What Are the Requirements to Be a Daycare Teacher in Texas?

Texas child care centers are licensed by the Child Care Regulation (CCR) department of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).

The rules a center and its staff follow are the Minimum Standards in 26 TAC Chapter 746, whose current edition was revised in December 2025.

When anything on this page and the agency's current rulebook disagree, the rulebook governs, so confirm details with CCR before you rely on them.

Under the Texas Minimum Standards, each caregiver must be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma, a high school equivalent or a high school certificate of coursework completion.

The Minimum Standards do not require college credits or a CDA credential for caregivers.

A center can set stricter hiring requirements than the licensing floor, so read each job posting for the qualifications that employer wants.

Our research found no separate assistant-teacher qualification in the Texas center standards, so the caregiver minimums above — at least 18 years old with a diploma, high school equivalent or certificate of coursework completion — are the floor we found for adult caregivers.

The one younger route covers 16- and 17-year-olds who have a diploma or are enrolled in an approved child-care career program.

A center may count them in ratio only if they are never left alone with children and work in the same room as a qualified caregiver.

New caregivers complete 24 clock hours of pre-service training.

Eight hours must be done before you can be counted in the child/caregiver ratio, and the remaining 16 hours are due within 90 days of employment.

Orientation is a separate requirement: it is due within seven days of employment and before you have unsupervised access to a child in care, and it covers child-maltreatment reporting, emergency procedures and medication administration among other topics.

Caregivers who bring at least two years of prior experience in a regulated child-care center, or documented completion of the required 24 clock hours at another regulated center, are exempt from the pre-service hours.

Texas center caregivers complete 24 clock hours of annual training in each 12-month period.

At least 6 of those hours must be in specified topics, such as child growth and development.

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

This is not a one-person-per-site rule: each caregiver holds their own certificates.

First aid is due within 90 days of employment and before you have unsupervised access to children.

On the health side, every center employee needs a current tuberculosis exam record showing they are free of contagious TB when the Texas Department of State Health Services or the local health authority requires one.

Every Texas child-care center employee must meet the background-check requirements in Chapter 745, Subchapter F.

The rule's scope is every employee of the center, not only classroom staff — assistants, floaters, kitchen and office staff included.

Before hire, a new employee signs a notarized Form 2985 affidavit and a Form 2912 pre-employment affidavit.

Ask the center director what to submit and when.

Caregivers who care for children under 24 months must have one hour of pre-service training covering recognizing and preventing shaken baby syndrome and abusive head trauma, safe sleep and SIDS prevention, and early childhood brain development.

If you expect to work in an infant or young-toddler room, that hour belongs in your pre-service training plans.

Texas's early childhood workforce registry is the Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System (TECPDS), which also houses the Texas Trainer Registry.

Our research could not verify a licensing rule requiring registry membership: we found no registry-membership requirement in the Chapter 746 standards we read, and the question is not settled by the pages we could reach, so a membership question belongs with HHSC Child Care Regulation.

There is one concrete tie to quality rating: since September 2024, Texas Rising Star, the Texas Workforce Commission's quality rating and improvement system, has included a points-based measure recognizing staff who participate in the Workforce Registry.