What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Illinois?

Illinois requires a day care home license for a family home that receives more than 3 and up to 12 children for less than 24 hours per day, and the Child Care Act counts the family's own children under 12 toward that total.

Homes that receive only children from a single household are not day care homes under the Act.

The rulebook is 23 Ill.

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Code 2007, which IDEC administers; since July 1, 2026, IDEC has been the state's lead agency for child care licensing, replacing DCFS Day Care Licensing.

Illinois licenses two kinds of family home.

A day care home receives more than 3 and up to 12 children under 23 Ill.

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Code 2007; a group day care home receives more than 3 and up to 16 children under 23 Ill.

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Code 2009.

The day care home rule also caps what one caregiver can do: a caregiver alone may care for up to 8 children under 12, including the family's own — for example, up to 5 children under age 5 of whom up to 3 are under 24 months, or up to 6 under 5 of whom up to 2 are under 30 months (23 IAC 2007.13).

Caregivers in an Illinois day care home must be at least 18, and caregivers licensed after January 1, 2011 need a high school diploma, an equivalency or a college or vocational degree (23 IAC 2007.9).

An applicant completes at least 15 hours of pre-service training within the year before applying — including SIDS, SUID, safe sleep and shaken baby topics when the home will care for infants — and then completes 15 clock hours of in-service training each licensing year, with up to 5 extra hours carrying over.

Within 36 months of initial licensure, the licensee also completes a Department-approved course of 6 or more clock hours on caring for children with disabilities, and the primary caregiver must hold first aid, Heimlich and infant/child CPR certification.

Gateways Registry membership is part of the application.

Yes: the day care home applicant, any employees and every household member aged 13 and over must authorize and clear background checks that include fingerprinting (23 IAC 2007.9).

Under the background-check rulebook, 23 Ill.

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Code 2010, an "initial background check" means fingerprints have been obtained for a criminal history check and the individual has cleared a check of the state child welfare system (SACWIS) and the Illinois Sex Offender Registry; the quoted definition is from the group day care home rule, 23 Ill.

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Code 2009.

The federal CCDF rules in 45 CFR 98.43 add a comprehensive check for every child care staff member of a licensed provider — 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 — requested before hire and repeated at least once every 5 years, and states must complete a request within 45 days of submission.

The federal rule treats any household member age 18 or older as a staff member; Illinois's 13-and-over threshold reaches further.

Each state must publish how to submit a request on its own website.

The application requirements our research captured that concern the home itself are a written hazard protection plan, a radon test from within the last 3 years and lead testing where required (23 IAC 2007).

Our research did not capture the inspection process IDEC follows for day care homes — how a pre-licensing visit is scheduled or what a renewal visit covers — so ask the Illinois Department of Early Childhood what to expect for a home application.

An Illinois day care home license application includes three non-relative character references, a written hazard protection plan, a copy of the caregiver's diploma, Gateways Registry membership, a radon test from within the last 3 years and lead testing where required.

The license itself is free — the rule states there shall be no fee or charge for the license — and it is valid for 3 years.

The rulebook moved with the agency: under Public Act 103-0594, the day care home rules recodified from DCFS's Title 89 (89 Ill.

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Code 406) to IDEC's Title 23 as 23 Ill.

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Code 2007, and the group day care home rules became 23 Ill.

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Code 2009.

Our research did not capture a published processing timeline, so ask IDEC how long an application currently takes.

An assistant changes what the home can do: with a caregiver and an assistant aged 18 or older, a day care home may add 4 full-time school-age children for a total of up to 12, or care for 8 children under 5 with up to 5 of them under 24 months.

Any employee must authorize and clear the same background checks, including fingerprinting (23 IAC 2007.9), and under the federal CCDF rules a new hire may start once they have a qualifying result on either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint criminal check, supervised at all times by a fully checked staff member until every component is complete.

Two presence rules shape the job: the licensee must be present when children are in care unless a qualified substitute is present, and caregivers may not work or be employed outside the home during the hours the day care home is licensed.