Washington State Foster Care Requirements and Licensing

Washington State foster care requirements are set out in Chapter 110-148 of the Washington Administrative Code and administered by the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). To be licensed, you and everyone in your household must clear background checks and health screenings, you must complete required training and a home study, and the home itself must meet state safety standards. From application to license usually takes about 120 days, depending on how quickly you move through training, scheduling, and any home modifications your licensor asks for.¹

Who Can Apply

WAC 110-148-1320 sets the baseline. You and every person in your household must meet the licensing standards in the chapter, and every required document must be in your licensing file before the state issues a license.² The rule does not restrict licensing by marital status, gender, or homeownership. Single applicants, renters, and same-sex couples can all apply.

Your household also has to be financially stable enough to cover its own expenses without relying on foster care payments as income. The state looks at your physical and emotional capacity to care for a child who may have experienced trauma, and that assessment happens through the home study rather than a single pass-fail test.

Background Checks and Health Screenings

Background checks reach further than many applicants expect. Everyone living in your household, anyone living on your property, and anyone who will have unsupervised contact with foster children has to clear the required checks. The threshold is age 16, not 18. Anyone 16 or older must pass a Washington State Patrol check. Anyone 18 or older must also pass an FBI fingerprint-based check and a child abuse and neglect registry check from every state they have lived in during the last five years.² Children under 16 may still need a check if DCYF decides one is warranted for safety reasons.

The registry check looks for prior license denials or revocations from any agency regulating care of children or vulnerable adults, and for any founded finding of abuse or neglect. A hit on the registry does not automatically disqualify you. DCYF can still proceed if it determines you do not pose a risk to a child’s safety or long-term stability.²

On the health side, every household member 18 and older has to complete a tuberculosis screening. If the screening is positive, a physician’s statement confirming no active TB or risk of contagion is required. Any biological or adopted children already in the home who are not in out-of-home care must have current immunizations, though the state can grant a medical exemption when a licensed health care provider documents that a vaccine is contrary to the child’s health.²

Required Training

Before licensing, every caregiver over 18 in the home must complete department-approved first aid training, age-appropriate CPR certification, and bloodborne pathogens training. These certifications need to meet nationally recognized standards.²

Non-kinship caregivers also complete Caregiver Core Training (CCT), six online sessions of roughly two hours each covering the child welfare system, the licensing process, and trauma-informed caregiving. For kinship caregivers (relatives or others with a pre-existing relationship to the child), CCT is recommended but not required.³ DCYF offers additional training after licensing, and foster parents sometimes receive childcare assistance when attending required meetings or trainings.

The Licensing Process and Home Study

You start the application through DCYF’s online Caregiver Application Portal, or you can work through a private child-placing agency. Either way, once your application is in, a licensor is assigned to guide you through the remaining steps.

The home study is the heart of the evaluation. A DCYF worker visits your home, walks through the physical space, and holds in-depth conversations about your family, your plan for caring for a child, and how you handle stress. These conversations can span multiple visits of up to two hours each, with at least one conducted in person.⁴ The licensor identifies any safety improvements you need to make. Common ones include securing hazardous materials, installing smoke detectors, and making sure the child will have their own bed and storage space.

Once you clear training, the home study, and any required modifications, your household enters the DCYF database for placement matching. DCYF’s estimate of about 120 days end to end depends almost entirely on how quickly you move through each piece.¹

Monthly Payments

Washington reimburses licensed foster parents on a flat monthly rate rather than itemizing specific expenses. The rate depends on the child’s age and the level of care assigned by DCYF. Most initial placements start at Level 1 until an assessment is completed.

DCYF’s published rates as of January 2024:⁵

Ages 0–5: Level 1 starts at $722 per month. Higher levels range from $1,407 (Level 3) up to $2,777 (Level 7).
Ages 6–11: Level 1 starts at $846 per month. Higher levels range from $1,531 to $2,901.
Ages 12 and older: Level 1 starts at $860 per month. Level 2, available only for this age group, is $1,202.50. Higher levels range from $1,545 to $2,951.

