A full-time daycare place on the expat coast costs between 13 and 17 million IDR a month in 2026, against 1.5 to 2.4 million at a local centre in Denpasar: a nine-to-one gap for the same basic service. At The Garden Early Learning Centre (Canggu and Sanur), five full days for a child aged 15 months to 3 years comes to 3,050,000 IDR a week, roughly 13.2 million IDR a month, lunch not included, plus a non-refundable 3,000,000 IDR enrolment fee and a two-week deposit. At Guidepost Montessori (Jimbaran), a full day in Children's House is listed at 14,500,000 IDR a month, plus 2,300,000 IDR if you take the lunch option. At the other end, WISH School (Denpasar) charges 1,475,000 IDR a month for eight hours of care, and MainStory Denpasar 236,500 to 324,500 IDR a day depending on age. Every one of these amounts was taken from the centres' own websites on 8 September 2026, and every one is quoted in rupiah. One last thing to factor in before you budget: of the seventeen centres opened one by one for this article, six publish no price list at all.
What does daycare cost in Bali, centre by centre?
The table below contains only fees published openly by the centres themselves, recorded on 8 September 2026. No estimates, no word-of-mouth prices.
| Centre | Area | Ages | Package | Published fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Garden ELC | Canggu + Sanur | 15 months – 3 years | 5 days, full day | 3,050,000 IDR / week |
| The Garden ELC | Canggu + Sanur | 15 months – 3 years | 5 days, half day | 2,850,000 IDR / week |
| The Garden ELC | Canggu + Sanur | 15 months – 3 years | 3 days, half day | 2,000,000 IDR / week |
| The Garden ELC | Canggu + Sanur | 4 – 6 years | 5 days, full day | 3,300,000 IDR / week |
| Guidepost Montessori | Jimbaran | 18 – 36 months | 4 days, 8:30 – 12:30 | 9,080,000 IDR / month |
| Guidepost Montessori | Jimbaran | 2.5 – 6 years | 5 days, full day | 14,500,000 IDR / month |
| Guidepost Montessori | Jimbaran | 10 – 18 months | 2 days, 14:00 – 16:00 | 3,400,000 IDR / month |
| WISH School | Denpasar | 2 – 6 years | Full day (8 h) | 1,475,000 IDR / month |
| WISH School | Denpasar | 2 – 6 years | Half day (4 h) | 875,000 IDR / month |
| MainStory Daycare | Denpasar Barat | 0 – 6 years | Full day | from 236,500 IDR / day |
| Bunda Daycare | Denpasar | 1 – 6 years | Monthly packages (list undated) | 1,600,000 to 2,400,000 IDR / month |
| Umalas Kids Club | Umalas / Kerobokan | 6 months – 6 years | Full day, half day, drop-in | no public rates |
| Skoebi-Do Childcare | Canggu + Sanur | 1 – 6 years | Full day and half day | no public rates |
| Cheeky Monkeys | Sanur | 1 – 6 years | Care and activities | no public rates |
| Rumah Kecil | Sanur | 1 – 6 years | Playgroup, care, after-school | no public rates (only figure shown: 25,000 IDR per 15 minutes after 16:00) |
| Happy Kidz | Canggu | Not stated | Playgroup | no public rates |
| Dalung Children Care | Dalung | Not stated | 7:00 – 17:00 | no public rates |
Three lessons. First, geography sets the price far more than the service does: a full-time place costs roughly nine times more at The Garden, in Canggu, than at WISH School, in Denpasar — 13.2 million IDR a month against 1,475,000. The gap narrows when you compare single days: about 610,000 IDR at The Garden against 236,500 at MainStory, in Denpasar Barat, a factor of 2.6. Second, the billing cycles have nothing in common: The Garden bills weekly with a five-week minimum, Guidepost bills monthly, and local centres bill monthly or daily. Third, six centres out of seventeen send you to a personalised quote.
