Growing Your Child Care Program

If you operate an existing child care program, you might want to open more locations, increase license capacity, or change license type. Our Navigators can help you explore your options.

License Types

Child care programs operate under many different types of licenses. Changing your license type may give you options to grow your program. License types for family child care businesses include family day care, specialized infant and toddler family day care, and group family day care. These licenses allow for different ratios of children and caregivers.

Program Types

There are several types of programs licensed under Minnesota Rule 9502 designated as special family day care homes. These programs include employer and church-based programs, community collaborative and not-for-profit agency programs, and programs operating in a commercial space.

Finally, you may want to use this website to learn more about opening a child care center.

Increase License Capacity

You may be interested in increasing your capacity through:

  • Additional classrooms
  • Additional locations
  • Adding school-age classrooms, including summer programs
  • Drop-in care
  • After-hours care or non-standard hours care

Child Care Center capacity is determined by multiple factors including your city zoning requirements, fire and building code requirements, the size of the physical space used to provide child care in your facility, and your ability to meet equipment requirements. You might be able to increase your capacity by adjusting some of these factors or by adding staff.