State Child Care Licensing Fact Sheet

State child care licensing is a set of baseline health and safety requirements for out of home child care as well as policies and procedures for enforcing those requirements. Each state is free to determine which child care providers must adhere to licensing regulations and what is required of them. This fact sheet provides an overview of key recommendations in Caring for Our Children, discussion of some available relevant state licensing data (including the District of Columbia but not available for the territories), and highlights where more research is needed.