal foreign-credential pathway is stated.Ministry of Education or the relevant Emirate education authority for staffing approval in regulated nursery settings. | — |
| United Kingdom | Regulated | The checked sources do not establish one qualification-recognition process for every childcare-worker occupation. England registration guidance concerns providers/settings and suitability checks, not a profession-wide recognition decision for each worker. Recognition of professional experience Annex IV - automatic recognition.No single UK authority registers every childcare worker. Ofsted or a childminder agency handles defined England childcare-provider/setting registrations; devolved title and provider systems are separate. | — |
| United States | Regulated | Contact the prospective employer for its credential-review instructions. The employer may evaluate credentials itself or request a private credential evaluation; where a legal license applies, follow the relevant state or territorial board process.For ordinary employment, the prospective employer is the competent authority for reviewing foreign qualifications. If the particular job legally requires a professional license, the appropriate state or territorial licensing authority in the intended work jurisdiction controls that license. | — |
How this list is built
The list holds the 39 countries with at least one official record for childcare worker: a regulated-professions register entry, a recognition record or a shortage-list row. National occupation names are joined to this profession through a reviewed crosswalk, country by country; a name the crosswalk does not match is left out rather than guessed. Salaries are not shown until a profession-level salary is collected for the country.
Cite this page
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APA citation
ImmigrationDB. (2026, October 25). Childcare worker profession data by country [ImmigrationDB compilation; version 2a99fd22da49023677636f4d2865294a]. ImmigrationDB. https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/childcare-worker/ Retrieved 2026-10-25. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/BibTeX citation
@misc{immigrationdb_immigrationdb_childcare-worker-profession-data-by-country_c35861017777,
author = {ImmigrationDB},
title = {Childcare worker profession data by country},
publisher = {ImmigrationDB},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-25},
version = {2a99fd22da49023677636f4d2865294a},
url = {https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/childcare-worker/},
note = {Retrieved 2026-10-25. ImmigrationDB compilation. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/},
}Markdown citation
[Childcare worker profession data by country](https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/childcare-worker/) — ImmigrationDB; ImmigrationDB; version 2a99fd22da49023677636f4d2865294a; retrieved 2026-10-25; built 2026-10-25.This citation identifies the ImmigrationDB compilation/page. Underlying source publishers and datasets retain their own terms; inspect the Sources section and cite those records separately. View the underlying source records.
Sources
- Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA)
- Jobs and Skills Australia / Australian Government
- Vienna EAP
- European Commission Regulated Professions Database
- Austrian Federal Government, migration.gv.at
- Eurostat
- Opgroeien, Government of Flanders
- European Labour Authority / EURES
- Walloon Public Service, Employment and Vocational Training
- ILO