There is no single national answer.
Federal CCDF rules list pediatric first aid and CPR among the health and safety training topics states must cover for providers serving subsidized families, and BLS notes that some states require CPR and first aid certification for licensure.
Who needs a card, which course counts, whether an online course works, and how long certification lasts — those calls are made state by state and, for course acceptance and card validity, certifier by certifier.
Your state child care licensing agency is the office that answers them where you work.
Is CPR required to work at a daycare?
For daycare jobs, whether CPR certification is required — and who has to hold the card — is written in your state child care licensing rules; there is no one national rule for every classroom.
BLS describes the licensure package this way: childcare staff often must pass a background check, have a complete record of immunizations and meet a minimum training requirement, and some states require CPR and first aid certification on top of that.
There is a federal layer for programs that take subsidy.
The CCDF rules at 45 CFR 98.41 require health and safety standards and training on 11 topics for providers serving families who receive help paying for care, and pediatric first aid and CPR is one of those topics — alongside safe sleep, emergency preparedness and recognizing child abuse and neglect.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, reviewing the Child Care and Development Block Grant, describes the same baseline: lead agencies must set baseline requirements for CPR, first aid and safe sleep practices.
The full 11-topic list, and how pre-service and annual training stack on top of it, is covered in our guide to required childcare training.
The short version for CPR: states must require pre-service or orientation training to be finished within three months, and they must name which critical topics have to be done before you care for children unsupervised — whether CPR is one of those day-one topics is your state's call.
What about the CDA?
The Council for Professional Recognition's own pages do not agree on whether current first aid and CPR certification belongs in a CDA portfolio: its PD Specialist FAQ lists it, while the main candidate FAQ and the setting pages do not list CPR as an initial eligibility item.
Check the current Competency Standards book for your setting.
What the Council states plainly: first aid and CPR certification is not required for CDA renewal.
Confirm the CPR rule where you work
All staff or one per room?
The federal topic list says what training must cover; it does not say which person in the building has to hold the card.
Whether your state requires every caregiver to be certified, only the lead teacher, or one certified staff member per room or per site is written in that state's licensing rules — and our national research did not compile those rules into a single count.
If you are applying for jobs, ask the director directly: does the center need you certified before your first solo shift, or during onboarding within the state's training window, and does the center arrange or pay for the course?
Getting that answer before your start date avoids a scramble.
If you operate a center, the same caution runs the other way.
A rule from one state does not transfer to yours, and a center rule does not automatically cover a family child care home.
Confirm who must hold a current card — and for which rooms — with your state child care licensing agency before you write the requirement into a job posting or a staffing plan.
Which courses count
The CCDF topic is written as pediatric first aid and CPR — first aid and CPR training that covers infants and children, which is the population in your room.
States may add more topics on top of the federal list — the rule names optional additions such as nutrition, physical activity and caring for children with special needs — so your full training requirement is the federal base plus whatever your state adds.
Which specific courses satisfy the requirement has no national answer in our research — the national sources we reviewed do not set an approved-course list.
Ask your state child care licensing agency which courses it accepts before you pay for one, and keep the completion card and certificate in your own file — employers and licensors can ask to see them, and the paperwork travels with you between centers.
Online vs hands-on
CPR and first aid courses come in several formats: fully online, fully in-person, and blended courses that pair online coursework with an in-person skills check.
Whether an online-only course satisfies a state's licensing requirement is not a national rule — it is state- or certifier-specific, and our research did not verify the split at the national level.
So ask before you pay.
A course that fits your schedule but is not accepted by your licensing agency costs you the requirement and the fee.
Confirm the format question with your state child care licensing agency, or ask the hiring director which course formats the center's current staff hold — then enroll.
How long it lasts
Our research did not confirm a national validity period for pediatric CPR and first aid certification — do not assume a set number of years.
In the sources we reviewed, card validity is state- or certifier-specific: the certifying organization that issued your card and your state's licensing rules are the two places the answer lives.
Two things to check: the expiration printed on the card and whether your state adds a renewal rule for child care staff.
If you are moving between states or between jobs, confirm both with the child care licensing agency where you will work — a card that satisfies one state's requirement does not automatically satisfy another's.
Cost and who pays
We will not quote you a course price: our research did not collect pediatric CPR and first aid course costs.
What we can do is point at who to ask about paying for it.
If you are job hunting, ask the hiring director whether the center covers certification for new hires or reimburses it — before you pay out of pocket.
If you are building toward the CDA, the Council for Professional Recognition says that if you are income-eligible, the state may pay for all or part of your CDA training and possibly the assessment fee, and its CDA Scholarships page lists funding organizations by state; those organizations are the natural place to ask whether a CPR or first aid course for childcare providers can be covered too.
If you operate a center, plan certification into onboarding for new staff and track renewal dates alongside your other training deadlines so a lapsed card does not surface mid-year.
Who must hold the card, and by when, stays a question for your state child care licensing agency — confirm your onboarding checklist against its current rules.
This page is career and employer information, not licensing or legal advice. CPR, first aid and training requirements are set and administered by state child care licensing agencies — confirm the current rules with the agency in your state.