What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Arkansas?

Arkansas draws the line at six children.

A home requires a Child Care Family Home license when one or more persons care for six or more children from more than one family at the same time, and a licensed home may care for a maximum of 16 children.

Below that line, a home caring for five or fewer children can register voluntarily as a Registered Child Care Family Home; registration is voluntary for homes not required to be licensed.

The rules sit with the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) in the Arkansas Department of Education, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, which administers the Minimum Licensing Requirements for Child Care Family Homes.

Arkansas recognizes three child care license types: registered child care family homes, licensed child care family homes and licensed child care centers.

The registered tier covers homes caring for five or fewer children, and registration is voluntary for homes not required to be licensed.

The licensed family home tier is the one this page details: it is required at six or more children from more than one family and caps at 16 children.

That ceiling is an upper bound, not a per-home entitlement, because how many children one caregiver may care for at once depends on the ages of the children, and a home specializing in infant care keeps a 1:3 ratio.

A home reaches the full 16 with two caregivers.

The center license is the tier above a home, for facilities caring for six or more children from more than one family; programs operating under 10 hours a week are exempt from it.

The primary caregiver in a licensed child care family home must be at least 21 years old, and secondary caregivers must be 18 or older.

Where the home was licensed after November 1, 2002, the primary caregiver also needs a high school diploma or GED.

All caregivers who work directly with children must complete at least 15 hours of registered training each year, and an 8-hour orientation is also required within 3 months.

At least one caregiver with first aid and CPR must be on site at all times.

Our research did not extract the training hours that apply in voluntarily registered homes, so ask OEC what the registered-home rulebook requires below the licensing threshold.

Arkansas requires an FBI fingerprint-based nationwide criminal record check through the Arkansas State Police for owners, direct-care staff and others with routine contact, before employment and again every five years, and the individual pays the cost of the nationwide check.

Federal CCDF rules set the floor beneath the state check: every child care staff member of a licensed, regulated or registered provider must have a comprehensive background check.

In a family child care home, any household member age 18 or older counts as a child care staff member who needs the check.

The federal check includes an FBI fingerprint check, a National Sex Offender Registry search and, for the current state and every state lived in during the past 5 years, state criminal, sex-offender and child-abuse-and-neglect registry checks.

Fire and health (food service) inspections are mandatory for Arkansas family homes licensed for 11 or more children.

What inspection applies to a home licensed for ten or fewer children, or at application before a license is issued, was not detailed in the sources we read; OEC applies the family home rulebook and can say what it requires for the capacity you plan to serve.

The family home rulebook assesses a licensed child care family home a license fee of $15 per year.

Our research confirmed the fee but did not set out the application steps, forms or processing timeline for an Arkansas family home license, and it did not state a fee for voluntary registration.

Treat the OEC child care licensing page as the authority on how to apply, current fees and renewal timing.

The rulebook sets an age floor for help you add: a secondary caregiver must be 18 or older, and the primary caregiver must be 21 or older.

Each hire needs the FBI fingerprint-based check through the Arkansas State Police before employment, with the cost of the nationwide check on the individual.

The rulebook requires at least one caregiver with first aid and CPR on site at all times, and a home with two caregivers may care for up to 16 children.

Federal CCDF rules add that a new hire must be supervised at all times by a fully checked staff member until every component of the check is complete; that federal floor does not replace the Arkansas FBI check before employment.

The LEARNS Act (Act 237 of 2023) moved Arkansas child care licensing from the Department of Human Services to a new Office of Early Childhood in the Arkansas Department of Education, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Licensing documents printed before the 2023 move may still carry the former division's name; rely on the OEC child care licensing page as the current address for licensing business.