What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Delaware?

Delaware child care is licensed by the Office of Child Care Licensing (OCCL), which now sits under Title 14 (Education), and the family child care rules sit at Title 14, chapter 934 of the Delaware Administrative Code.

The exemption the rule states is narrow: care provided only to a person's own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or stepchildren does not require a family child care license even if payment is received.

Beyond that exemption, Delaware licenses homes in tiers — Level I (up to 5 or 6 children depending on ages), Level II (up to 9) and large family child care homes (up to 12).

The tiers stop at 12 children because a program serving 13 or more children, counting children related to the licensee, is a licensed early care and education center under a separate rulebook.

Where a specific arrangement falls is a question to settle with OCCL before you enroll children outside the exemption.

The Delaware family rules name three licensed home types.

Level I homes may have up to 5 or 6 children depending on the ages served, Level II homes up to 9, and large family child care homes up to 12.

The Level I cap moves with the age mix: up to 4 preschoolers plus 2 school-age children (a maximum of 6, with no more than 2 under 12 months), or up to 5 preschoolers (no more than 2 under 12 months and no more than 3 under 24 months).

Our research captured the age-mix schedule for Level I; the age rules that apply inside Level II and large family homes are one to confirm with OCCL.

Qualifications rise with the tier.

A Level I provider must be at least 18 years old with a high school diploma or its equivalent.

Level II requires 24 months of experience (or an equivalent) plus 60 training hours or 3 college credits.

A large family child care provider must be at least 21, with 24 months of group experience, a high school diploma and a credential such as a CDA, TECE 1 and 2, or the Delaware Department of Labor's Early Childhood Apprenticeship Program.

Training carries a floor in every tier: Delaware family providers need first aid and CPR and at least 12 clock hours of annual training, including 1 hour of health or safety.

Delaware's family child care rule reaches the whole household: household members, staff and adult volunteers must be fingerprinted for state (SBI) and FBI checks before joining the household or program, and a household member must be fingerprinted within 5 days of turning 18.

The federal CCDF floor underneath it, 45 CFR 98.43, requires a comprehensive background check for every child care staff member of a licensed, regulated or registered provider — and in a family child care home, any household member age 18 or older counts as a child care staff member.

The federal check combines an FBI fingerprint check, a national sex-offender-registry search, and state criminal, sex-offender and child-abuse-and-neglect registry checks for the current state and every state the person lived in during the past 5 years.

Checks are requested before the person becomes a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years, and states must complete a request within 45 days of submission.

Each state must publish its background-check process online, so OCCL's own instructions are the authority on where to get fingerprinted.

Our research read the family child care rule text behind this page and did not capture the inspection process: what OCCL checks on a pre-licensing home visit, what documentation it asks for, or how often a licensed home is re-inspected.

The rules we reviewed do establish the license tiers, the provider qualifications and training, and the household background checks summarized above.

For the inspection itself — what to expect and when — the Office of Child Care Licensing is the source.

The family child care application steps are not in the rule text our research reviewed; the process OCCL requires — forms, any orientation, and what to prepare before an inspection — comes from the Office of Child Care Licensing.

On fees, no application fee appears in the child care rule text we read (Title 14, chapters 933 and 934 of the Delaware Administrative Code), which is not the same as confirming a license is free: ask OCCL for the current family child care fee schedule before you apply.

A paid assistant is staff at the provider, and the federal CCDF rules in 45 CFR 98.43 require a comprehensive background check for child care staff members of a licensed, regulated or registered provider — requested before the person becomes a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years.

One federal provision shapes the start date: a new hire may start work once they have a qualifying result on either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint criminal check, but until every component is complete they must be supervised at all times by a fully checked staff member.

Delaware's own family rule adds that staff and adult volunteers must be fingerprinted for state (SBI) and FBI checks before joining the program.

The qualifications Delaware sets for additional adults in a licensed family home beyond those checks are not in the rule text our research reviewed, so confirm training and supervision duties with OCCL before you post the job.

The exemption the family rule states is narrow: care provided only to a person's own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or stepchildren does not require a family child care license even when payment is received.

Care that includes children outside that relation list falls under the license tiers the rule sets out, and where a particular arrangement falls is a question for OCCL.