Cost to Raise a Child: Around $300,000, Not Including College

Middle-income parents who welcomed a new child last year can expect to spend nearly $300,000 over the next 17 years, according to a new report.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture prepares an annual report about families’ expenditures on children for use in developing state child-support and foster-care guidelines. Annual child-rearing expense estimates ranged between $12,290 and $14,320 for a child in a two-child, married-couple family in the middle-income group, which is defined as a before-tax income between $59,410 and $102,870.