How to Start a Daycare in Louisiana: Licensing Steps, Costs and Staffing

The Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) licenses early learning centers under Bulletin 137, the Louisiana Early Learning Center Licensing Regulations (LAC 28:CLXI), and a center must hold its license before it begins operating.

The rule draws the line between a center and a home: an early learning center is any place providing care, supervision and guidance to seven or more children not related to the caregiver, on a regular basis for at least 12.5 hours in a continuous seven-day week.

Care for up to six children under age 13 — or children with special needs under 18 — in a residence runs on a separate registration track, covered in the next section.

One naming trap: the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services is not the licensing agency — it appears in the center rules as the provider of the DCFS online Mandated Reporter Training new staff complete within seven days.

Centers choose one of three license types.

Type I is a church-run center that receives no public funds; Type II receives no public funds other than USDA food programs; and Type III receives state or federal funds from any source other than the federal food and nutrition programs.

Type III adds an academic layer: full-day Type III centers also need LDE academic approval under the Early Childhood Care and Education Network standards (Bulletin 140 §313).

Below the center line, a provider caring for up to six children under age 13 — or children with special needs under age 18 — in a residence is a family child care provider, registered and CCAP-certified by LDE under Bulletin 139 — registered, not licensed.

Registered homes cap at six children with a 6:1 child-to-staff ratio; the provider must be at least 18 and the bulletin adds 4 hours of pre-service orientation, 12 annual training hours, CPR and pediatric first aid, medication administration training and State Fire Marshal approval of the residence.

The rule sections our research read set out no mid-size category between the registered home and the three center types — ask LDE which category fits a program planned in between.

Louisiana requires every early learning center to be licensed before it begins operating, so the license is a precondition to opening, not paperwork to finish afterward.

A full-day Type III center adds the academic track: the initial academic approval required to be licensed as a full-day type III early learning center runs through LDE's Early Childhood Care and Education Network standards under Bulletin 140 §313.

Beyond those two anchors, our research captured the license types, fees and staffing rules but not a step-by-step account of LDE's current application packet, pre-licensing inspection visits or processing timeline.

Ask LDE's licensing section for the current application materials, for the inspections your license type requires and for a timeline before you commit to a site or set an opening date.

The director floor is 21 via three routes, each year of experience in a licensed center or comparable setting: an Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate plus a year; a national administrator credential plus a year and 6 credit hours or 90 clock hours; or three years as director or staff, subject to LDE approval, plus 6 credit hours or 90 clock hours.

The director or designee is on site full-time in daytime hours; above 42 children the director is administrative-only unless someone else handles administration.

Staff 18 and up may count in ratio and work without another adult's direct supervision; 16- and 17-year-olds only under direct adult supervision.

Within seven days, before being alone with children, new hires complete center orientation, LDE Key Module 1 and mandated-reporter training; Key Modules 2 and 3 follow within 30 days.

Staff left alone with or supervising children earn at least 12 continuing-education clock hours per anniversary year.

All staff on premises and accessible to children hold infant, child and adult CPR plus pediatric first aid within 90 days of hire, before sole responsibility for children.

LDE — not the center — rules fingerprint-based CCCBC applicants eligible or ineligible; the center learns only the result.

Louisiana's center ratios run from 5:1 for infants under 1 with a maximum group of 15 up to 23:1 for children 6 and up; four-year-olds, for scale, are staffed at 15:1 in groups of 30.

Two structural rules shape every schedule: a center must have at least two staff members present whenever more than four children are present, and ratios may be averaged for mixed groups of 2- to 5-year-olds but never when a child under two is in care — with under-twos present, the youngest child's ratio applies.

Bulletin 137 sets annual center license fees by licensed capacity: $25 for 15 or fewer children, $100 for 16-50 children, $175 for 51-100 children and $250 for 101 or more children, with church-run Type I centers exempt.

Registered family child care providers pay for their required background checks and must check the Louisiana sex offender registry for required persons every year.

Beyond those figures, our research did not capture a separate LDE application fee, a processing timeline or Louisiana startup costs such as build-out, insurance or equipment — ask LDE for the current fee schedule before you budget, and price the rest from your own site, staffing and enrollment plan.

Our research did not confirm a Louisiana startup grant for new daycare operators; ask LDE and other state agencies what's open.

The rules set a quality-incentive stack: eligible Type III centers and registered family child care homes earn one to five stars under the Unified Quality Rating System based on their annual LDE performance profile score, and since 2021 the star rating has set a quarterly CCAP bonus, a share of subsidy payments — 11 percent at 3 stars, 16.5 percent at 4 stars and 23 percent at 5 stars.

Directors and staff averaging 30 or more hours a week at one facility for at least six months of the year meet the hours-and-tenure condition for the School Readiness Tax Credits; Louisiana Pathways, the state practitioner registry, tracks directors', teachers' and assistants' training, education and experience.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program pays per meal; from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, the contiguous-states rates pay centers $2.54 for a free breakfast, $4.76 for a free lunch or supper and $1.30 for a free snack, and pay Tier I homes $1.74 for breakfast, $3.31 for lunch or supper and $0.98 for snack, with lower Tier II rates.