Childcare Alerts

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Texas Child Care: Operations & the Inspection Record

Childcare Alerts indexes every licensed child care operation in Texas from the state's open data, including each operation's public inspection and deficiency record. This report summarizes the landscape. It is a factual overview, not a safety rating of any provider.

14,338
licensed operations
240
counties covered
57%
with a high-risk deficiency on record
7
with an adverse action

Texas has 14,338 licensed child care operations on public record across 240 counties. Unlike our other states, Texas publishes each operation's graded deficiency counts (by risk level) and enforcement flags directly in open data — so every provider page shows an inspection & deficiency summary. Higher-risk deficiencies matter far more than the raw count.

Operation types

TypeOperations
Licensed Center9,555
Registered Child-Care Home1,798
Licensed Child-Care Home1,584
Listed Family Home1,401

Where the operations are

Texas cities with the most licensed child care operations:

  1. Houston — 1,499 operations
  2. San Antonio — 755 operations
  3. Austin — 570 operations
  4. Dallas — 430 operations
  5. Fort Worth — 409 operations
  6. El Paso — 341 operations
  7. Katy — 300 operations
  8. Arlington — 206 operations
  9. Spring — 196 operations
  10. Plano — 162 operations

Texas child care in the news

Recent third-party coverage of Texas child care. Headlines link to the original source — these are news reports, not our licensing records.

Coverage is gathered automatically from public news sources and isn't an endorsement; we link out and don't host the articles.

How to check a specific operation

Search any Texas operation by name or city to see its inspection & deficiency summary and a link to the official state record.

Search an operation →

Methodology & source

Operations, deficiency counts, and enforcement flags: Texas HHSC Child Care Regulation open data (data.texas.gov). Deficiency counts are cumulative across each operation's inspection history and graded by risk level; the type of deficiency matters more than the count. Childcare Alerts surfaces and summarizes these public records; the official government record always controls, and the absence of a record is not a guarantee of safety. Childcare Alerts is an independent service, not affiliated with any state agency.