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

Nebraska licenses child care through the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Under the licensing statute, Neb.

Rev.

Stat. 71-1911, anyone may care for three or fewer children without a license, and caring for four or more children from other families at one time requires a DHHS license.

Centers answer to 391 NAC 3, the state's child care center rules, which took effect February 20, 2013 and remain the current version on the Secretary of State's rules site; the Family Child Care Home I rules sit in the same Title 391.

Nebraska's license tiers scale with where you operate and how many children you serve.

A Family Child Care Home I runs in the licensee's residence and serves 4 to 8 children, plus up to 2 school-age children during non-school hours when no more than 2 others are under 18 months.

A Family Child Care Home II serves 4 to 12 children in the residence or another location; our research captured only that definition, so confirm Home II requirements with DHHS.

Child care centers are licensed separately under 391 NAC 3.

Below the threshold, caring for three or fewer children requires no license.

The statute fixes the sequence: DHHS issues a provisional license to every applicant who completes preservice orientation training approved or delivered by the department, and the provisional license covers the first year of operation.

The department then issues an operating license, extends the provisional license once for up to six months, or denies.

A Family Child Care Home I applicant must be at least 19 and complete a 2-hour DHHS orientation plus CPR and first aid before the provisional license; licensees and staff then complete 12 clock hours of training a year, with business management training due within five years.

Our research did not capture a step-by-step account of DHHS's application review or pre-licensing inspection visits, or a processing timeline; ask DHHS Children's Services Licensing what your operation type should expect.

Directors must be at least 19 with a bachelor's or associate degree in early childhood education, education or child development; a bachelor's with 6 relevant credit hours; a CDA; or a high school diploma or GED plus 3,000 hours of experience and 36 clock hours of training.

New directors complete DHHS-approved orientation within 30 days and management training within five years of provisional licensure.

Center teachers must be at least 18 with such a degree, a CDA, or a high school diploma or GED plus 1,500 hours of experience or an approved 45-clock-hour plan; support staff must be at least 16 and have a teacher in the room at all times.

Direct-care staff complete 12 clock hours of training a year, or 6 hours for those working 20 hours or less a week, and at least one staff member with current CPR and first aid must be on the premises at all times.

Staff and volunteers 19 and older need a pre-employment criminal history check through the Nebraska State Patrol or local law enforcement, plus prior-state checks for anyone in Nebraska less than 12 months; the 2013 rule text predates the CCDBG framework, so confirm current background-check details with DHHS.

Nebraska computes center ratios center-wide rather than room by room: 1:4 for children 6 weeks to 18 months, 1:6 for 18 months to 3 years, 1:10 for 3-year-olds, 1:12 for 4- and 5-year-olds and 1:15 for school-age.

During naptime all staff must stay awake and at least one teacher stays in the nap room while the center-wide ratio holds, and two staff must be on the premises unless 12 or fewer children are present.

Family Child Care Home I ratios are separate: an infants-only home staffs 1:4 and needs two staff at 5 to 8 infants, while a mixed-age home takes up to 8 children per provider — the 9th and 10th children must be school-age — with no more than three infants and only two under 12 months.

Nebraska's license fees are annual: a child care center pays $25 a year at a licensed capacity of 1-29 and $50 a year at 30 or more, and a Family Child Care Home I license is $25 a year.

The timeline is statutory — preservice orientation, a one-year provisional license, then an operating license, a single extension of up to six months, or a denial.

Our research did not capture DHHS processing times, a separate application fee, or Family Child Care Home II fee amounts; ask DHHS Children's Services Licensing for the current schedule before you budget.

On startup costs, our research found no Nebraska figures; for national context, a September 2021 U.S. Treasury report said most for-profit child care facilities operate on razor-thin profit margins usually below 1 percent, and, citing a Center for American Progress cost analysis, put wages at at least 50-60 percent of child care expenses on U.S. averages.

Nebraska's operator levers run through Step Up to Quality and the state's professional record system.

Step Up to Quality rates programs on steps one through five: licensure alone qualifies a program for Step One, and national accreditation, Head Start standards or public pre-K criteria qualify for Step Three.

Participation is voluntary except for programs that received more than $250,000 in child care assistance in the preceding fiscal year, which must apply.

Rating above Step One requires reporting staff degrees, credentials and training to the Nebraska Early Childhood Professional Record System (NECPRS), run by the Nebraska State Department of Education.

NECPRS levels also drive the School Readiness Tax Credit for eligible early childhood staff: refundable base amounts run from $2,300 at Level 1 to $3,500 at Level 5, CPI-adjusted by the Tax Commissioner from tax year 2025.

T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood Nebraska is administered by the Nebraska Association for the Education of Young Children in Lincoln; what it currently funds was outside our research, so contact Nebraska AEYC.

Our research did not confirm a Nebraska startup grant for new operators; ask DHHS and the State Department of Education what funding is currently available.

The center rule ties licensed capacity to the building: rule text our research captured says the Department determines a center's licensed capacity based on available space and the capacity the State Fire Marshal authorizes, and that licensed capacity is what the fee tiers key to.

That text is not fully verified, so confirm a site's capacity with DHHS.

Beyond that, our research did not capture Nebraska zoning, building-permit or fire-inspection steps for applicants; confirm zoning and fire questions with your local authorities and with DHHS before you commit to a site.

Nebraska's center rulebook is not new: 391 NAC 3 took effect February 20, 2013 and became operative May 20, 2013, and it remains the current version on the Secretary of State's rules site.

The rule text predates the federal CCDBG background-check framework, whose comprehensive check pairs an FBI fingerprint check with criminal-history and registry searches, and federal-driven requirements may be imposed by statute or DHHS policy outside the rulebook.

Our research could not verify DHHS's current fingerprint practice for licensed centers; the federal rule requires each state to publish its background-check policies, so DHHS is the authority on where staff get fingerprinted.

Check with DHHS too before relying on any summary of the Family Child Care Home II rules — that chapter's details did not load for our researchers.