One figure to place the market: according to the 2025/2026 PAUD statistics from Indonesia's Ministry of Education, Bali has 482 non-formal early childhood centres (daycares, playgroups and equivalents), of which only 3 are public, alongside 1,547 kindergartens. Group childcare in Bali is therefore, 99% of it, a private market with no regulated pricing.
Why do so many centres refuse to publish prices?
The standard answer is written out at Umalas Kids Club: "we prefer parents to fill in our contact form", so it can provide "a personalised quote by email". The site does name the four items it bills — registration fee, tuition, capital levy, materials and resource levy — without a single figure attached.
That is not illegal, and it is not necessarily dishonest: these centres sell à la carte packages (year, semester, term, four-week block, single day) and price them to the rhythm you choose. But for a family planning the move from abroad, the effect is the same: you cannot compare before you arrive, and you cannot tell whether the quote you receive matches what other parents pay.
The workaround fits in one sentence, to send before any visit: ask for the full written fee schedule, with the weekly or monthly rate by number of days, the registration fee, the deposit, the cost of meals, the cost of transport, and the rule that applies to absences. A serious centre sends that document as an attachment. Be equally wary of prices circulating on blogs: one Australian guide still ranking well quotes 300,000 and 400,000 IDR for a half day and a full day at Umalas Kids Club — the article dates from November 2020.
How daycare billing works in Bali
This is the real culture shock: in Bali, most of the entry cost is non-refundable, and it is paid before day one.
| Centre | Non-refundable entry fee | Deposit | Billing cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Garden ELC | 3,000,000 IDR (enrolment) | 2 weeks of fees, refundable | Every 5 weeks, 5-week minimum |
| WISH School | 750,000 IDR (booking & registration), marked "BOOKING FEE IS NON-REFUNDABLE" | — | Monthly |
| Sunrise School (Ubud) | 10,000,000 IDR (new students) | — | 4 terms, "all payments are non-refundable" |
| Pelangi School (Ubud) | 500,000 IDR application + 15,000,000 IDR entry | 10,000,000 IDR refundable | 4 termly instalments |
| Canggu Community School | 2,500,000 IDR application + 17,000,000 IDR enrolment | 25,000,000 IDR refundable (Early Years) | Annual, semester or termly |
| British School of Bali | 4,000,000 IDR application + 30,000,000 IDR per family | — | 3 terms |
| Bali Island School | 2,500,000 IDR application + 15,000,000 IDR enrolment (credited against tuition) | — | Annual |
| Green School Bali | 40,000,000 IDR total (application + enrolment) | Refundable deposit | Annual, semester (+3%) or termly (+8%) |
Four mechanisms deserve your attention before you sign.
Paying in instalments costs money. Green School spells out the rule: paying by semester adds 3% to the annual bill, paying by term adds 8%, and that last option is only open to families who have already completed twelve months. The Garden runs it the other way: 5% off if you pay 25 weeks or more in advance. The payment schedule is a negotiating item in its own right.
Absences are still charged. The Garden's terms are explicit: sick days are billed and there is no make-up day and no day swapping. The centre does allow four suspensions per calendar year, of one to four weeks each, with two weeks' written notice — but none during the first ten weeks of enrolment, and beyond four weeks of absence the place goes back to the waiting list.
Meals are often extra. The Garden's fee PDF states it plainly: "the above fee does not include lunch". At Guidepost Montessori, the optional lunch costs 1,800,000 IDR a month in Toddler and 2,300,000 IDR in Children's House. At the British School of Bali, meals are billed at 10,000,000 IDR a term, 30 million over the year. At the other end, local centres — MainStory, Bunda Daycare, Rumah Kecil — advertise meals and snacks included.
Late pick-ups are timed. Rumah Kecil, in Sanur, charges 25,000 IDR per fifteen minutes after 16:00. MainStory takes children until 19:00, with a surcharge. A traffic jam on Jalan Raya Canggu can therefore cost you the price of a meal.
