Home daycare licensing / Louisiana
Home daycare licensing in Louisiana
What it takes to run a licensed home daycare in Louisiana — who regulates it, how many children you can care for, and what an inspector checks.
Who regulates home daycare in Louisiana
Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), Child Care Licensing Section is the state agency responsible for licensing or registering home child care in Louisiana.
Louisiana is the strictest state in the country on one specific point: its 6-child Family Child Day Care Home cap explicitly includes the provider's own children under 13, not just enrolled families' kids. A provider with even one or two children of her own is already giving up a meaningful fraction of her paid capacity before she enrolls a single client family — a sharper constraint than the 'own children excluded' approach used in states like Hawaii.
Visit Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), Child Care Licensing Section →License types and capacity
Family Child Day Care Home
No more than 6 children at any one time, including the provider's own children under age 13 and any other children living at the residence under 13.
Licensing authority transferred here from DCFS effective October 1, 2014 — always confirm you're on a current LDOE page.
Background checks
Administered through LDOE's Child Care Licensing Section as part of Family Child Day Care Home registration; the provider and household members are screened as part of the licensing process.
Advantages of running a home daycare in Louisiana
- Louisiana's CCAP subsidy program is administered by the same agency (LDOE) that licenses you, streamlining subsidy-eligible enrollment.
- Louisiana's CCAP income eligibility line is relatively generous, widening the pool of subsidy-eligible families you can serve.
- A single-tier system (no separate 'small' vs 'large' home license) is simpler to understand than multi-tier states like Iowa or Kansas.
Risks and things to watch
- Your own children under 13 count directly against your 6-child cap — a provider with 2 kids of her own is capped at just 4 paying enrollments.
- Licensing authority moved from DCFS to LDOE in 2014; older documents and business guides still reference outdated DCFS licensing pages.
- The 6-child ceiling is low relative to peer states (Kentucky reaches 10, Kansas reaches 12).
Practical tips for Louisiana providers
- Do the math on your own children's ages before advertising 'up to 8 kids' — with 2 young children of your own, you may only legally enroll 4 client families.
- Apply for CCAP provider status through LDOE at the same time as licensing since both flow through the same agency.
- Confirm you're working from the current LDOE licensing page, not a legacy DCFS URL.
See the full record set every inspector checks for what to have ready regardless of state.
Curious about licensing in other states?
Home daycare rules — capacity limits, ratios, background checks — vary a lot from state to state. You might want to check how Louisiana compares:
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