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Home Daycare License Requirements in South Carolina (2026)

Opening a home daycare in South Carolina means getting a family child care home license from the SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES (SCDSS). Here is exactly what that takes in 2026 — your capacity limit and ratios, the training and background checks, the application steps, and the postings and enrollment forms you need — sourced to the state’s own rules and dated.

Who needs a license — home types in South Carolina

WHAT COUNTS AS A "FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME" IN SOUTH CAROLINA, WHAT FALLS OUT OF THE DEFINITION, AND THE FIVE TESTS THAT DECIDE IT South Carolina defines the family child care home twice, in identical words, once in the statute and once in the regulation. The statute states it in two places. Section 63-13-20(13): "'Family childcare home' means a facility within a residence occupied by the operator in which childcare is regularly provided for no more than six children, unattended by a parent or legal guardian, including those children living in the home and children received for childcare who are related to the resident caregiver. However, an occupied residence in which childcare is provided only for a child or children related to the resident caregiver or only for the child or children of one unrelated family, or only for a combination of these children, is not a family childcare home." Section 63-13-810(A) repeats the same sentence at the head of Article 7 ("As used in this chapter, 'family childcare home' means a facility within a residence occupied by the operator in which childcare regularly is provided for no more than six children...").

The regulation, R.114-530A(10), uses the same words with the sub-parts spelled out: "Family Child Care Home: A facility within a residence occupied by the operator in which child care is regularly provided for no more than six children, unattended by a parent or legal guardian, including those children living in the home and children received for child care who are related to the resident caregiver. However, an occupied residence in which child care is provided only for a child or children related to the resident caregiver or only for the child or children of one unrelated family or only for a combination of these children is not a family child care home." That definition is a machine with five gates. Every one has to be passed for the home to be inside the regime; failing any one of them puts the arrangement outside it. GATE ONE — IT MUST BE "WITHIN A RESIDENCE OCCUPIED BY THE OPERATOR". Not a residence, but the operator's own residence, which the operator occupies. The regulation reinforces this twice. R.114-530A(15) defines the operator as "The person eighteen (18) years or older, who lives in the home and has signed and submitted a Department application form and other requirements to the Department in order to obtain a family child care home registration or license.

The operator has the ultimate responsibility of the family child care home and must be the person in charge of supervising the children in the family child care home." R.114-532A(1) says it a third time: "The operator of a family child care home shall be at least eighteen (18) years of age and shall reside in the home." The consequence is that South Carolina has no such thing as an absentee-owned family child care home, and no such thing as a family child care home in a rented commercial storefront or a dedicated non-residential building. It also means the credential is welded to the address: R.114-531C(6), "A change in location shall automatically void the registration. The registration cannot be transferred nor sold from one individual to another"; R.114-531F(8), "A change in location shall immediately void the license. The license cannot be transferred nor sold from one individual to another." An operator who moves house does not transfer a registration; the registration dies at the moment of the move and a fresh application, with a fresh zoning letter, is required. GATE TWO — "CHILD CARE" AS THE STATUTE DEFINES IT, WHICH IS NARROWER THAN THE ORDINARY WORD.

Section 63-13-20(2): "'Childcare' means the care, supervision, or guidance of a child or children, unaccompanied by the parent, guardian, or custodian, on a regular basis, for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day, but more than four hours, in a place other than the child's or the children's own home or homes." Three quantitative filters live in that sentence. The care must be for MORE than four hours per day; it must be for LESS than twenty-four hours per day; and it must be somewhere other than the child's own home. An arrangement of four hours or fewer per day is not "childcare" for this chapter at all — which is why § 63-13-20(4)(c) separately excludes "kindergartens or nursery schools or other daytime programs, with or without stated educational purposes, operating no more than four hours a day and receiving children younger than lawful school age". And care in the CHILD's home — a nanny, an au pair, a grandparent minding the children at the children's own address — is outside the definition and outside DSS jurisdiction entirely. GATE THREE — "REGULARLY", WHICH HAS A HARD NUMERIC DEFINITION.

Both instruments define it and both define it the same way. Statute, § 63-13-20(24): "'Regularly, or on a regular basis': these terms refer to the frequency with which childcare services are available and provided at a facility in any one week; these terms mean the availability and provision of periods of daycare on more than two days in such week." Regulation, R.114-530A(19): "Regularly or on a regular basis: These terms refer to the frequency with which child care services are available and provided at a family child care home in any one week; these terms mean the availability and provision of periods of child care on more than two days in such week." The threshold is therefore THREE OR MORE DAYS IN A WEEK. A home that takes children two days a week is not "regularly" providing child care and is not a family child care home. Two subtleties are easy to miss. First, the test is disjunctive-sounding but conjunctive in effect: "the AVAILABILITY AND PROVISION of periods of child care on more than two days" — a home that advertises Monday-through-Friday availability while actually being used three days a week is inside the definition on both limbs.

