What Are the Requirements to Open a Daycare in Alabama?

To open a daycare in Alabama, you need a license from the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR), and getting one means meeting facility standards, clearing fire and health inspections, qualifying your staff, passing background checks for everyone in the building, and then keeping all of that current after you open. Alabama defines a child care facility as any operation that takes one or more unrelated children for daytime care. Programs running four hours a day or less for children younger than school age fall outside the licensing definition; anything beyond that threshold triggers everything below.¹

Which License Category Fits Your Operation

Alabama uses three license categories, and the one that applies to you is set by how many children you plan to serve. Each category has its own minimum standards in the Alabama Administrative Code.

A Day Care Home is a family home taking no more than six children. The provider’s own children under age six count toward the six.¹
A Group Day Care Home is a home-based operation serving seven to twelve children, with additional staffing and space obligations above the Day Care Home rules.
A Day Care Center is any facility serving more than twelve children, and covers what’s commonly called a child care center, nursery school, preschool, or pre-kindergarten.¹

Start by contacting DHR by letter, phone, or a scheduled visit to request the application packet for your category. The packet includes a copy of the Minimum Standards for Child Care Facilities, which is what a DHR inspector will measure you against.²

Facility Requirements

Zoning and Business Setup

Before you sign a lease or renovate anything, confirm the location is zoned for child care. Alabama requires written verification of compliance with local zoning ordinances, and you also need to demonstrate a sound business structure and adequate financial resources for the children you plan to enroll.² Zoning disputes can take weeks to work through, so this step deserves early attention.

Indoor and Outdoor Space

DHR sets firm space minimums. Each child must have at least 32 square feet of indoor activity space, and that number excludes bathrooms, kitchens, storage rooms, and hallways. The outdoor play area must provide at least 60 square feet per child for at least half of the facility’s licensed capacity, and the entire outdoor space must be enclosed by a fence or wall. A DHR representative measures during the site inspection.

Sanitation and Safety

The facility needs adequate kitchen and restroom facilities that pass a health department inspection. All hazardous materials, cleaning products, and medicines must be stored in locked areas children cannot access.

Fire and Health Inspections

DHR will not issue a license until you submit two written inspection reports with no outstanding violations: one from the fire department and one from the county health department. Volunteer fire department inspections are not accepted. If you prepare food on-site, you also need a current health department food permit; if food is brought in and served at the facility, you need written approval of the food service plan from the health department.³ Both reports must be posted in the facility where parents can see them.

These inspections don’t end at licensing. DHR can request follow-ups at any time, and fire inspections must be updated at least every five years.³

Staff Qualifications and Training

Alabama’s staffing rules get granular, and this is where a lot of new providers stumble. Requirements differ by role.

Directors

A center director must be at least 19 and complete at least 20 clock hours of training in administration and management plus four clock hours in quality child care. On top of that baseline, the director must meet one of several qualification tracks. The most accessible is a high school diploma or GED, 120 clock hours of child care training, and at least 12 months of experience working as a teacher or director in a licensed center. Higher-education paths include an associate degree in child development or early childhood education with nine months of experience, or a bachelor’s degree in those fields with six months.⁴

Teachers and Aides

Teachers who have primary responsibility for a group of children must be at least 18 with a high school diploma or GED. Within 30 days of hire, they must complete at least 12 hours of training in child care and development through workshops, meetings, video training, or one-on-one consultation. Aides and assistant teachers can be as young as 16 with at least an eighth-grade education, but they must work under direct supervision of a qualified teacher and cannot be counted toward the required staff-to-child ratio.⁴

Pre-Service Training

Every person working in the facility, from the director to substitutes, must complete at least one hour of pre-service training from an outside source in each of eleven required areas before working unsupervised with children. Those areas include infectious disease prevention, safe sleep practices and SIDS prevention, medication administration, allergic reaction response, building safety, shaken baby syndrome prevention, emergency preparedness, hazardous materials handling, child abuse recognition and reporting, and first aid and CPR.⁴

Staff-to-Child Ratios

Alabama mandates ratios that must be maintained at all times, not just at headcount moments. They scale with age:

