Registering a family day care home in New York: OCFS rules, ratios and steps

Which New York credential fits your home

New York sorts home-based child care by headcount, and the name of the credential changes as you grow. Social Services Law 390 defines a family day care home as care “for more than three hours per day per child” provided “in a family home for three to six children.”⁠¹ Family day care homes must register with OCFS.⁠¹ A group family day care home, for seven to twelve children, is a licensed program, not a registered one.⁠¹ If you care for fewer than three children, or for fewer than three hours a day per child, the statute does not require you to register, though anyone not required to register “may register with the department.”⁠¹

There is a middle step. A registered family day care provider may care for seven or eight children at once if no more than six are under school age, the school-age children come only before or after school, at lunch, on holidays or during school breaks, and OCFS has inspected the home to confirm it can handle seven or eight.⁠¹

If you plan to grow past eight children, or to move care out of your home, read the New York child day care center license guide before you sign anything. Your registration is tied to you and to the home you register. Part 417 requires the site to “meet the definition and requirements of a personal residence,” and you must send OCFS proof that you actually live there.⁠³

New York City: same rules, different front door

Home-based programs in the five boroughs “are regulated by the State’s Office of Children and Family Services,” but you deal with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of Child Care, which works through borough offices.⁠⁵ The city’s version of the process runs in this order: finish an online orientation, request an application, take a 15-hour health and safety training after you apply, and send every document and clearance, fingerprints included, within 90 days.⁠⁴

The city states one term the statute leaves open. Under state law a registration can run for up to four years.⁠¹ The NYC Business page says “the initial registration period for a Family Day Care program is two years,” and renewals then run four years.⁠⁴ The city mails a renewal notice 90 days before your registration expires. If it never arrives, call 311 and ask for “day care license” to reach your borough office.⁠⁴

Who can be the provider, assistant or substitute

Part 417 sets one set of qualifications for the provider, every assistant and every substitute:⁠³

• At least 18 years old.
• Either two years of experience caring for children under six, or one year plus six hours of training or education in early childhood development. Raising your own children counts, as does paid or unpaid care.
• At least two acceptable references who are not relatives. One must be able to speak to your work history if you have ever worked outside the home, and one to your character and fitness to provide care.
• A satisfactory medical statement completed within the 12 months before you apply.

You must be the primary caregiver.⁠³ If you will be away more than three consecutive days, or away on a recurring basis, you must tell OCFS in advance. With written OCFS approval, an approved assistant can stand in for you for up to 30 cumulative days a year. Parents get two weeks’ written notice of any long absence.⁠³ No one counts as an approved caregiver until the program has OCFS’s written approval.⁠³

Background checks reach your whole household

Criminal history review, a Statewide Central Register (SCR) database check, and a check of the Justice Center’s register of substantiated category one abuse and neglect cases apply to you, every employee and volunteer, and every person 18 or older who lives in the home or moves in later.⁠³ Applicants also file sworn statements about any misdemeanor or felony conviction in any jurisdiction, together with fingerprints.⁠³ Before OCFS accepts a later registration, the statute requires that you have met the training rules, completed criminal history screening, and complied with Social Services Law 424-a (the SCR check).⁠¹

Training you need before and after registration

The training rules come in two layers, and the order matters.

1. Pre-application orientation

   If you have never held an OCFS day care registration, you must complete an OCFS-approved orientation before OCFS issues you an application.⁠³

2. Health and safety course

   Before OCFS issues your first registration, you must complete an approved health and safety course that meets federal pre-service minimums and show basic competency.⁠³⁠² If you are not registered within two years of finishing the course, you have to take it again.⁠³

3. Thirty hours every two years

   Every provider, assistant and volunteer with regular contact with children needs 30 hours of training every two years, and 15 of those hours must come in the first six months.⁠²⁠³ Training you take while your application is pending counts toward that first cycle.⁠² Health and safety training taken within 12 months before registration can count toward the first 15 hours.⁠³

4. Five hours a year minimum

   At least five hours of approved training must be taken each year.⁠³

The training has to cover ten topics set by state law, from child development and nutrition to business record keeping, shaken baby syndrome and adverse childhood experiences.⁠²⁠³ Assistants and volunteers who have not finished the federal health and safety training may not be left alone with children.⁠³ In NYC, the city says the Foundations in Health and Safety course must be done within three months of hire by providers, assistants, substitutes and volunteers.⁠⁴

CPR and first aid. At least one person holding a valid OCFS-approved CPR and first aid certification for children must be on the premises whenever you are open.⁠² Anyone who supervises children in a pool must hold CPR certification.⁠³

