Home daycare licensing / Minnesota
Home daycare licensing in Minnesota
What it takes to run a licensed home daycare in Minnesota — who regulates it, how many children you can care for, and what an inspector checks.
Who regulates home daycare in Minnesota
Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) is the state agency responsible for licensing or registering home child care in Minnesota.
Minnesota just went through a genuine agency shake-up: as of June 2025, family child care licensing moved out of the Department of Human Services into a brand-new Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), while DHS kept the background-study function — so a provider today deals with two different state agencies for two halves of the same application. Capacity is also unusually granular, split into Class A, Class B(1)/B(2), and group Class C tiers, each with its own precise infant/toddler sub-caps.
Visit Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) →License types and capacity
Class A License (one adult)
Up to 10 children under age 11, of which no more than 6 may be under school age and no more than 3 may be infants/toddlers combined.
Class C3 / Group Family Child Care (two adults)
Up to 14 children total, no more than 10 under school age, no more than 3 infants, no more than 4 under age 2.
A 'helper' may substitute for the second adult only when infant/toddler presence is limited.
Background checks
DHS-administered 'background study' (even though licensing itself moved to DCYF) for the provider, household members age 13+, and any employees/volunteers with direct unsupervised child contact — fingerprint-based studies resumed statewide September 2021.
Advantages of running a home daycare in Minnesota
- Minnesota's Class C3 group tier tops out at 14 children with two adults — a meaningfully higher ceiling than many peer Midwest states' solo caps.
- The state's background-study infrastructure (NETStudy 2.0 via DHS) is mature and fingerprint-based, a credibility signal to parents.
- A well-organized statewide Child Care Resource & Referral network plus DCYF's modernization project signal ongoing investment in streamlining licensing.
Risks and things to watch
- The DHS-to-DCYF transition is recent (June 2025) — expect stale web pages and forms still pointing to the old dhs.state.mn.us domain.
- Minnesota's class system is genuinely granular: don't assume 'Class A means 10 kids' without checking the school-age/infant sub-limits baked into that class.
- Because background studies stayed with DHS while licensing moved to DCYF, a provider adding a household member now tracks two different state systems.
Practical tips for Minnesota providers
- Bookmark dcyf.mn.gov, not legacy dhs.state.mn.us URLs, for anything licensing-related going forward.
- If near the Class A ceiling (10 children) and considering growth, plan for a second adult before you need a Class C3 group license.
- Because Minnesota fingerprints household members as young as 10–12 under certain conditions, disclose all household residents up front during licensing.
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 Minnesota compares:
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