Group (large) family child care homes: capacity, staffing and licensing

The category is defined by its staffing as much as its size.

In the 2020 federal-funded licensing scan, a group child care home is two or more adults caring for children in the provider's residence, and most states licensed a home in the category at 7 or more children.

A group home daycare is not a small center: it runs out of a home, under the home-based rules your state writes for the category.

The national sources use two names for the tier.

The 2020 federal-funded licensing scan calls it a group child care home; Caring for Our Children, the best-practice national standards for early care programs, titles its table for the tier large family child care homes.

Your state names its own license categories, so the exact term on your license is the state's — the substance to look for is a home category above the small-home tier that expects more than one adult.

For a home-based operator, the group tier is the growth path that stays a home: a licensed capacity in the tier most states draw at 7 or more children, a second adult on staff, and training and screening duties for you and that assistant.

It is also the tier where staffing stops being optional.

Where a state licenses the category, hiring, background-checking and training an assistant is part of operating the license — which is why two of the four topics on this page are about the second adult and the paperwork around one.

Two adjacent questions live on their own pages.

If you are still deciding whether home child care is the route at all, or what a small family child care home requires, the state-by-state home daycare license guide covers licensing for home-based providers, and the family child care as a career hub covers the provider-side view.

This page is about the group tier itself.

Start with what the numbers are not: there is no federal capacity cap for a group home.

Under the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) rules, the federal government requires each state to describe its group size limits and child-to-caregiver ratios by age in its CCDF Plan (45 CFR 98.41(d)) — the limits themselves are the state's.

The most recent national picture our research found is a federal-funded scan with data as of December 31, 2020: 38 states including DC licensed group child care homes, and 13 states did not license that category.

Within the 38, most states licensed a home as a group child care home at 7 or more children, and 23 of the 38 — 61 percent — capped the category at 12 children.

Use those figures to understand the category's shape, then get your state's current numbers, because the scan is a 2020 snapshot.

Three states sat outside the mandatory-licensing map entirely: as of 2020, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Dakota had no mandatory licensing for any home-based providers — licensing there is voluntary, and its requirements applied when a provider was paid with public funds.

Voluntary is not rule-free: under the CCDF rules, license-exempt providers paid with subsidy must still meet federal health, safety and background-check requirements, with the relatives specified in 45 CFR 98.42(c) the main exception to the health-and-safety rules.

For scale on the best-practice side, Caring for Our Children standard 1.1.1.2 puts the maximum group at 12 children for large family child care homes — a recommendation for programs that adopt the standards, not a licensing rule.

On the small-home side, the national data on licensing thresholds — the number of children at which a family child care home needs a license at all — is older: a 2012 federal licensing-trends review reported that 10 states licensed family child care homes at one or more unrelated children, the most common threshold then was 3 or 4 children, 7 states set it at 6 or more, and 3 states (then Idaho, Louisiana and New Jersey) did not require home licensure.

The sources we read do not confirm those figures, the review is dated, and thresholds have changed in many states since, so treat it as history and take your state's current number from the agency.

Confirm before you set a capacity plan: the category names, the threshold that triggers the group tier, and the cap on your license are set and revised by your state child care licensing agency.

Your state's current table wins over any national chart, including the ones on this page.

The second adult is the category's defining trait.

Where a state licenses group homes, the category itself is two or more adults caring for children in the provider's residence, so the assistant is not an upgrade — it is part of what the license is.

When the requirement attaches, and at which capacities and age mixes, is your state's rule: ask your licensing agency directly where a second adult becomes part of the license rather than an option.

Best practice shows why the second adult arrives early.

Caring for Our Children standard 1.1.1.2 recommends, for large family child care homes: 2:1 for children up to 23 months (maximum group of 6 at 12 months and younger, 8 at 13–23 months), 3:1 at 24–35 months, 7:1 for 3-year-olds, 8:1 for 4- and 5-year-olds, 10:1 for 6- to 8-year-olds and 12:1 for 9- to 12-year-olds, with a maximum group of 12.

A home serving three or more infants at the 2:1 ratio, for example, is a two-adult program arithmetically.

These are recommendations, not law — the enforceable numbers are your state's, and our family child care home ratios guide lays the state picture out.

Whoever fills the second seat is screened like staff, and in a home the definition is wide.

Under the CCDF background-check rules, every household member age 18 or older in a family child care home counts as a staff member needing checks, and the definition of child care staff member covers anyone employed for compensation — including contract and self-employed arrangements — so a part-time or fill-in assistant needs the same checks you cleared.

Training expectations for the role are state-set.

For scale, the 2020 scan found annual ongoing training for group child care home providers ranged from 6 to 30 hours (median 15), and for assistant providers from 5 to 24 hours (median 12).

Those are 2020 figures — ask your agency for the current hours your state sets for the provider and the assistant before you build a training schedule.

The hiring process itself — writing the posting, screening candidates, and the provisional-start rules that govern when a new hire may begin work — is its own topic: our guide to hiring an assistant for a home daycare walks it end to end.

The sequence below is the general shape a group home license follows.

The requirements packet your state child care licensing agency gives you is the specification — its steps, order and paperwork win where they differ. (Starting from before the application — choosing the route, testing whether home child care works at your address?

The full how to start a home daycare guide covers the route from the beginning, including the small-home tier.)

1. Confirm the tier you need. Take your planned capacity and age mix to your state child care licensing agency and ask which category it falls into — small home, group home or center — and what the group tier adds. There is no federal number to plan against: each state sets its own thresholds and describes its ratios and group sizes in its CCDF Plan.
2. Start the background checks first — they gate everything else. Under the CCDF background-check rules, every household member age 18 or older counts as a staff member needing checks, and anyone you employ for compensation needs them too. Federal rules let a new hire begin work after a qualifying result on one fingerprint check — FBI or in-state — but until every component clears, someone with a qualifying background check must supervise them at all times. Caring for Our Children Basics, an ACF/Office of Child Care guidance document dated July 2025, adds the benchmarks: staff screened on employment and at least every 5 years, with checks completed within 45 days.
3. Plan the training. Ask for the pre-service and annual hours your state sets for the provider and for the assistant role — as of 2020 the national medians for annual ongoing training were 15 hours for providers and 12 for assistants.
4. Prepare the home against the agency's standards and schedule whatever visits its process requires.
5. Hold the capacity line your license sets. Your approved capacity, age bands and required staffing are what you staff to; a bigger group, a younger age band or another adult is a change to raise with your licensing agency before you make it.

How long any of it takes and what it costs: our research did not verify a national figure for licensing timelines or application fees, because both are set state by state.

Pull the current numbers from your agency's packet or your licensing contact rather than from a blog post.

Confirm before you apply: category definitions, capacity caps, assistant triggers and training hours are set and revised by your state child care licensing agency, and the federal CCDF rules set the background-check floor your state may build on — confirm both with the agency.

If your enrollment plan includes subsidy families, ask what CCDF participation adds on top of licensure in your state.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Group home categories, capacity limits, assistant requirements, training hours and background-check rules are set and enforced by your state child care licensing agency — confirm the current rules there before you apply, change your capacity or hire.