Medication. To give medication, a caregiver must be at least 18, hold first aid and CPR certification for the ages in care, and have completed OCFS Medication Administration Training (MAT). Patient-specific epinephrine devices, inhalers and nebulizers are an exception: for those, training from the parent, a health care provider or a health care consultant is enough.⁠³ If you will give medication beyond topical products and those emergency items, your health care plan must be approved by a health care consultant, whose visits to the program must occur at least once every two years.⁠³

Getting the house ready

Part 417 is specific about the building, and the inspector will check the home against the floor diagram you submit with your application. That diagram shows every room and what it is used for, every exit and alternate way out, and the outdoor play area. You may provide care only in rooms OCFS has approved as child care space.⁠³

Floors and exits

The rules on floors and exits are where most New York homes need work:⁠³

• Children may be cared for only on floors that have two separate ways out.
• Children may never be above the second floor of a single-family house.
• If care is mainly on the second floor, both ways out must be stairways. One must be an unobstructed interior stair, and the other either a second interior stair or an exterior stair that goes straight to the ground.
• If you use only the first floor and the second floor lacks a second exit, children may go upstairs only to use the bathroom, and only if there is a window of at least 24 by 24 inches clear opening (or one that meets the state fire code) for evacuation.
• Below-ground space needs its own qualifying exit.
• Children must always be on the same floor as a caregiver, apart from the limited exceptions in 417.8.

Fire and safety equipment

• A working smoke detector on every floor, plus one in or next to each nap room (inside the room if it has a door). Hardwired detectors need battery backup.⁠³
• Multipurpose residential fire extinguishers in the kitchen and outside the furnace room. Apartments in multiple dwellings are exempt from the furnace-room extinguisher.⁠³
• Carbon monoxide detectors wherever the law requires them.⁠³
• Firearms and ammunition stored securely and out of children’s reach while care is going on.⁠³
• No trampolines, except small one-person exercise models.⁠³
• Barriers around any pool or body of water on the property. Without them, the law says no registration may be issued or renewed.⁠²

Space and sanitation

Rooms must be kept at 68°F or warmer, and a bathroom must be no more than one floor away from the program area.⁠³ Your house number must be visible from the street.⁠³ You need access to outdoor play space. A public park or schoolyard counts, but you need an OCFS-approved written plan for getting children there safely.⁠³ Cribs must meet Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, and stackable cribs are banned.⁠³

With the application you also submit inspection reports, dated within the previous 12 months, for any wood, coal or pellet stove, fireplace or permanently installed gas space heater. If you use a well or other private water supply, you submit a lab report on the water.⁠³ You must also certify that the home and neighborhood are free of environmental hazards. Part 417 lists dry cleaners, gas stations and Superfund sites as examples. If the property’s history suggests a hazard, a local official has to inspect or test.⁠³

What your town can and cannot require

Social Services Law 390(12) limits local governments here. No village, town, city or county may hold a one- or two-family dwelling or multiple dwelling used for family day care to stricter sanitation, health, fire or building standards than the same home without child care. None may “prohibit or restrict” family day care in such a dwelling once a registration has been issued.⁠¹ Local code officials can still inspect for compliance with the codes that apply anyway.⁠¹ OCFS may also ask you for a local official’s statement that the home meets sanitation and safety standards.⁠³ Separately, an assessor may not consider the family day care registration when valuing your home for property tax.⁠¹

Plans and policies OCFS reviews

Several required documents are submitted on OCFS forms:

• Emergency plan and evacuation diagram. These cover how children and adults learn of an emergency, primary and secondary routes, the meeting place and attendance count, evacuation for each shift (day, evening, night), and primary and secondary relocation sites. You review the plan with parents and caregivers and post the diagram where people can see it.⁠³ Evacuation drills happen monthly during each shift of care, varying the exit route so every approved way out is practiced, and you keep a record of every drill.⁠³
• Health care plan. This covers daily health checks, illness and injury records, how you get emergency help, and care for children who become sick. It stays on site and must be available to parents and OCFS on request.⁠³
• Visitor control. Visitors sign in and out with the date, times and purpose of the visit, as Part 417.8 requires.⁠³
• Late pickup procedures. Social Services Law 390(15) now requires written procedures for when a parent cannot collect a child, including because the parent has been detained by federal immigration authorities. You must try every authorized pickup person before contacting the Statewide Central Register, and you must keep the child until an authorized person arrives.⁠¹ The statute sets the deadline as 90 days after the subdivision’s effective date, and the Senate text does not show that date, so ask OCFS (or the Health Department in New York City) whether your procedures are already due.⁠¹

