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Texas Child Care Licensing: A Parent's Guide
A plain-English guide to how child care licensing works in Texas — who regulates it, how to check any operation's license and public record, and where to find the official state information. Childcare Alerts indexes 14,358 licensed Texas providers, free.
Who licenses child care in Texas?
Child care in Texas is licensed and monitored by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). Texas regulates operations through HHSC Child Care Regulation. The public search shows each operation's inspection and deficiency history, graded by risk level, and any enforcement actions.
How to check a operation's license and record
- Search on Childcare Alerts. Look up any Texas operation 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.
- Read the record. Check the license status and any licensing actions. Not sure what a term means? See violations explained.
- Confirm on the state's own site. Texas HHSC Child Care Search ↗ is the system of record — always the final word.
What Childcare Alerts shows for Texas
For Texas, we surface an inspection & deficiency summary for every operation, graded by risk level, plus any corrective or adverse action.
See the Texas child care report and the Texas deserts map for the statewide picture.
Texas's quality rating: Texas Rising Star
Texas runs a voluntary quality-rating system called Texas Rising Star. A higher rating reflects more of the state's program-quality standards met — but participation is voluntary, so an unrated operation is not necessarily lower quality. We show the rating on a operation'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 operation with no action on record has not necessarily had a clean history — always open the official record.
Worried a operation is operating without a license, or seen something unsafe? Here's how to report it in Texas.
Childcare Alerts is an independent service — not affiliated with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). We surface public records from official state sources; the official government record always controls, and the absence of a record is not a guarantee of safety.