Licensed and license-exempt child care
Every state requires most paid child care to be licensed, but each one draws the line in its own place. A licensed program has met the state's rules on staffing, background checks, space, health and safety, and is inspected against them. A license-exempt program is legally operating without that license, and usually without routine inspections, so it will not have an inspection record here.
The usual kinds of license
- Child care centers: programs in a non-residential building, from a few dozen children to several hundred.
- Family child care homes: a provider caring for a small group of children in their own home. States set the upper limit, often around six to twelve children.
- Group child care homes: a larger home-based program, usually with an assistant.
- School-age programs: before- and after-school care, in some states licensed separately.
Each facility page shows the state's exact name for its license, because the categories don't line up between states.
Who is often exempt
The details vary, so check your state's licensing agency, but common exemptions include:
- Care by relatives, or a sitter caring for one family's children.
- Home providers caring for fewer children than the state's licensing threshold.
- Programs run by public schools, which answer to education authorities instead.
- Some programs run by religious organizations, in states that exempt them.
- Short programs: drop-in care while parents shop or exercise, part-day enrichment classes, summer camps (often licensed under separate camp rules).
Some states keep a lighter list for small home providers, such as registered or listed homes, with fewer rules and fewer inspections. Where a state publishes those records, they appear here under the state's own label.
Exempt providers that take subsidies
A license-exempt provider paid with federal child care subsidies still has to meet basic health and safety requirements and pass background checks, and states must inspect license-exempt providers that receive that funding at least once a year, except providers caring only for relatives (45 CFR 98.42). Those inspection results are not in every state's public data.
If a daycare isn't on this site
It may be license-exempt, licensed under a different name than the one on its sign, newly licensed since the last refresh, or in a state this site doesn't cover yet. Ask the provider for its license number and look it up on the state's own search, linked from each state page. A provider that should be licensed and isn't can be reported to the state agency.