What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Massachusetts?

Yes — family child care is a licensed activity in Massachusetts.

The Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) licenses it under 606 CMR 7.00, the same rule chapter that covers small group and school age and large group and school age child care programs.

In the rule's definition, family child care is care in a private residence during part or all of the day for no more than ten children under 14, or under 16 with special needs, and a regular license is valid for three years from issuance.

If your planned arrangement may sit outside that definition, EEC is the agency that confirms which requirements apply.

Capacity in a Massachusetts family child care home depends on the ages of the children enrolled.

One educator may care for six or fewer children, with no more than three of them under age two.

A home of seven or eight children is allowed only when all children over six are school age.

Nine or ten children require two educators.

The licensed maximum is ten children under 14 (or under 16 with special needs), and the count includes your own household children under school age, home-schooled children and certain visiting children.

A family child care licensee must be at least 18 years old and hold current first aid and CPR certification.

For a license to care for six or fewer children, the applicant needs qualifying experience — the rule's own examples are one year of experience as a parent or one year of full-time child care experience.

To be licensed for nine or ten children, the applicant must show completion of a five-hour pre-service training approved by EEC within the year before applying, and generally three years as a Massachusetts family child care licensee or certified assistant, or one year plus other qualifying experience.

Educators working more than ten hours a week must complete at least ten hours of professional development each year, and first aid and CPR certification does not count toward those hours in family child care.

Massachusetts runs background record checks under EEC's 606 CMR 14.00 regulations.

For the group and school age child care candidates the rule's list covers, the components are a CORI check, a DCF check, a SORI check, the national sex offender registry (NSOR), a fingerprint-based check and the out-of-state checks the federal CCDBG law requires.

On the federal side, the CCDF rules in 45 CFR 98.43 require a comprehensive background check for every child care staff member of a licensed provider, requested before the person becomes a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years — and any individual residing in a family child care home who is age 18 or older counts as a child care staff member.

Which component EEC runs for each member of your household, and when, our research did not record — confirm the household requirements with EEC before you apply.

EEC licenses family child care under 606 CMR 7.00, and the requirements on this page — the license definition, the capacity tiers, the provider qualifications and the training hours — all come from that rulebook.

What our research did not record is the home inspection itself: which pre-licensing visit or checklist EEC applies to a residence, or how EEC verifies the home at renewal.

EEC administers family child care licensing, so ask the agency what the home inspection involves before you apply.

You apply to EEC for the family child care license under 606 CMR 7.00, and applying is a matter of meeting the qualifications the rule attaches to your capacity: being at least 18, current first aid and CPR, qualifying experience and, for nine or ten children, the five-hour pre-service training completed within the prior year.

The rule requires a license application fee, but our research did not find the amounts in 606 CMR 7.00, which refers only to 'the required license application fee', and we did not confirm EEC's current fee schedule — ask EEC what the fee is before you apply.

Once issued, a regular license is valid for three years, and renewal applications and any fee must be filed at least 30 days before the license expires, together with a renewal meeting approved by EEC.

Capacity drives the decision: a home of nine or ten children requires two educators, and time as a certified assistant is one form of the qualifying experience that leads to that larger license.

If you hire an assistant, the federal CCDF rules in 45 CFR 98.43 treat them as a child care staff member of a licensed provider, so the comprehensive background check must be requested before they become a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years.

A new hire may start 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 an individual who received a qualifying result on a background check within the past five years.

EEC licenses family child care under 606 CMR 7.00, but our research did not record what it requires of a second educator's qualifications — confirm the assistant requirements with EEC before you post the job.