Second, the measuring rod is "in any one week", not an average: a single three-day week can bring the arrangement inside. GATE FOUR — SIX CHILDREN OR FEWER, COUNTED THE SOUTH CAROLINA WAY. The definition says "no more than six children ... including those children living in the home and children received for child care who are related to the resident caregiver". This is the state's most economically consequential sentence and it is developed at length in capacity_max below. In definitional terms, its effect is that the operator's own resident children and related children under twelve are inside the number that determines which legal species the facility is. A home caring for four unrelated children while three of the operator's own children under twelve are present is caring for seven children within the meaning of the chapter and is not a family child care home at all — it is a group child care home under § 63-13-20(14), which requires a licence and a different regulation. GATE FIVE — THE "PROVISO", WHICH IS THE MOST MISREAD SENTENCE IN SOUTH CAROLINA CHILD CARE LAW. The second sentence of the definition removes three arrangements: "an occupied residence in which child care is provided only for a child or children related to the resident caregiver" — the grandmother, aunt or cousin who minds only relatives; "or only for the child or children of one unrelated family" — the caregiver who minds the three children of a single outside family and nobody else; "or only for a combination of these children" — the caregiver who minds her own grandchildren plus the children of one other family and nobody else.

Note precisely what triggers the proviso: the word "only". Add a single child from a SECOND unrelated family and the whole home falls inside the regime, because the care is no longer "only for" the excluded categories. The one-unrelated-family exemption is a cliff edge, not a sliding scale, and it is the commonest way a South Carolina informal arrangement becomes a regulated facility without the caregiver noticing. "RELATED" IS DEFINED, AND THE LIST IS CLOSED. R.114-530A(20): "Related: Any of the following relationships by marriage, blood, or adoption: parent, grandparent, brother, sister, stepparent, stepsister, stepbrother, uncle, aunt, or cousin of the first degree." Statute, § 63-13-25 phrasing at § 63-13-20(25): "'Related' means any of the following relationships by marriage, blood, or adoption: parent, grandparent, brother, sister, stepparent, stepsister, stepbrother, uncle, aunt, cousin of the first degree." Two exclusions bite in practice: great-grandchildren and second cousins are NOT on the list, and neither is a godchild or a foster child of another family. A "cousin of the first degree" is a first cousin; second cousins and first cousins once removed are outside.

So a caregiver minding her sister's children and her second cousin's children is not within the "only for related children" proviso, because the second cousin's children are unrelated for the purposes of this chapter. WHO IS A "CHILD" FOR THESE PURPOSES — AND THE AGE CEILING THAT SURPRISES PEOPLE. R.114-530A(4): "Child: An individual, from birth through twelve (12) years of age (chronologically), receiving care in a family child care home, or up to eighteen (18) years of age if the child qualifies as special needs." R.114-530A(5) defines the qualifier: "Child with special needs: A child with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity, a history of such an impairment, or a perception by others of such an impairment." "Infant" is a term of art in both instruments and it means younger than you might expect: R.114-530A(12), "Infant: A child age twelve (12) months or younger", and § 63-13-20(15), "'Infant' means a child age twelve months or younger for the purposes of this chapter." South Carolina has no separate "toddler" definition in the family child care home regulation, although the word appears in operative text (R.114-533E(3), R.114-535A(2)(d), R.114-537B(2)) — a gap the reader should keep in mind, since a rule addressed to "infants and toddlers" has a defined lower term and an undefined upper one.

THE CATEGORY LADDER, TOP TO BOTTOM, SO THE READER CAN PLACE ANY ARRANGEMENT. (a) Care in the child's own home: outside the chapter entirely (§ 63-13-20(2), "in a place other than the child's or the children's own home or homes"). (b) Care for only related children, or only one unrelated family's children, or a combination: excluded by the proviso in § 63-13-20(13). (c) Four hours a day or fewer: not "childcare" (§ 63-13-20(2)); and if it is a kindergarten or nursery school of four hours or fewer for children under school age, separately excluded by § 63-13-20(4)(c). (d) Two days a week or fewer: not "regularly" (§ 63-13-20(24)). (e) One through six children in the operator's occupied residence, regularly, more than four hours a day, including own and related children under twelve: FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME — registration under Article 7, or elective licensure. (f) Seven through twelve children in the operator's occupied residence: GROUP CHILD CARE HOME under § 63-13-20(14), licensed under Article 3 (private) or approved under Article 5 (public), regulated by R.114-510 to R.114-519. (g) Thirteen or more children: CHILD CARE CENTER — § 63-13-20(3), "'Childcare center' means any facility which regularly receives thirteen or more children for childcare" — regulated by R.114-500 to R.114-509. Note that the centre threshold turns on receiving thirteen or more children, not on the building; a residence receiving thirteen children is a centre.