Half day or full day: what the gap really costs
The vocabulary is defined. The technical guide from Indonesia's Ministry of Education defines a "full day" daycare as running 7:00 to 17:00, and a "half day" as 7:00 to 12:00 or 12:00 to 17:00. In practice, expat centres open later: drop-off between 8:00 and 8:30 at The Garden, pick-up at 12:15 for half days, 14:30 for full days.
Financially, the gap is smaller than you would expect on the coast, and enormous in the local circuit:
| Centre | Half day | Full day | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Garden ELC (5 days, 15 months – 3 years) | 2,850,000 IDR / week | 3,050,000 IDR / week | +7% |
| WISH School (2 – 6 years) | 875,000 IDR / month | 1,475,000 IDR / month | +69% |
| Guidepost Children's House | 12,500,000 IDR / month | 14,500,000 IDR / month | +16% |
| Sunrise School "Small World" (Ubud) | 12,250,000 IDR / term | 14,250,000 IDR / term | +16% |
At The Garden, roughly two extra hours of care a day costs 200,000 IDR a week: if you work, the full day is almost always the better deal. The real lever is elsewhere — in the number of days. Going from five days to three at The Garden drops the half day from 2,850,000 to 2,000,000 IDR a week, saving about 3.7 million IDR a month.
Rupiah or dollars: which currency do you actually pay in?
The eleven fee schedules consulted for this article are all quoted in rupiah. Dollar figures come from third-party guides, which convert. The example says it all: one expat guide advertises "from $4,300" for half-day preschool at Bali Island School, while the school's own document shows 76,850,000 IDR, about 4,353 USD at the Bank Indonesia rate of 8 September 2026 (17,741.26 IDR selling, 17,564.74 buying).
The distinction is not cosmetic. If your income is in euros or dollars and the invoice is in rupiah, every move in the exchange rate changes your real budget without a single line of the fee schedule moving. Some schools, Green School among them, publish a dollar bank account alongside the rupiah one — paying in foreign currency is then possible, but the reference price stays in rupiah. Before you sign, get the billing currency confirmed in writing and, if an amount was quoted to you in dollars, the rate that will be applied.
Daycare or nanny: which works out cheaper in Bali?
This is the call every family settled here makes, and price alone does not settle it. Here are the two options side by side, based on the childcare fees recorded on 8 September 2026 and the salary ranges detailed in our investigation into what a nanny costs in Bali.
| Criterion | Daycare (expat coast) | Nanny at home |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | ≈ 13.2 M IDR (The Garden, 5 full days); 14.5 M (Guidepost) | 3.5 – 6 M IDR according to Knowmads Bali; up to 12 M according to the other sources compiled in our investigation |
| Monthly cost, budget option | 1.475 M IDR (WISH School, full day) | 70,000 – 150,000 IDR / hour on an ad hoc basis |
| Number of children covered | The fee is per child | One salary covers all siblings |
| Schedule flexibility | Fixed hours, late pick-ups charged | Negotiated hours, evening care possible |
| Absences | Sick days billed, no make-up | Salary still due, but care possible at home if the child is ill |
| Continuity | A team, cover guaranteed | One person: holiday or resignation leaves you with nothing |
| Socialising | A group of children every day | Child on their own, apart from organised outings |
| Language | English dominant in international centres | Often Indonesian and approximate English |
| Oversight | Regulated ratios (see below) | No framework, everything rests on the checks you run |
The maths flips fast: beyond one child, the nanny wins financially, since daycare bills per child while a nanny's salary covers the whole family. For an only child with two working parents, local daycare (1.5 to 2.4 million IDR a month) is unbeatable, and international daycare is bought mainly for the English, the supervision and the group. Many families combine the two: daycare in the morning, nanny in the afternoon. To place this line in a full budget, see our breakdown of the cost of living in Bali by profile.
Childcare or schooling: where does daycare stop?
The distinction is a legal one, and it changes what you are buying.
- TPA (Taman Penitipan Anak) — daycare in the strict sense. Non-formal early childhood education, from birth to 6 years, with priority from birth to 4. This is childcare, with a development programme attached.
