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

New Jersey child care centers are licensed by the Department of Children and Families (DCF) Office of Licensing under N.J.A.C. 3A:52, the Manual of Requirements for Child Care Centers, which took effect December 20, 2023 and expires December 20, 2030.

Family child care sits in a separate manual, N.J.A.C. 3A:54, effective January 19, 2024, and is administered as a voluntary registration through county sponsoring organizations rather than a center-style license.

Which manual applies to you turns on one threshold: six or more children under 13 in care for less than 24 hours a day.

New Jersey's manuals divide at a capacity line.

A child care center is any home or facility maintained for the care of six or more children under 13 who attend for less than 24 hours a day, and children living in the sponsor's home do not count toward that threshold.

Below that line, family child care is a voluntary registration — not a license — for 3 to 5 children in the provider's own home for at least 15 hours a week, handled through county sponsoring organizations.

A registered home cares for no fewer than three and no more than five children at a time, and up to three additional resident children under 6 may raise the total to eight.

Without a second caregiver the caps tighten: no more than three children under 1, or four children under 2 with no more than two of them under 1.

Our research captured who administers each path and what the manuals require, but not a step-by-step application checklist or the Office of Licensing's inspection process and processing timeline — ask the DCF Office of Licensing what your route requires before you commit to a site or an opening date.

On the home path, a family child care registration is handled through a county sponsoring organization under N.J.A.C. 3A:54: applicants and alternate providers attend 8 hours of pre-service training, the provider must be at least 18 and live in the home, and registration costs $25 and lasts three years.

On the center path, licensing runs under N.J.A.C. 3A:52 through the Office of Licensing, whose manual carries the staffing, ratio and fee rules summarized below.

Director rules scale with capacity: over 30 children licensed, a master's degree in a field related to children or business, or a bachelor's degree plus 1 year of managerial or supervisory experience; at 30 or fewer, only the group teacher qualifications.

The director is scheduled at least 50% of daily operating hours, the director or a designee is on the premises at all times, and the director completes Office of Licensing training on the regulations within 90 days of hire.

Head and group teachers scale with capacity — for example, 61 to 120 children requires 1 head teacher and 1 group teacher.

A group teacher needs 1 year of experience with children under 6 plus credentials such as the CDA or an AA in ECE or child development.

Head teacher routes include, for example, a bachelor's degree in education, psychology, nursing or another child-development field, 6 ECE credits and 2 years of experience.

Every hire meets a baseline: orientation within two weeks of hire, repeated annually; 12 hours of continuing development a year for all staff; at least two staff with current first aid and CPR certification (hands-on component) whenever children are present; plus CARI and CHRI fingerprint checks.

New Jersey sets center staffing ratios by age (N.J.A.C. 3A:52-4.3): one staff member to four children under 18 months, easing to 1:15 at 5 and older, with each band in between carrying its own ratio.

Group sizes run alongside — infants in groups of 4 and toddlers in groups of 6 per primary caregiver, and no more than 20 children 2½ and older (30 for school-age).

Rest time carries its own, looser ratios, with one staff physically in the nap room and enough staff in the building to meet the awake ratios.

In mixed-age rooms the ratios are computed separately for each age group to the nearest tenth, and any fraction over a whole number requires another staff member.

Center license fees are paid for a three-year license and range from $110 at a capacity of 6 to 15 children to $250 at a capacity of 181 or more under N.J.A.C. 3A:52.

The family child care path is cheaper to enter: registration costs $25 and lasts three years, and renewal requires 20 hours of in-service training (not counting first aid and CPR) over the three-year period.

Our research did not capture an Office of Licensing processing timeline for a new center application, and it found no New Jersey startup-cost figures for facility, equipment or payroll — plan those from your own budget and confirm current fees with the Office of Licensing before you file.

For national context, not a New Jersey figure: a September 2021 U.S. Treasury report described most for-profit child care facilities as operating on razor-thin profit margins usually below 1 percent, and put wages at at least 50-60 percent of child care expenses on U.S. averages, citing a Center for American Progress cost analysis.

The staff-side supports run through NJCCIS, the state's workforce system, where educators apply for CDA training and college coursework scholarships.

For operators staffing infant/toddler rooms, New Jersey's Registered ECE Apprenticeship requires 2,000 on-the-job hours in an infant/toddler classroom, caps centers at 3 apprentices and comes with a $15,000 employer grant; apprentices must be at least 18, hold a high school diploma or GED, work full time in an infant/toddler classroom and work toward the infant-toddler CDA, and they receive at least a 3% raise on completion.

On wage supports more broadly, our research found no current (2026) statewide child care wage supplement program in New Jersey — the state grants page we read lists only CDA and college scholarships, so confirm with Child Care NJ before you budget for one.