What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Tennessee?

Tennessee child care agencies — centers, group child care homes, family child care homes and drop-in centers — are licensed by the Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) under Tenn.

Comp.

R. & Regs. 1240-04-01 (T.C.A. § 71-3-501 et seq.).

A family child care home, in the rule's definition, provides child care for three or more hours per day for at least five but not more than seven children who are not related to the primary educator.

Five unrelated children is where the licensed family child care home category begins.

Our research did not confirm how Tennessee treats a home caring for fewer than five unrelated children, so ask TDHS Child Care Services what applies at that size before you set your capacity.

Tennessee's rulebook names two home categories.

A family child care home cares for five to seven children who are not related to the primary educator, and its capacity rule holds the home to no more than seven children present at any one time — except up to twelve when any number above seven are related to the primary educator.

A group child care home cares for at least eight children who are not related to the primary educator, but not more than twelve, or fifteen if approved for three additional school-agers; the group home chapter caps children present at twelve, with that school-age exception.

At thirteen or more unrelated children in care three or more hours a day, a program meets Tennessee's child care center definition and follows the center rules instead of the home chapters.

Tennessee's rules call the adults who count in ratio 'educators' — the term is equivalent to 'caregiver' as defined in T.C.A. § 71-3-501.

The primary educator of a family or group home must be 18 and hold a high school diploma or equivalent.

Training runs on an annual clock: the primary educator completes 18 training hours each year, including 6 in health and safety and 3 in literacy, while other home educators complete 12.

Family, group and center staff cycle through the CCDBG health-and-safety topics every three years.

Every hour is tracked in TNPAL, the Tennessee Professional Archive of Learning — the required system of record for all Tennessee child care training — and staff create a TNPAL profile.

Tennessee requires background checks for all child care staff at least every five years, with fingerprinting under T.C.A. § 71-3-507 and CCDBG, including out-of-state registry checks, and appearing on any state sex offender registry or the National Sex Offender Registry is a non-waivable exclusion.

The federal CCDF floor in 45 CFR 98.43 sits underneath: every child care staff member of a licensed, regulated or registered provider must have a comprehensive background check, requested before the person becomes a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years.

It combines 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.

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

Federal rules require states to complete a request as quickly as possible and within 45 days of submission, and each state must publish its background-check policies online — TDHS's site is the authority on how Tennessee takes the request.

A family child care home is a licensed child care agency under the same Tennessee rulebook as centers, group homes and drop-in centers, so the conditions of 1240-04-01 apply to the home itself.

Our research did not capture TDHS's inspection schedule or checklist for a family child care home — how often a licensed home is visited and what a licensing visit covers is not in the sources we read.

Ask TDHS Child Care Services what a licensing visit covers for a family or group home.

TDHS issues a child care license only after successful completion of a provisional licensure period and compliance with all rules, and a license is not transferable to a new address or a new owner — a home that moves or changes owners needs a new license.

Our research did not confirm Tennessee's current application or license fee amounts for family child care homes; the figures were not in the agency pages we read, and this page publishes no dollar amounts for that reason.

Confirm current fee amounts and the provisional-period details with TDHS Child Care Services before you budget.

The rules call home staff 'educators', and the assistant's floor is lower than the primary educator's: a family/group home educator assistant may be 16 with no education minimum, while the primary educator must be 18 with a high school diploma or equivalent.

Staffing numbers still bind — a family child care home with seven or fewer children needs one educator only if no more than four are under two, and five or more children under two require two educators.

Assistants are child care staff, so the same background checks apply.

Under the federal CCDF rule, 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 must be supervised at all times by a fully checked staff member until every component is complete.

Other home educators complete 12 annual training hours.

Yes.

Tennessee revised its child care licensure rules again in 2025-2026: the rulebook TDHS posts is marked 'February, 2026 (Revised)', with amendments effective November 20, 2025 and February 8, 2026.

The home capacity, qualification and training figures on this page come from that edition, which covers family homes, group homes, centers and drop-in centers in one rulebook.

Older copies of the rules are still online, so check the edition date on anything you read about Tennessee home daycare licensing.