How Do You Become a Licensed Daycare Director in Texas?

Texas child care centers are licensed by the Child Care Regulation (CCR) department of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), under the Minimum Standards in 26 TAC Chapter 746 — the current edition was revised in December 2025.

In Texas statute, a "day-care center" is care at a location other than the operator's residence for seven or more children under 14, at least two hours a day, three or more days a week.

Those are the operations this page covers.

Inside that licensing system, the director requirement works through qualifications rather than a standalone document titled a license.

A Texas center licensed for 13 or more children needs a director who is at least 21, has a high school diploma or equivalent, and meets one of seven education-plus-experience combinations set out in 26 TAC §746.1015.

Centers licensed for 12 or fewer children follow a separate, lighter director standard in §746.1017.

The credential Chapter 746 attaches to the role is called the director's certificate, and HHSC processes it without charging a fee — so the "daycare director license" you see in job searches and postings maps to this qualification-plus-certificate pair.

Scope note: these are center rules.

Texas family child care homes are a different track — the primary caregiver of a licensed child-care home, for example, meets their own education-and-experience combinations under Chapter 747 — and none of the center rules below transfer to home operations.

For a job seeker, the practical question is which of the seven combinations you can already document — for centers licensed for 13 or more children, that decides which childcare director jobs in Texas you can step into.

The routes are the next section.

Every route to directing a Texas center with 13 or more children starts from the same floor — age 21 and a high school diploma or equivalent — and then adds one of seven education-plus-experience combinations.

The combinations trade college coursework against years of center experience.

Three of the seven, as the standards spell them out:

• The bachelor's route: a bachelor's degree with 12 college credit hours in child development and 6 in management, plus at least one year of experience in a licensed child-care center (§746.1015, option 1).
• The credential route: the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential issued by the Council for Professional Recognition, or the Certified Child-Care Professional (CCP) credential, plus 6 college credit hours in management and at least two years of licensed-center experience (§746.1015, option 5).
• The credit-hours route: nine college credit hours in child development and nine in management, with at least three years of licensed-center experience (§746.1015, option 7).

The other four combinations are in §746.1015 itself; what the routes above show is the shape — more formal education buys you fewer required years.

What a director credential is, and how it differs from the CDA, is covered on its own page.

The college-hours part is not college-or-nothing.

For director qualification purposes, 50 clock hours of training or five CEUs may substitute for every three required college credit hours in child development and management (26 TAC §746.1037) — so a candidate can reach the credit-hour totals through clock-hour training rather than a college transcript.

Experience has its own counting rule.

Director experience counts only when it is full-time — at least 30 hours per week — or the part-time equivalent, and it can be paid or unpaid (26 TAC §746.1021).

Aiming at a small center instead?

The separate §746.1017 standard for centers licensed for 12 or fewer children is lighter, and one combination it lists is 72 clock hours of child development training, 30 clock hours of management and three years of experience — read §746.1017 for its full set of combinations.

One piece of Texas career math helps on the education side: the Texas Workforce Commission's Early Childhood Professional Development Scholarships (ECPDS) fund the CDA credential, registered apprenticeship programs, and associate's and bachelor's degrees.

TWC's scholarships page said it was re-procuring the statewide program administrator, with a grant agreement anticipated in June 2026 and educator applications expected in summer 2026 — so check TWC's childcare.texas.gov site for the current administrator before you apply.

TWC's 2026–2028 strategic plan describes the program as distributed by the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children through its T.E.A.C.H. program, even though the TEACH Early Childhood National Center's directory does not list a Texas program.

Since 2022, TWC has also provided three rounds of funding for early childhood Registered Apprenticeship Programs.

The director's certificate is handled inside HHSC's own licensing system: the Minimum Standards' certificate provision, 26 TAC §746.1061, states that HHSC does not charge a fee to process a Texas director's certificate.

Our research records that provision and the qualification routes behind it, but not the current application form or submission route — those are details to confirm on HHSC Child Care Regulation's pages before you file.

What an application documents is the qualification evidence the routes define.

Practically, that means getting your file in order before you apply or before a center names you as director:

The first-aid timing matters if you are moving from a classroom role: first aid certification is due within 90 days of employment and before unsupervised access to children.

If you are already a caregiver in a Texas center, you may have several of these pieces on file already.

The director's annual training load is higher than the rest of the staff's: Texas child-care center directors must complete 30 clock hours of annual training each 12-month period, against the 24 clock hours required of caregivers (26 TAC §746.1301(a)(6)). "Annual" means the requirement recurs each 12-month period rather than being a one-time course.

The other standing requirement is emergency care.

Every Texas center caregiver and the director must hold current pediatric first aid — with rescue breathing and choking — and pediatric CPR certificates.

First aid is due within 90 days of employment and before unsupervised access to children (26 TAC §746.1301, §746.1315).

Budget for both when you compare a director offer to a lead-teacher offer: the gap between the director's 30 annual hours and the caregiver floor is a small cost in time, but the first-aid and CPR certificates, the background check and the affidavits are all requirements of the role, not optional add-ons.

This is the part of the Texas director file our research could not complete.

The Minimum Standards address the director's certificate in a renewal section — 26 TAC §§746.1053–746.1055 — but our reading of Chapter 746 did not transcribe the renewal cycle: how long a certificate stays active, and what renewal requires.

Do not plan around a renewal date taken from this page; confirm the current renewal rules directly with HHSC Child Care Regulation.

Two things do carry on regardless of the certificate's cycle: the 30 clock hours of annual training, which recur each 12-month period, and current pediatric first aid and CPR status.

Both are standing obligations of the role under the same standards, revised December 2025.

Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Confirm the current Texas director qualification routes, the director's certificate process and its renewal terms with the HHSC Child Care Regulation department before you apply, renew or hire.