If the Government Shuts Down Daycares, Does Your Contract Say Who Gets Paid?

Picture the notice arriving on a Sunday night: effective tomorrow, by order of the state or county health authority, all licensed child care in your area is closed until further notice. Not a decision you made. Not a storm you could see coming days out. A government order, applying to every provider in your area at once, with no announced end date.

Most home daycare providers have never thought through what their own contract says about this, because most enrollment agreements never mention it at all. They cover holidays. Some cover snow days. Almost none cover "what happens if the government itself orders me closed for weeks, and nobody — not me, not the family — had any say in it." That gap is the subject of this article: a plain-language look at what a force-majeure-style clause for a government-ordered shutdown should say, and why it's worth writing before you need it rather than improvising it in a crisis.

One thing to be direct about up front: this is a framework for thinking through the clause, not a finished legal document, and it isn't legal advice. A government-shutdown clause touches contract law that varies by state, and the stakes — weeks of tuition, a business relationship, possibly a licensing requirement about your own emergency plan — are high enough that a real attorney should review the actual language before you put it in front of a family to sign. Think of this as the conversation to have with that attorney, not a replacement for having it.

This is a different trigger than a snow day

It's worth being precise about what this clause is and isn't about, because the closures look similar from the outside but work completely differently in a contract.

A weather closure — covered in our snow day closure payment policy guide — is your own discretionary call. You decide the roads are too dangerous, you close for the day, and you reopen on your own timeline once conditions clear. It's short, it's your decision, and most providers charge full tuition through it because nothing about their underlying costs changed.

A government-ordered shutdown is categorically different. Nobody at your kitchen table is deciding anything — a health department, a governor's emergency order, or a declared public health emergency closes every licensed child care program in the affected area, for an open-ended period, with reopening conditions set by the government, not by you. You have no discretion over when it starts or when it's safe to end. That's the scenario a force-majeure clause exists for, and it's also why "just copy my snow day language" doesn't actually cover it — the two triggers need separate clauses because the duration, the control, and the fairness logic are all different.

What most enrollment agreements are missing

Standard home daycare enrollment agreements — including a solid one, like the kind laid out in our enrollment agreement template — typically address holidays, provider vacation, illness, and sometimes weather. What they usually don't address is a multi-week closure neither party chose, where the normal "tuition reserves the spot" logic starts to strain: if the closure runs long enough, is it still reasonable to charge full tuition for weeks where care legally cannot be provided to anyone, by anyone, regardless of what either side wants?

Most agreements simply never get asked that question until the first time it actually happens — which is exactly backward. The time to decide how closures of extraordinary length and cause are handled is in a calm contract conversation, not in the middle of a declared emergency when both sides are scared and nobody has slept well.

What a basic force-majeure clause covers, in plain terms

A force-majeure clause, in general contract usage, identifies specific extraordinary events outside either party's control and spells out what happens to each side's obligations when one occurs. For a home daycare, built specifically around a government-ordered closure, the clause should answer four questions in writing:

1. What triggers it. Be specific rather than vague. "A closure ordered by a federal, state, or local government authority, or a declared public health emergency that legally prohibits the operation of licensed child care in my area" is a narrow, factual trigger. Avoid language broad enough to cover a closure you simply chose — that's not what this clause is for, and blurring the two invites exactly the dispute you're trying to prevent.

2. What each side is excused from, and for how long. Typically: you're excused from providing care, and the family is excused from the ordinary notice requirements that would otherwise apply if they needed to withdraw during the closure. Neither side is in breach of the agreement simply because a government order made performance impossible.

3. What happens to tuition during the closure. This is the part families will ask about first, and it's the part worth deciding deliberately rather than defaulting to your normal "tuition reserves the spot" logic without thinking it through. Three common approaches:

• Tuition is suspended entirely for the duration of a government-ordered closure — no charge, no accrual, resuming only once care legally resumes.
• A reduced "holding" fee keeps the spot reserved without charging the full rate — a middle ground some providers prefer over losing the enrollment relationship entirely during an open-ended closure.
• Full tuition continues, treated the same as any other closure, on the reasoning that your fixed costs (mortgage, insurance, utilities) don't pause just because the government ordered you closed.

