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Ohio Child Care Licensing: A Parent's Guide

A plain-English guide to how child care licensing works in Ohio — who regulates it, how to check any program's license and public record, and where to find the official state information. Childcare Alerts indexes 7,999 licensed Ohio providers, free.

Who licenses child care in Ohio?

Ohio licenses programs through the Department of Children & Youth. Its child care search shows license status, inspection results, and the program's Step Up To Quality (SUTQ) rating — Ohio's one-to-five-star quality system.

How to check a program's license and record

1. Search on Childcare Alerts. Look up any Ohio program by name, city, or ZIP — free. Each page shows what's on the public record in plain English and links to the official state file.
2. Read the record. Check the license status and any licensing actions. Not sure what a term means? See violations explained.
3. Confirm on the state's own site. Ohio Child Care Search ↗ is the system of record — always the final word.

What Childcare Alerts shows for Ohio

For Ohio, we surface the provider directory plus each provider's Step Up To Quality quality rating.

See the Ohio child care report for the statewide picture.

Ohio's quality rating: Step Up To Quality

Ohio runs a voluntary quality-rating system called Step Up To Quality. A higher rating reflects more of the state's program-quality standards met — but participation is voluntary, so an unrated program is not necessarily lower quality. We show the rating on a program's page when the state publishes it.

Before you choose care

The record is one input, not the whole story. See 10 questions to ask on a tour and what accreditation means. A program with no action on record has not necessarily had a clean history — always open the official record.

Worried a program is operating without a license, or seen something unsafe? Here's how to report it in Ohio.