Home daycare licensing in West Virginia

Who regulates home daycare in West Virginia

West Virginia Department of Human Services, Bureau for Family Assistance (BFA) is the state agency responsible for licensing or registering home child care in West Virginia.

West Virginia's regulatory identity has been genuinely unstable lately — child care licensing sat under the old DHHR until the department split into separate agencies on January 1, 2024, and now lives with the Bureau for Family Assistance, so a lot of older provider guidance still points to a defunct DHHR page. Within that shifting agency landscape, the Family Child Care Home tier itself is straightforward: a flat 6-child cap with one notable sub-rule — no more than 2 of those 6 can be under 24 months old.

Advantages of running a home daycare in West Virginia

• +The under-24-months sub-limit (max 2) is a clear, single rule to track rather than a full age-graded ratio table.
• +The 6-child Family Child Care Home tier has comparatively light registration requirements versus the 7–12 Family Child Care Facility tier.
• +WV CARES centralizes background-check administration across the whole household in one statewide system.

Risks and things to watch

• !Since licensing recently moved from DHHR to BFA, a meaningful share of search results and bookmarked guidance still point to the wrong (former) agency.
• !The infant sub-limit (max 2 under 24 months) binds well before the 6-child overall cap does.
• !Moving from the 6-child Family Child Care Home to the 7–12 Family Child Care Facility tier is a distinct licensing category, not a simple capacity bump.

Practical tips for West Virginia providers

• →Always verify current guidance is hosted at bfa.wv.gov, not an old dhhr.wv.gov link.
• →Track your under-24-months headcount independently from your total headcount.
• →Start WV CARES background-check paperwork for every adult household member as early as possible.

See the full record set every inspector checks for what to have ready regardless of state.