None of these is the "correct" answer — it's a business decision you make deliberately, in writing, before the fact. What matters is that your agreement states one of them clearly instead of leaving it to be negotiated, family by family, during an actual emergency.

4. How re-opening is handled. Spell out that normal operations and normal billing resume once the government order is lifted and you're legally permitted to reopen — and address whether a family that used the closure to withdraw permanently owes any notice-period tuition, or whether the force-majeure clause waives that too.

Why this is worth addressing now, not reactively

A government-ordered shutdown of child care is no longer a hypothetical nobody needs to plan for — it has already happened, at scale, and there's no reason to assume it can't happen again for a different reason (a different public health emergency, a different kind of declared disaster). That's precisely what makes this a "foreseeable risk" in contract terms rather than a freak event: something reasonable to address in writing in advance, the same way you'd address a fire or a flood, rather than something you can fairly claim nobody could have anticipated.

The providers who get caught worst by this aren't the ones who guessed wrong about what to charge — they're the ones who had nothing in writing at all, and ended up relitigating tuition with every single family individually, over text, in the middle of an already stressful shutdown, with no agreed-upon reference point to point back to. A clause written now, while things are calm, removes that entire negotiation later. It also means you're not drafting emergency legal language for the first time while you're personally dealing with the same crisis as everyone else — the actual reason your attorney review needs to happen before a crisis, not during one.

Where this fits with the rest of your emergency planning

A force-majeure clause is a contract document — it governs money and obligations between you and families. It's a different thing entirely from your physical emergency preparedness, like your disaster go-bag or your severe weather and lockdown drills, which are about keeping children safe in an acute incident. It's also separate from the tax question of what happens if a disaster physically damages your home — that's a casualty-loss deduction question, covered in our disaster damage tax deduction guide, and it has nothing to do with whether tuition is owed during a closure. Keep these three as separate pieces of your planning: the contract clause for money and obligations, the physical kit and drills for safety during an incident, and the tax guide for property damage after one.

Where DaycareFlow fits

DaycareFlow doesn't draft contract language, and a force-majeure clause isn't something an app can write for you — this is squarely a conversation for you and an attorney. What DaycareFlow does give you is a record that keeps functioning no matter what's happening to your physical location: per-child billing rates, parent contact information, and payment history live in the cloud, not on a paper file in a closed building. If a shutdown ever does happen, you can still see exactly what each family's agreement says they owe, reach every parent through the contact information on file, and pick back up with an accurate, current roster the moment you're legally able to reopen.

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Frequently asked questions

Do I still get paid if the government orders my daycare closed?

It depends entirely on what your enrollment agreement says — and most agreements don't say anything, because this scenario is rarely addressed until it happens. A force-majeure clause written in advance should specify whether tuition is suspended, reduced to a holding fee, or continues as normal during a government-ordered closure. Without that clause, you and each family are left negotiating it individually during the closure itself, which is the exact outcome this clause is meant to prevent.

What's the difference between a force-majeure clause and a snow day policy?

A snow day is your own discretionary decision to close for a short, known period, and your costs don't change, so most providers charge full tuition through it. A government-ordered shutdown is an external, open-ended closure neither party controls, which is why it needs its own clause with its own tuition logic rather than reusing your weather-closure language.

Is a force-majeure clause legally enforceable for a home daycare contract?

Generally, yes — force-majeure clauses are a standard, recognized part of contract law, but enforceability depends on how specifically the clause is written and on your state's contract law. This article describes the shape of a reasonable clause; it is not legal advice, and an attorney should review the specific language before you use it with families.

Should tuition be suspended, reduced, or continue during a government shutdown?

There's no single right answer — it's a business decision for you to make deliberately and write down in advance. Suspending tuition entirely is the most generous to families but costs you the most income; continuing full tuition protects your income but may be a harder sell during an emergency that's affecting every family's finances too; a reduced holding fee is a common middle ground. What matters most is deciding it in writing before a shutdown happens, not during one.

How is a government-ordered shutdown different from a casualty loss for tax purposes?

They're unrelated. A force-majeure clause is about contract obligations — whether tuition is owed during a closure neither party chose. A casualty loss is a federal tax deduction for physical damage to your property from a sudden event like a storm or fire, covered under completely different rules. See our casualty loss deduction guide if your situation involves actual property damage rather than an operational shutdown.