What Are the Home Daycare License Requirements in Wyoming?

Yes, above two children.

Wyoming requires anyone who provides care for more than two children to be licensed, unless an exemption in state statute applies.

The Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) Child Care Licensing administers child care licensing under the Wyoming Child Care Licensing Rules.

An owner who is legally exempt may also request voluntary licensing from DFS.

DFS licenses home-based child care in two family child care categories.

A Family Child Care Home serves 3-10 children in the provider's own home without additional staff; the licenser sets each home's total capacity up to 10, and the home must be in the owner's primary residence.

A Family Child Care Center is licensed for up to 15 children, again with the licenser setting the exact capacity, and adds one staff member once more than 10 children are present.

The owner's own infants, toddlers and 3-5-year-olds count toward capacity, while own children who have completed kindergarten, are enrolled in first grade or higher, or are six or older are not included.

Care for 16 or more children moves out of the family child care categories into a Child Care Center license.

A Family Child Care Home owner must be of age and have a high school diploma or its equivalent, or document three months of supervised work experience or education in the care of children other than their own, or complete six training credits beyond pre-service, or hold a recognized credential.

The owner must also be on site and available in the facility for at least 75% of the operating week.

The licensing rules' staff definition reaches the home's workers: staff, the rules' term for anyone providing direct care or counted in ratio, must be at least 16.

The owner completes pre-service training before DFS issues the license, and staff complete pre-service training, facility orientation and Wyoming Early Learning Standards training worth 8 credits within three months of starting and before unsupervised direct care.

Pre-service topics cover fire safety, sanitation, emergency preparedness, medication administration, SIDS and safe sleep, infectious disease, and mandatory reporting, among others.

Staff working 24 or more hours a month complete 32 training credits every two years.

Background checks in Wyoming reach every adult in the household, not just the provider.

Staff, household members, substitutes and volunteers complete a full fingerprint-based national criminal history record check, plus state criminal checks in Wyoming and in every state the person has lived in for the past five years, repeated every five years.

On top of that, child abuse and neglect Central Registry checks and national and state sex offender registry checks run once a year, covering Wyoming and the states lived in over the past five years.

In home-based facilities the rules apply these checks to all adult household members, not just staff.

DFS licenses family child care homes under the Wyoming Child Care Licensing Rules (agency 049), and it is the licenser who sets each home's total capacity, up to 10 children in a home and up to 15 in a Family Child Care Center.

The rule sections and agency pages we read, however, do not lay out the on-site inspection steps: what a pre-licensing visit covers or which premises standards a home is checked against.

Our research did not confirm them, so treat any secondhand checklist with care.

DFS describes child safety and health as the main focus of Child Care Licensing; ask the office what its review of your home involves before you apply.

Applications go to DFS Child Care Licensing, which publishes its provider materials on the DFS website.

The rules charge a $50 licensing application fee, paid at the time of application, and a $25 renewal fee.

The owner or director completes pre-service training before the license is issued, and the licenser sets the home's total capacity, up to 10 children.

The rule chapters and agency pages we read do not publish a processing timeline for family child care applications, so confirm the current steps and timing with DFS before you apply.

A Family Child Care Home license is built to run without additional staff, so a 3-10 child home has no assistant category of its own.

Growth past 10 children means moving up to a Family Child Care Center license, which DFS describes as adding one staff member once more than 10 children are present.

Chapter 6 sets that center's staffing: the director must be at least 21 with a high school diploma and one year's equivalent education or experience, six clock hours of training beyond pre-service, or a recognized credential, and assistant directors must be at least 18 with a high school diploma and either six months of full-time child care experience or 15 hours of approved training.

Whoever joins the home goes through the same fingerprint and registry checks as anyone else who works there, and the 32-credit training cycle applies to staff working 24 or more hours a month.

The licensing rule's exemptions live in state statute, W.S. 14-4-101 and 102, which Chapter 2 incorporates, so the categories of care that need no license are set there rather than in the licensing chapters we read.

Our research did not confirm the itemized exemption list, so ask DFS Child Care Licensing which situations qualify.

The rule does give exempt owners one option: an owner who is legally exempt may request voluntary licensing.

Wyoming STARS, the state's training system, approves all training and trainers for licensed child care providers and records completed training credits.

The rules also cap how training can be delivered: no more than 50% of the required credits may come from videos, books or other written or pre-recorded materials unless other options are unavailable.

Two health requirements round out the staff file: every staff member holds current DFS-approved pediatric and adult CPR and first aid with an in-person skills demonstration, and a TB risk assessment on the DFS form is due before starting, with a TB test within one month if the assessment shows high risk.