Texas

Staff-child ratios (centers)

Requirements

Annual training

Caregivers must complete 24 clock hours of annual training relevant to the ages served (§746.1309); directors must complete 30 clock hours annually (§746.1311). Annual hours are exclusive of CPR/first aid, and at least one caregiver or employee with current first aid (with rescue breathing and choking) and CPR certification must be present.

Lead teacher

Each caregiver must be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma, high school equivalent, or a high school certificate of coursework completion (§746.1107), plus background checks; 16-17 year olds with a diploma/equivalent may be counted in ratio only with restrictions.

Director

The director of a center licensed for 13+ children must be at least 21, hold a high school diploma or equivalent, and meet one of seven education/experience combinations (§746.1015), e.g., a bachelor's degree with 12 credit hours in child development and 6 in management plus 1 year of licensed-center experience, or a CDA/CCP credential with 6 management credit hours plus 2 years of experience.

Worth knowing

Full classroom ratio/group-size chart (centers licensed for 13+, §§746.1601/746.1609, standards PDF revised December 2025): 0–11 mo 1:4/10; 12–17 mo 1:5/13; 18–23 mo 1:9/18; 2 yr 1:11/22; 3 yr 1:15/30; 4 yr 1:18/35; 5 yr 1:22/35; 6–8 yr and 9–13 yr 1:26/35. Group size is a hard cap regardless of extra staff.

Compliance

Background checks

Under 26 TAC Chapter 745, Subchapter F (grounded in CCDBG, 45 C.F.R. Part 98), operations must submit background checks for owners, directors, employees, and persons 14+ who are regularly present, have unsupervised access, or reside at the operation: a DFPS central registry check, name-based Texas criminal history and sex offender checks, fingerprint-based DPS/FBI criminal history, a National Sex Offender Registry search, and out-of-state checks for anyone who lived outside Texas in the preceding five years. Checks operate on a five-year renewal cycle.

Mandated reporting

Operations must report — and ensure that employees and volunteers report — suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation directly to the Texas Abuse and Neglect Hotline as required by Texas Family Code Chapter 261; the duty may not be delegated, and an operation may not require an employee to seek approval or give notice before reporting (26 TAC § 746.1201(5)). Abuse prevention, recognition, and reporting is a mandatory orientation topic.

First aid & CPR

Each caregiver and the center director must hold current certification in pediatric first aid with rescue breathing and choking and in pediatric CPR meeting American Heart Association layperson guidelines with manikin practice and written and hands-on testing, obtained within 90 days of employment (26 TAC §§ 746.1301, 746.1315). Whenever children are in care, at least one employee or caregiver on the premises must have current pediatric CPR certification.

Health & safety training

Every employee must complete center-specific orientation within seven days of employment and before unsupervised access to children, covering minimum standards, abuse prevention/recognition/reporting, emergency procedures, medication, allergy response, premises safety, and hazardous materials (26 TAC §§ 746.1301-.1303). Non-exempt caregivers need 24 clock hours of pre-service training — 8 hours before counting in ratio and 16 within 90 days, plus one infant-specific hour if caring for children under 24 months — then 24 annual clock hours (30 for directors).

Operations

Supervision rule

Caregivers must supervise children at all times: knowing which and how many children they are responsible for, maintaining physical proximity with auditory or visual awareness of each child's ongoing activity, and being able to intervene, with closeness calibrated to age, development, layout, and hazards (26 TAC §§ 746.1203(2), 746.1205). Caregivers must also stay free of competing duties (meal prep, janitorial work, personal devices) while responsible for children.

Record-keeping

Centers must keep at the operation, for each child: the enrollment agreement, admission information, health-care professional statement, immunization records, TB screening if required, incident/illness report forms, a daily time-in/time-out tracking system, and medication records — most retained for three months after the child's last day in care (26 TAC §§ 746.603-.605). Personnel records must document orientation, pre-service and annual training, first aid/CPR, and proof of background check requests.

Inspections

Texas Human Resources Code § 42.044 requires all licensed or certified operations to be inspected at least once a year, with at least one annual visit unannounced (all may be), while registered family homes and other facilities are inspected as necessary; centers with strong compliance histories may qualify for unannounced biennial inspections. Complaint investigations are additional, and inspection histories are published through HHSC's child care search.

Worth knowing: Center-specific citations are from the December 2025 revision of the HHSC Minimum Standards for Child-Care Centers (26 TAC Chapter 746); background check detail comes from HHSC's Child Care Regulation handbook. The § 42.044 inspection text was read via the Texas.Public.Law statute mirror because hhs.texas.gov policy pages intermittently blocked fetching.

Family & home child care

26 TAC Chapter 747 — Minimum Standards for Licensed and Registered Child-Care Homes; 26 TAC Chapter 742 — Minimum Standards for Listed Family Homes

Registered Child-Care Home

Care in the primary caregiver's home for up to 6 unrelated children ages 13 or younger during school hours, plus up to 6 additional school-age children after school; no more than 12 children may be in care at any time, including children related to the caregiver. Permit type: registration; no assistant is required by the permit type itself (HHSC Child Care Home Provider Types, rev. 03/2026).

Licensed Child-Care Home

Provides care and supervision to 7 to 12 children ages 13 or younger in the primary caregiver's home. Permit type: license; assistant caregivers are required as needed to meet the child/caregiver ratio and group-size charts in 26 TAC Chapter 747, Subchapter E, which vary by the ages of the children in care.

Provider training

The primary caregiver of a registered or licensed child-care home must obtain at least 30 clock hours of training each year relevant to the ages of children in care, including at least 6 hours in child development-related topics and 1 hour on safe sleep/SIDS and brain development if caring for children under 24 months (26 TAC 747.1309).

Worth knowing

Texas also has a third, smallest home category: the Listed Family Home (26 TAC Chapter 742) for up to 3 unrelated children, which is not routinely inspected. Exact infant (under-24-month) caps per home type are set by the age-mix ratio charts in 26 TAC 747 Subchapter E and were not captured numerically here, so they are left null rather than approximated. HHSC opened a public comment period on revisions to Chapters 742 and 747 in July 2026.