THE STATUTORY EXCLUSIONS FROM "CHILDCARE FACILITIES" IN FULL, BECAUSE SEVERAL OF THEM ARE ROUTINELY MISQUOTED.

Section 63-13-20(4) defines the umbrella term and then excludes: "(a) an educational facility, whether private or public, which operates solely for educational purposes in grade one or above; (b) five-year-old kindergarten programs; (c) kindergartens or nursery schools or other daytime programs, with or without stated educational purposes, operating no more than four hours a day and receiving children younger than lawful school age; (d) facilities operated for more than four hours a day in connection with a shopping center or service or other similar facility, where the same children are cared for less than four hours a day and not on a regular basis as defined in this chapter while parents or custodians of the children are occupied on the premises or are in the immediate vicinity and immediately available; however, these facilities must meet local fire and sanitation requirements and maintain documentation on these requirements on file at the facility available for public inspection; (e) school vacation or school holiday day camps for children operating in distinct sessions running less than three weeks per session unless the day camp permits children to enroll in successive sessions so that their total attendance may exceed three weeks; (f) summer resident camps for children; (g) bible schools normally conducted during vacation periods; (h) facilities for persons with intellectual disability provided for in Chapter 21, Title 44; (i) facilities for the mentally ill as provided for in Chapter 17, Title 44; (j) childcare centers and group childcare homes owned and operated by a local church congregation or an established religious denomination or a religious college or university which does not receive state or federal financial assistance for childcare services..."

Two observations. The drop-in shopping-centre exclusion at (d) is conditional on the SAME children being cared for less than four hours and not on a regular basis — a mall crèche that keeps the same children three days a week for five hours is not excluded. And exclusion (j), the church exclusion, names only centres and group homes; a family child care home run in a church member's residence is fully regulated (see program). THE ADJACENT DEFINITIONS THAT DECIDE WHO ELSE IN THE HOUSE IS REGULATED. Because a family child care home is a house, the regulation has to define the people in it. "Household member" is R.114-530A(11): "A person who resides in a family child care home, maintains clothing and personal effects at the household address, and/or eats or sleeps at the household address on a regular basis." Note the "and/or": a boyfriend who keeps clothes at the house and sleeps there several nights a week is a household member and is inside the background-check net even if his post goes elsewhere. "Caregiver" is R.114-530A(2): "The operator of a family child care home and any person, including household members, whose duties include direct care, supervision, and guidance of children in a family child care home"; the statutory version at § 63-13-20(1) is shorter, "any person whose duties include direct care, supervision, and guidance of children in a childcare facility". "Emergency Person" is R.114-530A(9): "An individual not regularly employed by the facility who is immediately available to serve as staff in the facility during emergency situations" — a role the regulation makes compulsory at R.114-534F(2), "The operator shall have a written emergency plan.

This plan shall include naming the emergency person to be summoned quickly to assist in an emergency." "Staff" is R.114-530A(24): "Full-time and part-time administrative, program, service and volunteer personnel, including emergency persons." "Volunteer" is R.114-530A(27): "An individual parent, grandparent, other professional or skilled individual artist or crafts person at least sixteen (16) years of age infrequently assisting with the daily activities for children in a family child care home who provides services without compensation and who is supervised by an operator or caregiver at all times when providing direct care to children. An individual meeting this definition is subject to compliance with the same applicable regulations as paid family child care home caregivers." That last sentence is worth pausing on, and it is where the family child care home regulation is STRICTER than the group child care home regulation: the parallel definition for group homes, R.114-511A(28), says of a volunteer that "An individual meeting this definition is not required to undergo a fingerprint background check or health screening and is not counted in staff:child ratios."

In a family child care home a volunteer IS fingerprinted, because R.114-530A(27) subjects volunteers to "the same applicable regulations as paid family child care home caregivers" and R.114-531A(5)(b) lists "volunteers" among the persons who "shall undergo a state fingerprint-based background check". A grandmother who helps out twice a month in a registered family child care home is fingerprinted; the same grandmother helping in a licensed group child care home is not. "OVERNIGHT CARE" IS DEFINED AND PERMITTED. R.114-530A(16): "Overnight Care. Care provided to children by the family child care home defined in these regulations from 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m." South Carolina family child care homes may lawfully operate overnight; R.114-533F(1) requires that such a home "shall provide for the special needs of children during the night, shall adapt to the day/night routines of children, and shall ensure sufficient, unbroken periods of sleep for the children", and R.114-536A(3) adds that "If the family child care home provides overnight care, a dinner and evening snack shall also be served."

