What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Nebraska?

Nebraska licenses home child care by size.

Under the state's child care licensing statute, a person may operate child care for three or fewer children without a license, while caring for four or more children from other families at one time requires a license from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

DHHS licenses both home types through its Children's Services Licensing unit, under the family child care home rules in Title 391 of the Nebraska Administrative Code.

The threshold counts children from other families, and it is a licensing trigger rather than a capacity — how many children a licensed home may serve is set by the license type.

Nebraska's family child care rules name two home licenses.

A Family Child Care Home I is in the licensee's residence and serves 4 to 8 children; during non-school hours it may add up to 2 school-age children, if no more than 2 others in care are under 18 months.

A Family Child Care Home II serves 4 to 12 children and may operate in the licensee's residence or another location.

Age mix binds as tightly as the headline count: in mixed-age care a Home I provider may care for up to 8 children, with a 9th and 10th only if they are school-age, and no more than three infants, of whom no more than two are under 12 months.

Infants-only care is tighter still, at a ratio of 1:4, so 5 to 8 infants call for 2 staff members.

A Family Child Care Home I licensee must be at least 19.

Before DHHS issues a provisional license, the licensee completes a 2-hour orientation training provided by the department plus CPR and first aid.

The licensee and each staff member must obtain 12 clock hours of training annually — 6 clock hours for a staff member working 20 hours or less a week — and the licensee must complete Early Childhood Training Center business management training within five years.

Our research did not capture an education or diploma requirement for Home I licensees in the rule text we read; ask DHHS whether anything else applies to your situation.

Federal law sets the floor.

Under the CCDF rules at 45 CFR 98.43, every child care staff member of a licensed provider must have a comprehensive background check — and in a family child care home, any household member age 18 or older counts as a child care staff member who needs one.

The check includes an FBI fingerprint check, a search of the National Sex Offender Registry, 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 every 5 years, and each state must publish its background-check policies and how to submit a request.

Nebraska's family child care rulebook predates the CCDBG reauthorization, and the state pages we read do not confirm the details of DHHS's current fingerprint process — ask DHHS Children's Services Licensing what to submit and where.

Our research did not capture an inspection checklist or a visit schedule for Nebraska family child care homes, so this page cannot describe what a licensing visit covers.

What the rule and statute do document is the sequence around one: a Family Child Care Home I operates in the licensee's residence, an applicant completes preservice orientation before DHHS issues a one-year provisional license, and the department then issues an operating license, extends the provisional license once for up to six months, or denies the application.

Ask DHHS Children's Services Licensing what a pre-license visit to your home involves and how to schedule it.

The application steps run through DHHS.

For a Family Child Care Home I, the licensee completes a 2-hour department orientation plus CPR and first aid before a provisional license, and Nebraska issues a one-year provisional license after the applicant completes preservice orientation.

The department then issues an operating license, extends the provisional license once for up to six months, or denies the application.

The initial and annual licensure fees for a Family Child Care Home I are $25 a year.

Our research did not capture a Family Child Care Home II fee or a processing timeline for applications, so ask DHHS Children's Services Licensing for the current fee schedule and what to expect.

The clearest trigger in the Family Child Care Home I rule is infants: infants-only care runs at a ratio of 1:4, and a home serving 5 to 8 infants needs 2 staff members.

Hire an assistant and the training rule reaches them: it covers the licensee and each staff member, not including substitutes or volunteers, so 12 clock hours of annual training apply to a hired assistant too, with the 6 clock-hour option for staff working 20 hours or less a week.

As a child care staff member of a licensed provider, an assistant also needs the comprehensive CCDF background check, and a new hire may start once they have a qualifying result on the FBI or in-state fingerprint check — supervised at all times by a fully checked staff member until every component is complete.

Our research did not capture a separate minimum age or qualification list for a Home I assistant — confirm what DHHS requires before you post the job.