Applying, step by step

1. Complete the orientation. This is required before OCFS will release an application to a first-time applicant. In NYC it is online.⁠³⁠⁴
2. Assemble the application. Part 417.2 lists what goes in it, and 417.3 adds the floor diagram:⁠³
   • the application form, with your agreement to follow the regulations
   • medical statements for every caregiver and every household member, completed within 12 months
   • a summary of your training and experience, and references
   • sworn conviction statements and fingerprints
   • certifications of your child support status and workers’ compensation compliance
   • SCR and Justice Center check forms
   • water, fuel-burning appliance and environmental hazard documents
   • proof of residence
   • the floor diagram and the health care plan
   • an email address for OCFS correspondence
3. Clear the acceptance threshold. OCFS accepts an application only once it meets the agency’s minimum threshold, and otherwise returns it. From acceptance, you have 90 days to send every remaining item. Missing that deadline counts as withdrawing the application.⁠³
4. Take the health and safety course if you have not already. In NYC this is the 15-hour training taken after you apply.⁠³⁠⁴
5. Pass the home inspection. No registration is issued until an inspection shows the home complies with Part 417 and the statute.⁠¹⁠³ If you want to care for seven or eight children, this is the inspection that decides it.⁠¹
6. Wait for written caregiver approvals for any assistant or substitute before they work with children.⁠³

Neither Social Services Law 390 nor the Part 417 text cited here sets an application or registration fee for family day care homes. Ask OCFS what you will owe at application, including any charge for background checks, before you file.

Day-to-day rules the inspector will check

Your ratio is set by Part 417: one caregiver may care for six children under school age, or eight when at least two of the eight are school-age, with at least one caregiver for every two children under age two.⁠³ If you split the group for a trip or transportation, each part must still meet the ratio.⁠³ No child under six weeks old may be enrolled without prior OCFS approval, which OCFS gives only in circumstances such as a medical need or economic hardship.⁠¹

Electronic monitors may be used only for sleeping children, and only with parents’ advance agreement.⁠¹ When a monitor is in use, someone must physically check sleeping children every 15 minutes.⁠³ For evening and night care, you may sleep only if every parent has agreed in writing and monitors are in each room where children sleep. Otherwise you stay awake and check every 15 minutes.⁠³ Caregivers may not use phones or other devices for entertainment while supervising. Brief calls related to the program, such as to parents or OCFS, are allowed.⁠³

Inspections, complaints and renewal

OCFS may inspect at any time, announced or unannounced. It must make an unannounced inspection within 15 days of a complaint that, if true, would mean a violation, and by the next day of operation if children may be in imminent danger.⁠¹ If violations are found, you are told in writing within ten days and required to correct them.⁠¹

You must send the renewal application at least 60 days before your registration expires. It includes updated certifications, water and appliance reports, an environmental hazard statement, and proof that you have met the training requirements. The renewal is issued only after another inspection.⁠³ Before accepting a renewal, OCFS checks that you have met the training and screening requirements and either received no complaints or found you compliant after investigating them.⁠¹

What OCFS must tell you about money

The statute requires OCFS to make information available to registered providers on liability insurance, start-up grants, U.S. Department of Agriculture food programs, child care subsidies and tax matters.⁠¹ It does not require family day care homes to carry liability insurance, and Part 417 does not set an insurance requirement. You do have to certify workers’ compensation compliance with your application.⁠³

Recent and pending changes

• Longer terms from June 5, 2027. Amendments to Social Services Law 390 extend registrations (and group family and center licenses) from “up to four years” to “up to six years” starting June 5, 2027.⁠¹
• Epinephrine rule proposed. The July 1, 2026 State Register published a proposed consensus rule, CFS-26-26-00001-P, amending Part 417 and the other child care parts. It replaces “epinephrine auto-injector” with “epinephrine device” and “diphenhydramine” with “antihistamine,” and widens an optional differential payment rate to providers that stock non-patient-specific epinephrine.⁠⁶ Check the State Register for an adoption notice before relying on the new wording.
• Regulation text. This guide relies on the compilation effective October 13, 2021.⁠³ Ask OCFS whether any amendments have been adopted since that date, and read the current Part 417 text before you finalize your plans.

Sources

1. 1
   New York State Senate, New York Social Services Law, Section 390 (child day care; license and registration) Checked 12 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
2. 2
   New York State Senate, New York Social Services Law, Section 390-A (training and health and safety) Checked 12 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
3. 3
   New York State Office of Children and Family Services, 18 NYCRR Part 417, Family Day Care (OCFS compilation effective October 13, 2021) Checked 12 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
4. 4
   City of New York, NYC Business, Family Day Care Registration Checked 12 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
5. 5
   NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Family Day Care and Group Family Day Care (Home-based): Information for Operators Checked 12 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
6. 6
   New York Department of State, Division of Administrative Rules, New York State Register, July 1, 2026 (Vol. XLVIII), proposed rule CFS-26-26-00001-P Checked 12 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑

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