- KB (Kelompok Bermain) — the playgroup. Non-formal as well, 2 to 6 years, priority to 3- and 4-year-olds, with a minimum of 6 hours a week and at least two sessions a week for the 2-to-4s. This is group time, not a full-time childcare solution.
- TK (Taman Kanak-kanak) — kindergarten, the formal track. You are into schooling now: academic year, entry fees in the millions of rupiah, annual commitment.
That boundary explains the spread in the first table. When Pelangi School (Ubud) lists 45,080,000 IDR a year for half-day Tiny Tots (2–3 years) and 94,070,000 IDR for kindergarten, or when Canggu Community School advertises 117,000,000 IDR a year in Early Years, these are no longer childcare rates: they are school fees, with capital levy, materials levy and security deposit. What comes next is mapped out in our guide to Bali's international schools.
One useful check, and one parents rarely run: the official staffing ratios, set by Permendikbud No. 137/2014 and repeated in the daycare technical guide — one adult per 4 children aged 0 to 2, one per 8 aged 2 to 4, one per 15 aged 4 to 6. Count the adults and the children during your visit. A centre charging 13 million IDR a month that leaves one person with ten babies is not meeting Indonesia's baseline rule.
What to check before the first transfer
Three reflexes, in this order.
Ask for the operating licence. An Indonesian daycare opens with an izin operasional issued by the kabupaten education office. A centre that dodges the question deserves your suspicion, however charming the garden.
List what is not refundable. Of the eight centres whose terms we read, seven state in writing that part of the money will not come back, from 750,000 IDR at WISH School to 40,000,000 IDR at Green School. If your visa, your housing or your work contract are not yet settled, that money is at risk: several centres also require a minimum commitment — five weeks at The Garden, one semester in Early Years at Green School, twelve months elsewhere.
Plan for the place, not just the price. The Garden's terms explicitly mention a waiting list, and MainStory displays remaining places online. On the coast, moving neighbourhood can cost you the place as much as the price: before choosing your street, look at our guide to Canggu's micro-neighbourhoods and check the real drop-off travel time.
Frequently asked questions
What monthly budget should you plan for daycare in Canggu in 2026?
For full-time care at an international centre, count on roughly 13.2 million IDR a month: that is The Garden Early Learning Centre's published fee, 3,050,000 IDR a week for five full days (15 months – 3 years), spread over twelve months. Add lunch, which is not included, and 3,000,000 IDR of non-refundable enrolment fees in the first year. On half days three times a week, the same centre works out at about 8.7 million IDR a month.
Are registration fees refundable in Bali?
No, in every case where the centre says so, as recorded on 8 September 2026. The Garden refers to a "non refundable enrolment fee" of 3,000,000 IDR, WISH School marks its booking fee "NON-REFUNDABLE" and applies "ALL PAYMENTS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE AFTER REGISTRATION" to its school programmes, Sunrise School displays "ALL PAYMENTS ARE NON REFUNDABLE", the British School of Bali describes its 30,000,000 IDR enrolment fee as non-refundable, and Green School adds up 40,000,000 IDR of non-refundable admission fees. Only the deposits — two weeks of fees at The Garden, 10,000,000 IDR at Pelangi, 25,000,000 IDR at Canggu Community School — come back, subject to notice periods and a settled account.
Are meals included in daycare fees in Bali?
It depends on the segment. Local centres in Denpasar (MainStory, Bunda Daycare) and Rumah Kecil in Sanur advertise meals and snacks included. International centres often bill separately: The Garden states its fees do not include lunch, Guidepost offers a meal option at 1,800,000 IDR a month in Toddler and 2,300,000 IDR in Children's House, the British School of Bali charges 10,000,000 IDR a term. Umalas Kids Club includes snacks and offers lunch through a partner caterer.
Daycare or a nanny: which is cheaper in Bali?
