This article aims to outline a profile of early childhood education in São Paulo state. It addresses the educational service provided to children aged zero to three years and four to five years, through a research of descriptive and explanatory nature on the coverage of early childhood education and on the socioeconomic profile of children aged zero to three years who attend and do not attend children's education institutions. To this end, we collected data on São Paulo state from the following databases: IBGE (Demographic Census of We analyzed information on day-care centers and pre-schools and on the population age groups corresponding to early childhood education: Zero to three years (age group corresponding to daycare); four to five years (preschool). Findings indicate that, despite the expansion of early childhood education, there is a demand for preschool for seven hundred thousand children, and that less than 40% of the children aged zero to three years are enrolled in institutions of early childhood education. It was also found that children from zero to three years coming from households with a per capita income lower than a minimum wage are the most disadvantaged in terms of access to early childhood education.

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