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While the joy of parenthood may be immeasurable, the financial reality of raising a child in America is pretty straining.
According to a new study from LendingTree (shared by Fortune), the average cost of bringing up a child over 18 years in the US has now reached $303,418. And depending on where you live, that figure can climb even higher.
To put that in perspective, at current rates, you're looking at more than 4 Bitcoin to raise a single child from birth to adulthood in the States.
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Owning that much Bitcoin currency would place you among the top 1 to 2 percent of holders globally, with fewer than one million wallet addresses holding at least one Bitcoin, Investopedia reported.
Hawaii tops the list as the most expensive state to raise a child, at around $412,661, as per LendingTree. This is equal to around 5.5 Bitcoin. Alaska and Maryland follow behind at $365,047 and $326,360, respectively.
At the other end of the scale, New Hampshire is the most affordable state, with an estimated cost of $201,963, or around 2.7 Bitcoin. This is then followed by Washington, D.C. and South Carolina which are in second and third.
So why is raising a child so expensive?
Overall costs are up 1.9 percent on the previous year, driven mostly by increases in rent and clothing. LendingTree's survey found that average rent has spiked 50 percent, from $1,128 in 2025 to $1,680 this year.
Speaking to Fortune, Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, said: “Inflation is just taking a toll, clearly, on people, and it’s certainly one of the reasons why we saw such significant growth here."
For families with children under five, childcare reportedly represents the single biggest expense by far. Fourteen states saw early childcare costs rise by at least 10%, with sparsely populated states such as Nebraska, Montana and Wisconsin recording increases of 23% or more, LendingTree noted.
Schultz explained the concept of 'childcare deserts', which shows the lack of supply to meet demand.
“So what happens is that the ones that are there—and especially the really good ones that are there—can charge basically whatever they want to charge, and it ends up driving up the rates quite a bit,” he told Fortune.
Higher childcare costs also have a ripple effect on long-term savings like building an emergency fund or pensions.
“It just turns a really challenging situation into an almost unmanageable one for people, and that’s why we see so many people factoring in finances when it comes to deciding whether to start a family or how many kids they might have," Schultz concluded. “As much as we wish that we didn’t have to think about the cost of being a parent, you’re doing yourself and your family a bit of a disservice if you don’t, because there are very, very few among us who, for whom the cost of raising a child is not significant.”