The 1993 Suggested Standards, mandatory for licensed homes, go further and require a second adult: Standard III.C.7 provides as evidence of compliance that "The operator shall schedule an additional caregiver during sleeping hours to provide for the needs of the children and to respond to emergencies." Note that the twenty-four-hour ceiling in § 63-13-20(2) still applies — care must be "for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day" — so overnight care is lawful but continuous residential care is not. "APPLICATION", "RENEWAL", "REVOCATION", "WITHDRAWAL" — THE PROCEDURAL VOCABULARY. R.114-530A(1) defines "Application" expansively and it is worth quoting because it tells the applicant what a complete file looks like: "An original or a renewed request for registration or license of a family child care home requiring a completed Department application form, completed Department inspection study, current criminal history background checks on all required persons, and other related information deemed necessary by the Department to make a determination of issuance or non-issuance of a new or current registration or license." R.114-530A(21): "Renewal: Granting an extension of registration or license." R.114-530A(22): "Revocation: To void the regular license of a family child care home." R.114-530A(28): "Withdrawal: To void the registration of a registered family child care home." R.114-530A(7) defines the intermediate remedy that keeps most homes open: "Corrective Action Plan: A contract between the operator and the Department wherein the operator agrees to follow a plan of action to correct deficiencies where the Department determined the operator failed to meet South Carolina child care licensing laws or regulations."

Section 63-13-830(E)(4) makes one use of it mandatory: "If the operator fails to comply with the training requirements provided in Section 63-13-825(A) prior to the expiration of the registration or fails to timely renew the registration, the department shall place the operator on a corrective action plan." A DEFINITIONAL BRIDGE THE 2024 REGULATION BUILT, AND WHY IT MATTERS. R.114-530A opens: "Terms used in South Carolina Regulations, Chapter 114, Article 5, Part A, shall be all definitions cited in Section 63-13-20 et seq., Code of Laws of South Carolina in addition to the definitions which follow." Two things follow from that sentence. First, the statutory definitions are incorporated wholesale into the regulation, so every one of the twenty-nine definitions in § 63-13-20 is operative in a family child care home — including "childcare", "regularly", "related" and "infant", which is why the statutory and regulatory numbers agree throughout. Second, the citation "Chapter 114, Article 5, Part A" does not correspond to any heading in the published chapter: the official Code of Regulations structures this material as ARTICLE 5 (LICENSING) → SUBARTICLE 1 (DAY CARE FACILITIES), with the family home rules appearing under an unnumbered banner reading "FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES / (PROVIDE CARE FOR NO MORE THAN SIX CHILDREN)".

There is no "Part A". Any source that cites "Chapter 114, Article 5, Part A" is faithfully copying the regulation's own self-reference, but that self-reference does not match the chapter it lives in. The safe citation is by section number — R.114-530 through R.114-537 — which is unambiguous.

How many children you can care for in South Carolina

CAPACITY: SIX CHILDREN, COUNTED IN A WAY THAT TAKES PAYING SEATS OFF THE TABLE The number is six, and the operative sentence is R.114-533C(1): "The operator may have up to six (6) children in the home at any given time, including children living in the home and children related to the operator who are under the age of twelve (12), unless zoning restrictions further limit the number of children." Three clauses in that one sentence do all the work, and each of them costs the operator money or flexibility. CLAUSE ONE: "AT ANY GIVEN TIME", NOT "ENROLLED". South Carolina caps the instantaneous population of the house, not the roll. That means a family child care home may enrol more than six children provided that no more than six are physically present at any instant — a home serving a morning cohort of six and an after-school cohort of four is lawful if they never overlap, and unlawful the moment a morning child's parent is late and a school bus arrives. It also means the cap is enforceable on an unannounced visit by headcount alone, which is exactly how DSS enforces it: § 63-13-80(A) authorises the Department's representative to "visit a childcare center, group childcare home, or family childcare home anytime during the hours of operation without prior notice once a year for purposes of investigations and inspections", and R.114-531G(1)(b) tells the inspector what to look for — "health and safety of children; no evidence of child abuse; and enrollment within the limits set forth on the license."