For an only child, a local daycare (1,475,000 IDR a month at WISH School, 1.6 to 2.4 million at Bunda Daycare) costs less than a full-time nanny, put at between 3.5 and 6 million IDR a month by the Knowmads Bali guide, and up to 12 million by the other sources compiled in our dedicated investigation. For two children or more, the nanny takes the lead again, since one salary covers all the siblings while daycare bills per child. Salaries, THR and how to vet a candidate are covered in that article.
From what age will a daycare in Bali take a baby?
Indonesian rules allow admission from birth at a TPA, with stated priority for under-4s. In practice, coastal centres start later: 15 months at The Garden (Early Learners 1), 6 months at Umalas Kids Club, 10 months at Guidepost for its two-afternoons-a-week Walkers programme, and from birth at MainStory in Denpasar, whose "Kelas Bayi" band is the most expensive on its list (from 324,500 IDR a day).
How many adults must supervise children at an Indonesian daycare?
Permendikbud No. 137/2014, repeated in the daycare technical guide published by the Ministry of Education, sets one adult per 4 children aged 0 to 2, one per 8 aged 2 to 4 and one per 15 aged 4 to 6. These ratios apply to registered centres. Nothing stops you counting for yourself during a visit, or asking how many children are enrolled per group per day.
Why do some centres refuse to share their fees?
Six of the seventeen centres consulted publish no fee schedule; four of them — Umalas Kids Club, Skoebi-Do, Cheeky Monkeys and Happy Kidz — show no figure at all. The stated reason is customisation: packages vary by number of days, length of enrolment and age, and the quote is sent after a contact form. The practical consequence is that no comparison is possible from a distance. Always ask for the complete written schedule — registration, deposit, rate by number of days, meals, transport, absence policy — and bear in mind that prices circulating on blogs sometimes date back to 2020.
Sources
- (official) Petunjuk Teknis Penyelenggaraan Taman Penitipan Anak — Indonesian Ministry of Education — definition of a TPA, full day and half day hours, staffing ratios from Permendikbud No. 137/2014.
- (official) Petunjuk Teknis Penyelenggaraan Kelompok Bermain — Indonesian Ministry of Education — definition of the playgroup (2 to 6 years), minimum hours, ratio for the 2-to-4s.
- (official) Statistik PAUD 2025/2026, Pusdatin, Kemendikdasmen — 482 non-formal centres and 1,547 kindergartens in Bali, table 1.2.1.
- (official) Bank Indonesia — kurs transaksi — USD/IDR rate for 8 September 2026.
- (school) The Garden Early Learning Centre — terms and fee schedule (PDF) and programme pages — weekly fees for Canggu and Sanur, enrolment, deposit, absences.
- (school) Guidepost Montessori AYANA Bali — Schedule & Program Fees — 2026-2027 schedule, meal options.
- (school) WISH School Bali — School Fee — half-day and full-day daycare, 2026/2027.
- (school) MainStory Daycare Denpasar — daily rates, hours, what is included.
- (school) Bunda Daycare, Denpasar — monthly packages and daily rate (schedule published without an update date).
- (school) Umalas Kids Club — Register Now and FAQ — billing items, hours, absence of public rates.
- (school) Pelangi School — Fee Information and Payment Schedule 2025-26 (PDF), Sunrise School — Fees, Canggu Community School — Fees, The British School of Bali — School Fees, Bali Island School — Fee Schedule 2026-2027 (PDF), Green School Bali — Tuition & Fees Schedule 2026-2027 (PDF) — early-years tuition, admission fees, payment rules.
- (community) Knowmads Bali — Hiring a Nanny in Bali — nanny salary range, overnight care. No publication date shown.
- (media) Little Steps Asia, The Honeycombers, 2 April 2025, What's New Indonesia, 17 June 2025 — directories of centres, ages and areas; none of these three guides publishes a fee.
- (commercial, outdated) Bali Villa Escapes, 26 November 2020 — the source of the 2020 childcare prices still doing the rounds today; cited here only to flag that they no longer hold.
Every fee in this article was recorded on 8 September 2026 from the centres' own websites. Bali fee schedules change with every intake: ask for the current version before committing to anything.
