A group family child care home — some states call it a large family child care home or a group family day care home — is, where a state offers the tier, the license above the small family child care home.
It authorizes a home-based provider to serve more children, under the capacity and any other conditions the state child care licensing agency sets for that tier.
This page explains what the license is, how it differs from a small home, and when expanding makes sense.
What is a group or large family child care home?
A group family child care home is the license tier above the small family child care home: care stays home-based, at a higher licensed capacity than a small license allows, and a state can attach its own staffing and qualification conditions to it.
States name the tier differently — large family child care home, group family child care home, group family day care home, large family day care home — and each state's child care licensing agency writes its own definition, capacity and rules for it.
The category is widespread but not universal.
As of December 31, 2020, 38 states (including DC) licensed group child care homes, and 13 states did not license the category.
The 2020 national scan that counted them defined a group child care home as two or more adults caring for children in the provider's residence — the shape that makes the assistant question, below, the tier's first staffing decision.
The tier is established enough that federal data tracks it on its own: the Office of Child Care counts licensed small and large family child care homes as separate categories, and the federal CACFP rules define a 'day care home' as a licensed or approved family or group day care home operating under the auspices of a sponsoring organization.
If you are still weighing the career itself, the family child care provider overview covers the role first.
The rest of this page is for the provider who is already licensed and feeling the ceiling of a small home.
How is it different from a small home?
The defining difference is licensed capacity — the maximum number of children the license allows you to serve.
The group tier raises that ceiling: a 2020 national scan of group child care homes found most states placing the category's entry point at 7 or more children.
Above that line, the numbers are each state's own choice, and the states diverge.
California licenses a small family daycare home for up to 8 children and a large family daycare home for 7 to 14, counting the provider's own children under 10 in both totals.
New York licenses a group family day care home for seven to twelve children, plus up to four additional school-age children before and after school.
The second difference is the conditions a state can attach to the group tier.
New York requires an assistant above set child counts, and Florida treats the large home as a licensure step of its own, with experience and credential prerequisites.
Those differences are the rest of this page.
Do you need an assistant in a group family child care home?
Staffing is one of the conditions a state may attach to the larger tier, and it is the question to settle before you apply.
The rules are state-specific: in New York, a group family day care home must have at least one assistant present when caring for seven or more children with no school-agers — or nine or more when at least two are school-age.
Your state's family child care rules name any staffing conditions for the tier you would be applying for.
One federal rule reaches any assistant you hire: under the CCDF background-check rules at 45 CFR 98.43, the checks cover every 'child care staff member' — a definition that includes anyone a child care provider employs for compensation, including contract staff — so an assistant on your payroll needs the background check.
The hire itself is also the step where a provider becomes an employer — payroll, scheduling and screening on top of the care work.
Our guide to hiring an assistant walks through that from the operator's side.
Is it worth expanding from a small home to a group home?
Start with the sector context.
The federal Office of Child Care reports that licensed small family child care homes fell 48% and licensed large family child care homes 21% from 2005 to 2017, while licensed centers rose 2%.
More than 97,000 licensed family child care homes closed in the U.S. over the same period.
Read those figures as the market, not as a forecast for your program — they describe licensed supply nationwide through 2017, and both home tiers contracted, the large tier by less than the small one.
What they do not tell you is where your program sits.
The decision runs on your own numbers: enrollment that keeps pressing against your small-home capacity, a waitlist you cannot serve, and space that fits the larger tier.
The other side of the ledger is the employer step.
A larger license can put an assistant's wages on your books, with the scheduling, records and supervision that come with a second adult in the home.
Providers who expand are signing up for management work alongside the care work — worth naming plainly before the application, not after.
From group home to center
The step after a group home is a different license type, not a bigger version of the same one.
A child care center is licensed in its own category, with separate rules for the facility, the staff and the capacity.
The two licenses are not interchangeable in either direction — a group-home license is not a small center license.
What carries over is you: running a program to a rulebook, managing enrollment, and communicating with the families you serve.
What does not carry over is the license — opening a center means a new application under the center category's rules.
If that is the direction you are weighing, the guide to owning a center covers the center-side decisions — the site, the staffing plan and the budget.
What each license type allows
Lined up in growth order, the categories a home-based provider moves through are:
- Small family child care home — the entry license: the smallest licensed capacity, under your state's baseline rules for home providers
- Group (large) family child care home — the middle tier: a higher licensed capacity, with any staffing and qualification conditions your state attaches to it
- Child care center — a separate license category with its own rules for the facility, the staff and the capacity
What each tier allows is a state decision, and the numbers differ.
California's large family daycare home serves 7 to 14 children; New York's group family day care home serves seven to twelve, plus up to four school-age children; and among the states that license group homes at all, 23 of the 38 capped them at 12 children in the 2020 national scan.
Whatever the tier — small home, group home or center — the body to confirm the current rules with is your state child care licensing agency.
Our home daycare licensing guide covers what those rules ask of a provider, and your agency has the current text for each category.
Capacity limits for group family child care homes
Capacity is the number that defines the tier: the licensed maximum of children your program may serve.
It is set by the licensing agency, and it is the first number to establish before you plan a larger program — everything from your room arrangement to your supply orders scales off it.
How a state counts toward capacity matters as much as the headline.
California counts the provider's own children under 10 toward both its small and large family daycare home totals — so a provider with young children of their own reaches the limit sooner than the headline number suggests.
A state can also build age conditions into the structure: New York's group family day care home license covers seven to twelve children, plus up to four additional school-age children before and after school.
Examples are not your limits
Extra qualifications for group homes
The larger tier can carry provider qualifications on top of the small-home baseline.
Florida is one worked example: before applying as a large family child care home, the home must have operated as a licensed family child care home for 2 consecutive years, with an operator who has held a CDA or an equivalent credential for 1 year.
That is one state's rule, and it shows one shape the requirement can take: a track record as a licensed operator first, then a credential on top.
What your state asks for at the group tier — experience in the field, a named credential, or qualification rules for the assistant — is written in its family child care rules.
Where a credential is named, check which ones your state accepts before you enroll in a program — equivalencies are the agency's call.
Upgrading your license
Upgrading is a licensing action through your state's child care licensing agency.
Florida, for example, frames the move as seeking licensure as a large family child care home once its prerequisites are met; how your agency handles it — the application, any inspection, what carries over from your current file — is set out in its own rules.
On the federal side, CCDF requires states to inspect licensed child care providers before licensure and at least once a year unannounced for health, safety and fire standards.
Sequence the move the way the application asks: any qualifications your state names for the group-tier license holder first, then staffing — including background checks for anyone you are adding — then the capacity details the application asks for.
Your agency's application packet is the authoritative checklist; another state's upgrade checklist is not.
CACFP's day care home category is defined to cover a licensed or approved family or group day care home operating under the auspices of a sponsoring organization — homes cannot join the program independently — so a group home goes through a sponsor the way a family home does.
If you participate, ask your sponsor how a capacity change affects your participation.
This page is career and employer information, not licensing or legal advice. License categories, capacity limits, staffing rules and qualification requirements are set by your state child care licensing agency — confirm the current requirements with it before you apply for a larger license or hire.