The Suggested Standards say the same in its evidentiary register, Standard I.A.2: "No family child care home shall have present at any time children in excess of the number for which it is licensed. EVIDENCE OF COMPLIANCE: Compliance shall be determined by the actual number of children in the family child care home at a given time as reflected by enrollment records." CLAUSE TWO: THE OPERATOR'S OWN CHILDREN COUNT. "including children living in the home and children related to the operator who are under the age of twelve (12)". This is the sentence that determines whether a South Carolina family child care home is a viable business for a given household. An operator with three of her own children aged 2, 5 and 9 has three of the six slots consumed before a single paying customer walks in; she can serve three unrelated children. An operator with four resident children under twelve can serve two. An operator with six resident children under twelve cannot lawfully take a single paying child. Nothing in the regulation offsets this — there is no "provider's own children exempt up to N" allowance of the kind several states use, and no waiver mechanism appears anywhere in R.114-530 to R.114-537. Two boundaries inside clause two repay attention.

First, the twelfth birthday. Only related children UNDER TWELVE count. The operator's own thirteen-year-old does not occupy a slot; her eleven-year-old does, and stops doing so on the day he turns twelve. Second, the two categories are not the same category. The clause counts "children living in the home" (whether or not related — a lodger's child who lives there, a foster child, a niece who has moved in) AND "children related to the operator who are under the age of twelve" (whether or not they live there — the nephew dropped off after school). A related child under twelve who is present but does not live in the home is still inside the six. And the definitional cross-check confirms the design: § 63-13-20(13) and R.114-530A(10) both define the facility itself as one caring for no more than six children "including those children living in the home and children received for child care who are related to the resident caregiver." The registration application form makes the counting explicit and is worth quoting because it is where operators first discover the rule. DSS Form 2922 (AUG 18), Section B, is headed "Enrollment Information" and instructs: "Complete the following information on each child including your own, related and foster children until they reach 12 years of age", with a twelve-row grid asking for each child's name, "Is this child related to you?", "Is this your foster child?", age, days in FCCH, arrival time and departure time.

Item 6 of Section C then requires the applicant to affirm: "I understand that the number of children present in my home at any given time shall not exceed the number specified on the Statement of Registration. (No more than six (6) children.)" FOSTER CHILDREN. The form's explicit inclusion of foster children in the enrolment grid, and its Item 11 — "Are you a Foster Parent? If yes, list foster children in Section B on page 1. If yes, also check all that apply: DSS / DSS-IFC / Mentor / SAFY / GAP / Other" — resolves a question the regulation leaves implicit. A foster child living in the home is a child "living in the home" within R.114-533C(1) and occupies a slot. A dual-role household (foster parent plus family child care home operator) therefore has its six-child ceiling consumed by its foster placements. This is a genuinely material planning point for South Carolina households, because DSS is simultaneously the foster care licensor (R.114-550) and the child care licensor, and the two programmes compete for the same six seats. CLAUSE THREE: ZONING CAN CUT THE NUMBER DOWN, AND NOTHING CAN RAISE IT. "unless zoning restrictions further limit the number of children."

The statutory hook is § 63-13-90: "At the time of initial licensing, approval, or registration a childcare facility must provide proof of conformity or authorized nonconformity with county or municipal zoning ordinances or resolutions. The department may impose conditions on the license, approval, or registration consistent with restrictions imposed by zoning authorities." Both regulatory pathways require the zoning letter up front — R.114-531A(5)(k), "Submit an original zoning approval letter from the city or county zoning office", and R.114-531D(4)(d), identical — and both make continuing conformity a condition of the credential: R.114-531C(2), "Registered family child care homes shall comply with all zoning ordinances and requirements", and R.114-531F(2), the same for licensed homes. The asymmetry is total: a municipality may hold a family child care home to four children; no municipality and no waiver can take it to seven, because at seven the facility ceases to be a family child care home as a matter of state definition. THE NUMBER IS PRINTED ON THE CERTIFICATE, AND THE CERTIFICATE IS THE ENFORCEABLE CEILING. R.114-531C(4): "The registration shall state the name of the operator, the address, the type of family child care home, the date on which the registration was issued and will expire, and the maximum number of children to be present in the family child care home during operating hours." R.114-531C(5): "The number of children present in the family child care home during operating hours shall not exceed the number specified on the registration."

The licence provisions are the mirror image: R.114-531F(6) and R.114-531F(7). So the enforceable cap is not "six" in the abstract; it is the number DSS printed on the paper hanging on the wall, which may be fewer than six because of zoning, household composition, or a condition DSS imposed under § 63-13-90. An operator who reads "six" in a guide and ignores the number on their own certificate is exposed. OVER-ENROLMENT IS A STANDALONE, CREDENTIAL-ENDING GROUND. It appears four times in the enforcement architecture. Denial of an original registration: R.114-531A(8)(a)(ii), DSS may deny where "The operator previously enrolled or currently has enrolled children beyond the limits permitted". Denial of a licence: R.114-531D(7)(a)(ii), in mandatory terms — "The Department shall deny the application for licensure if ... The operator previously enrolled or currently has enrolled children beyond the limits permitted." Withdrawal of registration: R.114-531C(7)(b), "The Department shall withdraw the registration if ... The operator cares for more children than the number stated in the registration."

