This is a first of its kind study comparing the USA to other world countries utilizing the Child Care Aware ? NACCRRA (National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies) Child Care Benchmarks related to health and safety rules and regulations. A team of researchers analyzed the child care/early care & education rules and regulations from the USA and a selected group of countries to do a comparative analysis using the Child Care Aware ? NACCRRA benchmarking scoring protocol. The results from the analyses were somewhat unexpected in that the scores between the USA and the other countries were not as statistically significant in the overall scores. However, when more specific benchmarks were compared statistically significant differences did appear in the health & safety and professional development areas.