Home daycare, decoded state by state
Your state has an exact answer — a number, a definition, a line. This checker reads your state's own rulebook and tells you which side of the line you are on, and if you are over it, exactly which license, which ratios, and which fees come next.
Your state's full path walked step by step, the inspection-prep system, the rate & capacity math module, the first-families playbook and the forms pack — built from the same checked rules as the checker, for the state you picked.
See the Home Daycare Launch Kit
One-time payment. Yours to keep, printable, no account, no subscription.
Answer for the arrangement you have — or the one you are planning. The verdict names the deciding facts, because in this field the facts are the verdict.
On the facts you entered, your state requires no license. The verdict prints the deciding facts — keep them true, and re-run the check the week anything changes: one more family, one new schedule, one first payment can move the line.
Your numbers sit exactly on a trigger your state's own text reads two ways — an own-children election, a county fork. We will not guess with other people's children: the verdict tells you the exact question to put to your licensing office.
You need the category the verdict names — listed, registered, licensed — and the verdict carries its ratios, training hours, fees and realistic timeline, so the path starts on the same screen as the answer.
Fifty rulebooks, fifty different lines — two states count families instead of children, two have no unlicensed tier at all, and several count your own children in the number. Pick your state for its full file: the line, the categories, the ratios, the fees, the steps.
The biggest name in this field publishes beautiful state guides — and then tells you to decide for yourself whether you need a listing, a registration, or a license, because it sells software to programs that already exist. The state agencies publish the rules as mazes of PDFs. Neither computes your answer. We do — from the statute and the agency's own text, cross-checked against each other, with the citation and the checking date printed on every verdict. Where the two sources disagree, we ship the narrower reading and say so.
Three legal categories that sound alike and are not. Which door you are behind decides what the state can ask of you.
The penalties are published, and they are the smaller half of the risk. The larger half is what happens if a child is hurt.
The license fee is the smallest line. Here is the full first-year ledger, state fees included.
Ratio tables decide your real capacity, your real tuition, and half of all inspection citations. Here is how to read one.
Yes in many places — but three permissions, not one, decide it: the state, the landlord, and the local rulebook.
Centers are a different business: a lease, a director, staff ratios, and six figures of runway. This page tells the truth our checker doesn't compute — yet.
HomeDaycareCheck is the child-care member of a family of state-rule checkers — the same discipline, different rulebooks:
Yes — the full verdict, the category, the ratios, the fees and the timeline. The paid kit is the walkthrough and the working tools behind the verdict; the verdict itself is never held back.
Because California and Florida wrote their lines that way: the trigger is the second unrelated family, whatever the head count. The checker knows which states count which way — that is most of its job.
In Illinois, Florida, Kansas and many others, yes — toward the license cap, and in Illinois toward the line itself. In California and Pennsylvania (by election), no. Your state page states your rule in its first screen.
Then the verdict is good news delivered plainly: you get your category and the exact path, and agencies process voluntary applicants every day. Read the guide on what happens if you run a daycare without a license for the honest picture.
No. It is the published rules, computed for your facts, with citations. Your licensing office is the final word — and on at-the-line facts, the checker itself sends you there with the exact question to ask.