Revocation of licence: R.114-531F(9)(b), same words for the licence. The statute backs all four at § 63-13-830(E)(1)(b), which lets DSS deny or withdraw where "the family childcare home operator, in the operation of a family childcare home facility, previously enrolled or currently has enrolled children beyond the limits defined in this chapter". And § 63-13-840(A)(3) makes over-enrolment one of the three things every inspection must check: "enrollment within the limits set forth in this chapter." Note the word "previously" in the denial grounds — a history of over-enrolment is a ground to refuse a fresh application years later. Finally, over-enrolment is one of the two conditions that trigger the injunction machinery: § 63-13-840(B), "If the visits and inspections verify conditions detrimental to the health and safety of the children or overenrollment, the department shall carry out its responsibility as authorized pursuant to Section 63-13-160 and Section 63-13-830(C)", and R.114-531G(2)(b) repeats it. WHAT DOES NOT LIMIT CAPACITY, AND WHERE THE MISSING LIMITS HIDE. The 2024 regulation contains no square-footage requirement for a family child care home.

Search R.114-535 ("Physical Site") and there is no floor-area-per-child rule: the indoor requirements are qualitative ("Floors, walls and ceilings shall be kept clean, in good repair and free from hazards"; "All rooms shall be adequately lighted and ventilated"; "There shall be areas protected from general walkways within the family child care home where crawling children can be on the floor to explore"), and the outdoor requirements are equally qualitative. The square footage lives in the 1993 Suggested Standards, Standard III.C.4: "A family child care home shall have sufficient indoor and outdoor space for the activities of the children. EVIDENCE OF COMPLIANCE: a. The operator shall provide at least 35 square feet of indoor space per child (exclusive of bathrooms and storage places). Halls may be counted as indoor space if approved by the appropriate fire official. b. The operator shall provide at least 75 square feet per child of outdoor space. Where the outdoor space is not available at the facility, the operator may utilize parks or other outdoor play areas which are easily accessible."

Because R.114-531D(4)(k) and R.114-531E(1) make the Suggested Standards binding on LICENSED homes, 35 square feet indoors and 75 square feet outdoors per child are effectively mandatory for a licensed family child care home and merely suggested for a registered one. For six children that is 210 square feet of qualifying indoor space and 450 square feet of outdoor space (or accessible park). This is a real, checkable constraint that almost no secondary source reports, precisely because it is not in the regulation. The regulation does impose one hard plumbing minimum that indirectly bears on capacity: R.114-534I(1), "A minimum of one flush toilet and one sink shall be available for children." One of each, for up to six children — no per-child fixture ratio. THE INFANT TRIGGER IS NOT A CAPACITY RULE BUT IT CHANGES THE ECONOMICS AT FOUR. R.114-533C(2): "There shall be an additional caregiver, household member eighteen (18) years of age or older, staff, emergency person, or volunteer on the premises when four or more children in attendance are younger than twelve (12) months of age." The cap stays at six; what changes is that a second adult must be on the premises. A home taking four infants is a two-adult operation, which for most single-operator households means the fourth infant is uneconomic.

The practical infant ceiling in a solo South Carolina family child care home is therefore three, and the regulatory ceiling is six. See ratios for the full treatment. CAPACITY ON THE NEXT RUNG UP. If the household needs seven to twelve slots the facility becomes a group child care home: § 63-13-20(14), "at least seven but not more than twelve children, unattended by a parent or a legal guardian including those children living in the home and children received for childcare who are related to the resident caregiver" — note that the same own-children-count rule follows the operator up the ladder. R.114-513B(1) states the group home's cap in certificate terms: "No group child care home shall have present at any one time children in excess of the number for which it is licensed." Above twelve the facility is a child care centre (§ 63-13-20(3), "thirteen or more children"). There is no intermediate "large family child care home" tier in South Carolina, and no capacity waiver anywhere in the scheme. A NOTE ON DROP-IN AND OVERLAP MANAGEMENT. The 1993 Suggested Standards address the practice that most often causes accidental over-enrolment, Standard III.C.8: "Drop-in care shall be offered only if this practice does not cause the operator to exceed the number of children for which the family child care home has been licensed."

The regulation reaches the same result through the attendance-record duty at R.114-533D(1): "Accurate records of daily attendance of each child shall be kept on file at the family child care home at all times." The attendance record is the document DSS uses to reconstruct whether the instantaneous cap was breached on a day the inspector was not there, which is why the arrival-time and departure-time columns on DSS Form 2922 exist and why sloppy attendance-keeping is functionally an over-enrolment risk rather than a paperwork risk.

