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

Oklahoma Human Services (OKDHS) Child Care Services licenses child care centers under OAC 340:110-3-275 through 340:110-3-311, published as 'Licensing Requirements for Child Care Programs' (Pub. 14-05), with the current edition effective November 1, 2025.

The same agency licenses family child care homes and large family child care homes under Oklahoma's family child care rules (10 O.S. 402; OAC 340:110-3-81).

The two rulebooks do not transfer between settings: a center requirement is not a family child care home requirement, so read the rulebook for the license type you are applying for.

When this page and OKDHS's current rulebook disagree, the rulebook governs.

Oklahoma's Child Care Facilities Licensing Act draws the lines a new operator chooses between.

A family child care home is a family home caring for 7 or fewer children, and a large family child care home cares for 8 to 12.

A child care center is a program operating 30 or more hours per week, and a part-day program runs 15 to 30 hours per week.

Licensing law exempts care in a child's own home, care by relatives, and informal arrangements parents make with friends or neighbors for occasional care.

Oklahoma sets no minimum number of unrelated children below which a non-exempt home may operate unlicensed, so a regular arrangement outside those exemptions falls inside the licensing system — confirm the edge cases with OKDHS.

Our research did not confirm Oklahoma's application steps, pre-licensing orientation or inspection schedule for a new center or home — OKDHS Child Care Services administers the process and publishes what it requires of each program type.

What the rules do fix before children are present: the license type has to match your setting and hours, a center needs a director who meets Oklahoma's director requirements, and every required individual clears background investigations through OKDHS's Office of Background Investigations — including a national fingerprint-based search and the Restricted Registry ('Joshua's List') — before hire or access to children, with criminal history reviews (excluding fingerprinting) resubmitted every five years.

Directors must be at least 21 with satisfactory work experience and a bronze or higher Oklahoma Director's Credential, on site at least 50% of operating hours or 30 hours a week (whichever is less), and free of direct care at least 3 hours a day when four or more teaching staff are needed for ratio.

Classroom tiers: assistant teachers at least 16 (never overseeing a group alone more than 3 hours a day), teachers at least 18 with a diploma or GED (or 10th grade completed and pursuing a GED within 12 months of employment), and at least one master teacher (OPDL Level 4 or higher) per 60 children of licensed capacity.

Each completes orientation within one week of employment and before sole responsibility for a group, ELCCT before or within 90 calendar days, CPR and first aid within three months, and an OPDL certificate within 12 months.

Family child care differs: a primary caregiver at least 21, with a diploma or GED (if applying after Oct. 1, 2007), a Level 1 or higher OPDL certificate within 12 months of licensure and presence at least 80% of weekly operating hours, who may leave children only with someone 18 or older.

Oklahoma sets center ratios and maximum group sizes by age: infants are staffed at 1:4 with a maximum group of 8, and 4-year-olds at 1:15 with a group of 30.

The full chart runs from infants through 5-and-older in OAC 340 Appendix GG, and a separate mixed-age chart applies when one room spans age bands — for example, a room with infants and older children is staffed at 1:8 with no more than two children under age 2 per teacher.

Only teaching personnel count in ratio unless an exception applies.

Scheduling adds another constraint: at least one person with current CPR and first aid is present with children at all times — on-site in each building, off-site and in each vehicle.

In a family child care home, one caregiver may care for 7 children with no more than 2 under age 2, 6 with no more than 3 under 2, or 5 children of any age; a second caregiver is required beyond those limits.

Our research did not confirm an Oklahoma application or license fee, and no processing timeline appeared in the sources we read; confirm current fees and requirements with OKDHS Child Care Services.

The costs the rules do set are staffing-shaped: a center staffs to Oklahoma's ratios and group size limits and needs at least one master teacher per 60 children of licensed capacity.

Training recurs too — most OPDL levels renew with 20 hours of training a year, and the Bronze Director's Credential renews with 20 hours annually.

For scale, a 2021 U.S. Treasury report, citing a Center for American Progress cost analysis, put wages at 50-60 percent or more of child care expenses on U.S. averages, with labor's share larger for infant care.

Oklahoma's quality rating system, Stars (also called Reaching for the Stars), is the first plug-in point: every licensed program immediately qualifies as 1 Star and may voluntarily apply for higher levels, and subsidy-funded programs must participate, with subsidy funding rising with each Stars level.

For centers, higher Stars add a staffing criterion: a full-time master teacher for every 50 children of licensed capacity at 2 Stars, 40 at 3 Stars, 30 at 4 Stars and 20 at 5 Stars.

On the staff-cost side, the Scholars for Excellence in Child Care program, run by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, awards scholarships for child development and early childhood education coursework and the CDA assessment at Oklahoma technology centers and community colleges, toward a CDA, a Certificate of Mastery, a Director's Certificate of Completion or an associate degree.

T.E.A.C.H.

Early Childhood does not operate in Oklahoma, so that national scholarship route is not available to your staff.

Our research did not confirm Oklahoma startup grant programs or amounts for new centers or homes; ask OKDHS Child Care Services what funding currently exists.

Oklahoma's current center rulebook, Licensing Requirements for Child Care Programs (Pub. 14-05), took effect November 1, 2025.

The November 1, 2025 edition carried the ratio table over unchanged from the 2022 edition it replaced, so a checklist quoting the 2022 edition is out of date even where its numbers still match.