Birth to 18 months: 1 staff to 5 children
18 months to 2½ years: 1 to 7
24 to 36 months: 1 to 8
2½ to 4 years: 1 to 11
4 years to school age: 1 to 18
School age to 8 years: 1 to 21
8 years and older: 1 to 22

These numbers drive your hiring budget. Infant care eats personnel quickly, so plan enrollment mix and staffing together.⁵

Background Checks

Every applicant, employee, volunteer, and substitute must submit two sets of fingerprints and sign written consent for a criminal history background check conducted by the Alabama Department of Public Safety.⁶ In a home-based facility, household members over 18 are also checked. DHR pays the fees for licensed facilities, but the check can take several weeks, and no one may work with children until it clears.

Alabama also runs a check against the State Central Registry on Child Abuse and Neglect to confirm no applicant or staff member has a substantiated history of mistreating children. Plan for these clearances to be the single biggest source of delay in your timeline.

Submitting the Application and the Site Review

Once you’ve assembled the documentation, passed fire and health inspections, and started background checks, you submit the complete package to the DHR Office of Child Care Licensing. There is no application fee. The license is non-transferable, so you cannot sell it or hand it off to someone else.

A DHR representative then visits to inspect the physical space, verify compliance with minimum standards, and review your administrative policies. Compliance is noted on an Information Form as items are confirmed.² New facilities that pass usually receive a provisional license first, allowing them to begin operating while they demonstrate sustained compliance. The provisional license transitions to a regular operating license once DHR confirms you’re maintaining standards over time.

What You Have to Keep Doing After You Open

The license is not the finish line. DHR conducts unannounced monitoring visits to verify ongoing compliance, and license renewal requires updated documentation including current fire and health inspection reports. Facilities that fail to maintain standards, refuse inspections, or fail to submit required reports face written demand from DHR and potential license revocation.²

Record keeping is extensive. You must maintain a written copy of operating policies covering discipline procedures and emergency preparedness, and parents must receive a copy before their child’s admission. Individual files for each child must include current medical and immunization records, and the facility must keep daily attendance records and detailed staff training logs.

Your written emergency plan should cover disasters likely to affect your area, name primary and backup evacuation sites (at least one within walking distance), explain how you’ll communicate with parents during a crisis, and cover both full evacuation and shelter-in-place scenarios. Practice drills must involve every child present and should follow the frequency required by Alabama’s licensing standards.

Federal Rules That Apply On Top

The Americans with Disabilities Act applies alongside Alabama’s licensing standards. Child care providers must make physical spaces accessible to children and parents with disabilities, and must remove architectural barriers when doing so is readily achievable, meaning it can be done without significant difficulty or expense. Examples include installing grab bars in restroom stalls and replacing loose playground surfaces like pea gravel with ADA-compliant materials.⁷ ADA compliance is not optional and is not limited to large centers; home-based providers who serve the public are covered too. If a child with a disability applies, you must make reasonable modifications to your policies and practices unless doing so would fundamentally alter the nature of your program.

Two federal programs are worth knowing about even though they aren’t licensing requirements. The USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) reimburses licensed providers for meals and snacks served to enrolled children; participation is voluntary but can offset food costs, and meals must follow USDA nutrition standards based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.⁸ On the tax side, you’ll need an Employer Identification Number to hire staff, file employment taxes, and report income, and parents claiming the Child and Dependent Care Credit must list your name, address, and EIN or Social Security number on Form 2441, so expect them to ask early.⁹

1
Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 38-7-2 – Definitions
2
Legal Information Institute. Alabama Administrative Code r 660-5-37-.07 – Licensing
3
Alabama Administrative Code. Alabama Administrative Code 660-5-20-.03 – Facilities
4
Alabama Administrative Code. Alabama Administrative Code 660-5-26-.06 – Staff
5
Alabama Administrative Code. Alabama Administrative Code 660-5-20-.04 – Child Care Program
6
Alabama Administrative Code. Alabama Administrative Code 660-5-46-.04 – Criminal Records Checks Required
7
ADA.gov. Equal Access to Child Care
8
Food and Nutrition Service. Nutrition Standards for CACFP Meals and Snacks
9
Internal Revenue Service. Child and Dependent Care Credit Information