Adult-to-child ratios

RATIOS: SOUTH CAROLINA DOES NOT HAVE THEM FOR FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES — IT HAS A CAP, ONE TRIGGER, AND A SUPERVISION STANDARD This is the single most commonly mis-stated feature of South Carolina family child care law, so it is worth stating flatly before the citations: there is NO age-banded staff-to-child ratio table for a South Carolina family child care home. Nothing in R.114-530 through R.114-537 says "1:4 for infants" or "1:6 for preschoolers" or anything of that shape. What South Carolina has instead is (a) a hard six-child ceiling, (b) a single numeric trigger that forces a second adult onto the premises, (c) a requirement that at least one caregiver be present at all times, and (d) a long, unusually specific behavioural definition of adequate supervision that functions as the real constraint. Any product that publishes an age-band ratio table for a South Carolina family child care home is either importing the group child care home table or inventing it. (A) THE CEILING AS RATIO. R.114-533C(1): "The operator may have up to six (6) children in the home at any given time, including children living in the home and children related to the operator who are under the age of twelve (12), unless zoning restrictions further limit the number of children."

One operator, up to six children of any age mix — six infants is not prohibited by any ratio rule, only by the infant trigger below. This is permissive by national standards and it is deliberate: the legislature's delegation at § 63-13-180(A) directs DSS to promulgate binding regulations "for the operation and maintenance of childcare centers and group childcare homes" and to develop only "suggested standards which shall serve as guidelines for the operators of family childcare homes". (B) THE ONE NUMERIC TRIGGER: FOUR INFANTS. R.114-533C(2): "There shall be an additional caregiver, household member eighteen (18) years of age or older, staff, emergency person, or volunteer on the premises when four or more children in attendance are younger than twelve (12) months of age." Parse it carefully, because every element is load-bearing. The threshold is FOUR OR MORE, so three infants require no second adult. "Infant" is defined at R.114-530A(12) and § 63-13-20(15) as "a child age twelve (12) months or younger" — the trigger is written as "younger than twelve (12) months of age", which is very slightly narrower than the defined term and means a child on the day of their first birthday is arguably outside the trigger while still being an "infant" for the safe-sleep rules at R.114-537. The test is "in attendance", so it is measured moment by moment, not by enrolment.

And the second adult may be any of five kinds of person: an additional caregiver, a household member eighteen or older, staff, an emergency person, or a volunteer. The last two are striking. An "emergency person" is defined at R.114-530A(9) as "An individual not regularly employed by the facility who is immediately available to serve as staff in the facility during emergency situations" — a person whose ordinary role is to be on call — and a "volunteer" under R.114-530A(27) is someone "infrequently assisting" without compensation. The regulation permits either to satisfy the four-infant trigger, provided they are "on the premises". Note also that the trigger says "on the premises", not "in the room" and not "counted in a ratio": the second adult must be physically at the house while four or more infants are in attendance. The practical consequence, which matters commercially: a solo operator's infant ceiling is three. The fourth infant obliges a second adult on site for every hour that infant is present, and since South Carolina infant care is the scarcest and best-paid slot in the market, the four-infant trigger is the decision point at which a South Carolina family child care home either stays a one-person business or hires.

Anyone on the premises to satisfy the trigger is inside the background-check net. R.114-531A(5)(b) requires fingerprint checks of "The operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age and older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers"; and R.114-530A(27) closes the loop for volunteers — "An individual meeting this definition is subject to compliance with the same applicable regulations as paid family child care home caregivers." So the operator cannot solve the four-infant problem by having a friend drop by. (C) AT LEAST ONE CAREGIVER, ALWAYS; AND WHO MAY BE THAT CAREGIVER. R.114-532A(4): "At least one caregiver shall be on the premises at all times." R.114-532A(1): "The operator of a family child care home shall be at least eighteen (18) years of age and shall reside in the home." Minors may be caregivers but never alone and never in charge — R.114-532A(3): "Caregivers less than eighteen (18) years of age may be permitted provided: (a) They shall be at least fifteen (15) years of age; (b) They shall be supervised by the operator at all time; (c) They shall not be the person in authority; and (d) The family child care home is in accordance with South Carolina Labor Laws regarding the employment of minors in non-hazardous jobs."

