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

The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) licenses child care centers and monitors them for compliance; licensing moved to DCYF from the Department of Human Services.

With that move, the licensing statutes were renumbered from chapter 245A to chapter 142B, and DCYF says the requirements themselves did not change.

Family child care is different: counties, or Tribal Nations, handle most licensing activities, including inspections and correction orders, and the state issues licenses based on county recommendations.

The center rulebook itself is also changing — Minnesota's 2026 session law repeals Minnesota Rules chapter 9503 (Rule 3), including its staff-qualification and ratio parts, and replaces it with new statute chapter 142H effective July 1, 2027.

Until then, Rule 3 still applies.

Minnesota licenses family child care homes in two forms: a family day care license allows 10 children with 1 adult — no more than 6 under school age, of whom no more than 3 infants and toddlers (at most 2 infants) — and a group family day care license allows up to 12 children with 1 adult or 14 with 2 adults.

Child care centers are licensed separately by DCYF.

Minnesota's license-exemption statute (142B.05, subd. 2) includes care by a relative and nonresidential care provided by an unrelated individual to persons from a single related family.

From July 1, 2027, family child care moves to Class A (capacity 10, 1 adult) and Class C1-C5 licenses, with C5 allowing 18 children with 2 adults.

New center license applications are submitted and managed in DCYF's online Provider Hub.

DCYF's Child Care Center Licensing unit also runs a quarterly information session for prospective center applicants — the session listed as of early October 2026 is October 20, 2026 — and participation is not a requirement of the licensing process.

The family child care path runs through the county: contact the county or Tribal licensing agency, complete the county orientation, submit the Family Child Care Licensing Application plus a workers' compensation certificate, and complete a background study.

Counties then handle family child care inspections and correction orders, while DCYF monitors centers for compliance with licensing requirements.

Under current Rule 3, a center director must be at least 18 with a high school diploma or GED, at least 1,040 hours of staff supervision experience, and at least 9 quarter credits or 90 hours of accredited coursework in staff supervision, human relations and child development.

A director who also teaches, or writes or revises the program plan, must meet teacher qualifications too.

From July 1, 2027, the minimum age rises to 21 and the coursework becomes 12 semester credits or 120 training hours in child development, supervision, management, administration or leadership; anyone designated as a licensed center's director on that date is grandfathered in as meeting them while they keep working at that program.

Every staff member needs Minnesota's enhanced child care background study, renewed every five years.

Directors and staff working more than 20 hours a week currently complete 24 hours of in-service training a year; those working 20 hours or less complete 12.

Family child care license holders and second adult caregivers currently complete at least 4 hours of child development/behavior guidance training before licensure, pediatric first aid and CPR before caring for children, and 16 hours of ongoing training a year.

Center staffing starts from the ratio-and-group-size table in Rule 3: infants are staffed at 1:4 with a maximum group of 8, and preschoolers at 1:10 with a maximum group of 20; the same rule sets the toddler and school-age numbers, and the new statute keeps those same numbers from July 1, 2027.

Rule 3 also applies a staff distribution pattern: the first staff member counted toward ratio must be a teacher, the second at least an aide, the third at least an assistant teacher, and the fourth at least an aide, repeating.

Our research did not confirm Minnesota's center license fee schedule, so budget from DCYF's current fee information rather than from this page.

We found no verified family child care application fee or processing time either; counties handle most family child care licensing work, so your county licensing agency is the one to ask about both.

The one cost the agency pages we read do price is the background study: the listed fees for adults are $44 for the study and $10.50 for fingerprinting, but the Department of Human Services background-study FAQ says that until further notice providers are not charged for enhanced child care background studies.

No verified processing timeline for either path appears in the sources we read, so ask your county licensing agency or DCYF what to expect before you commit to a site or a start date.

Minnesota's quality rating and improvement system is Parent Aware: since July 1, 2026, every licensed program in good standing automatically receives a One-Star Rating unless it opts out.

Rated programs can work toward Parent Aware grants, including a Full-Rating Grant of up to $4,000 and a Building Quality Grant of up to $1,000 after at least 20 hours of coaching; staff at programs seeking a Two- to Four-Star rating need an Individual Membership in Develop, Minnesota's workforce registry.

The Great Start Compensation Support Payment program (Minn.

Stat. 142D.21) pays eligible licensed programs noncompetitively based on full-time-equivalent staff — one FTE is 32 hours a week — and licensed centers must spend the money on staff compensation, benefits or premium pay.

Payments are 10% higher for programs that take child care assistance or Early Learning Scholarships, or are in a child care access equity area.

For staff development, T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood Minnesota, administered by Child Care Aware of Minnesota, covers 85% of tuition and books for up to 18 semester credits a year.