The level a child is assigned reflects DCYF’s assessment of behavioral, medical, or developmental needs. Foster parents who work outside the home may also qualify for help through the state’s Working Connections Child Care subsidy, and DCYF maintains a dedicated page for foster parents seeking childcare assistance.⁶

Health Coverage and Taxes

Every child in Washington’s foster care system is eligible for Apple Health, the state’s Medicaid program, regardless of your household income. Apple Health covers medical, dental, and mental health services, so therapy, prescriptions, dental work, and doctor visits do not come out of your pocket.⁷

Federal law also excludes qualified foster care payments from your gross income. Under 26 U.S.C. § 131, monthly maintenance payments you receive from the state for caring for a foster child are not taxable, and neither are difficulty of care payments made for children with physical, mental, or emotional needs requiring additional support. The exclusion applies to payments from the state or a licensed child-placing agency for a child placed in your home by an authorized agency.⁸ For foster individuals who have turned 19, the basic exclusion caps at five such individuals per home. Difficulty of care payments can be excluded for up to ten foster children under 19 and up to five who are 19 or older. Most foster families will never hit those caps.

A foster child placed in your home by an authorized agency may also qualify as your dependent for purposes of the Child Tax Credit if the child lived with you for more than half the tax year, is under 17 at year’s end, has a valid Social Security number, and you provide more than half the child’s support. Because foster care payments are excluded from your income, they count as support you provided, which works in your favor on the support test.

Your Rights Once Licensed

Under RCW 13.34.096, DCYF must give you timely notice before every juvenile court hearing involving a child in your care, at the same time it notifies other parties, and by any means reasonably likely to reach you (including phone calls or in-person contact for emergency hearings). You have the right to submit a caregiver’s report to the court and the right to be heard during the proceeding.⁹ A parallel federal mandate under 42 U.S.C. 675(5)(G) requires the same notice and opportunity to be heard.¹⁰

One limit worth understanding: the right to be heard does not make you a legal party. You cannot file motions or appeal the court’s decision based solely on your status as the foster parent. The legal parties remain DCYF, the child (through a guardian ad litem), and the biological parents. You can decline a placement, request a new placement if a situation becomes unworkable, and participate in case planning meetings about the child’s future.

Day-to-Day Decisions

Washington applies a prudent parent standard that lets foster parents make everyday decisions for the child without prior agency approval, the way a reasonable parent would. That covers school permission slips, sleepovers, and extracurricular activities. Medical decision-making is tighter. Routine care like a pediatrician visit is usually within your authority, but significant medical decisions, especially elective procedures or mental health treatment, generally require coordination with the caseworker and sometimes the biological parent or the court. Your licensor will walk you through the specific boundaries during the home study.

Confidentiality

You are required to keep information about the child and their biological family confidential, including from your own extended family, friends, and neighbors. The requirement reaches social media. Posting photos that identify a child as being in foster care, tagging locations, or sharing case details can create real safety risks and may violate state policy. The safest default is not to post anything about the child online without explicit permission from the caseworker.

Reunification, Permanency, and Adoption

Foster care in Washington is designed to be temporary, and the state’s primary goal is reunifying children with their biological families when it can be done safely. In practice that shapes much of the experience: you may be asked to support visitation schedules, cooperate with the biological parents’ case plan, and ultimately say goodbye.

Washington law requires a permanency planning hearing no later than 12 months after a child enters out-of-home care, with the statute pointing toward permanency ideally before 15 months. If a child has been in out-of-home care for 15 of the most recent 22 months, the court must order DCYF to file a petition seeking termination of parental rights unless the court finds good cause not to. After that first permanency hearing, additional hearings happen at least once every 12 months until a permanent outcome is reached or the dependency case is dismissed.¹¹

When reunification is not possible and parental rights are terminated, adoption becomes the primary permanency goal, and Washington law pushes for adoption to be completed within six months of the termination order.¹¹ To adopt a child from Washington’s foster care system, you must be fully licensed as a foster parent.¹² Washington’s Adoption Support Program provides ongoing financial, medical, and counseling support to families who adopt children with special needs from foster care. All children adopted out of foster care with an Adoption Support Agreement qualify as “special needs” for purposes of the federal adoption tax credit, which lets the family claim the full credit amount regardless of actual adoption expenses paid.¹³

1
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Become a Foster Parent FAQ
2
Washington State Legislature. WAC 110-148-1320
3
UW School of Social Work. Caregiver Core Training
4
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Home Study Process
5
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Caregiver Payment Levels
6
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Need Help Paying for Child Care?
7
Washington State Health Care Authority. Foster Care
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 131 – Certain Foster Care Payments
9
Washington State Legislature. RCW 13.34.096 – Right to Be Heard – Notice
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 675
11
Washington State Legislature. RCW 13.34.145
12
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Adoption
13
Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Adoption Support Program