The 1993 Suggested Standards state the same prohibition more bluntly at Standard III.B.2: "Children shall not be without competent supervision at any time. EVIDENCE OF COMPLIANCE: a. No person under 18 years of age shall be left in sole charge of the children at any time." (The Suggested Standards' own minimum age for a caregiver, "they are at least 14 years of age" at Standard II.B.2.a, is superseded by the regulation's fifteen — see verify_flag.) (D) THE SUPERVISION STANDARD, WHICH IS THE REAL OPERATING CONSTRAINT. Where South Carolina declines to give numbers it gives behaviour, and the behaviour is prescriptive enough that it effectively forbids several common one-adult practices. R.114-533A: "Supervision of children shall be adequate at all times and requires: (1) Awareness and responsibility for the ongoing activity of each child, knowledge of activity requirements and children's needs and accountability of care. (2) The operator and/or caregiver is in the same general area as the children and immediately available to them at all times. (3) The operator and/or caregiver is directly overseeing the children and their activities at all times. (4) The operator and/or caregiver is monitoring all of the children's activities by sight. (5) The operator and/or caregiver is outside with all children in care during outdoor play."

Item (4) — monitoring "by sight" — and item (5) — the adult outdoors with the children — are absolute. There is no "audible supervision" allowance, no window-monitoring allowance, no baby-monitor allowance. A single operator therefore cannot have children in the fenced yard and an infant napping upstairs, because item (5) puts her outside and the nap rules put her on the nap floor. The regulation's own definitional gloss reinforces this. R.114-530A(25): "Supervision: Care provided to an individual child or group of children. Adequate supervision requires awareness of and responsibility for the ongoing activity of each child, knowledge of activity requirements and children's needs and accountability for their care. Adequate supervision also requires the operator and/or staff being near and having ready access to children in order to intervene when needed." NAPTIME IS WHERE SOUTH CAROLINA IS STRICTEST, AND IT IS A DE FACTO RATIO RULE. R.114-533B: "(1) The operator and/or caregiver is awake and alert while the children nap. (2) The operator and/or caregiver is on the same level of the home where the children are napping. (3) The operator and/or caregiver keeps all doors open if children nap in different rooms or areas. (4) The operator and/or caregiver visually checks on each child every fifteen (15) minutes. (5) The operator and/or caregiver shall be accessible to the children during naptime in case they have an emergency, i.e. asthma attack, breathing stops, or any other traumatic experience or in case of an emergency situation that requires evacuation, such as a fire."

Four operational rules fall out. The adult may not sleep. The adult may not be on a different storey from the sleeping children — which forbids the common arrangement of children napping upstairs while the operator works downstairs. Doors stay OPEN if children nap in different rooms. And every child is visually checked every fifteen minutes, which is a clock-driven duty, not a judgment call. For infants the fifteen-minute check is repeated as a standalone infant-care rule at R.114-537A(7): "Caregiver shall visually check on infants every fifteen (15) minutes while sleeping, and the child shall be removed from the crib upon waking." The DSS policy manual restates the closed-door prohibition as POLICY FCCH 11: "Children shall not sleep in rooms with the door closed to allow for proper supervision during nap time, even if a monitoring device is used" (effective 04/04/2019), and POLICY FCCH 10 restates the level rule: "The operator and/or staff must be on the same floor level as the children during inside play time and nap time. Also, the operator and/or staff must be present with the children when they are outside and while children are being transported.

Children must be constantly supervised and never left alone during all water activities." WATER: SOUTH CAROLINA SETS NO WATER-SAFETY RATIO FOR FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES — AND THE MOAT ENTRY CITES THE WRONG SECTION FOR THE RULE IT DOES SET. There is no swimming ratio in R.114-530 to R.114-537. What exists is a barrier requirement, and it sits in the PHYSICAL SITE section, not the health section: R.114-535C(3), under "Outdoor Space", provides that "Access to swimming pools and wading pools shall be controlled by a device or method that promotes safety of children, including a latch, lock, protective fence, protective cover, or other device or method which enhances child safety." R.114-535C(2) adds the general perimeter rule: "Outside space shall be restricted by fence or barrier if near unsafe areas such as traffic, parking areas, ditches, body of water, or steep slope." The published moat entry attributes the pool rule to R.114-534; that is the Health, Sanitation, and Safety section, and it contains no pool provision. The correct citation is R.114-535C(3). THE WATER-SAFETY RATIO TABLE THAT DOES EXIST IN SOUTH CAROLINA BELONGS TO GROUP CHILD CARE HOMES, NOT FAMILY HOMES. R.114-514C(1): "The following staffing ratios apply at all times while children are swimming, wading or near a water source.

The staffing ratios shall also apply at all times while children are near a water body that poses a potential risk based upon the age of the child." The table headed "WATER SAFETY STAFF:CHILD RATIOS" reads: "Birth to two years 1:1; Two to three years 1:2; Three to four years 1:3; Four and older 1:6." R.114-514C(2) adds the lifeguard rule: "All swimming activities shall be supervised by a person with current lifeguard training certification. If this is a staff person who has current lifeguard training certification, they may be included in the staff:child ratio. In instances in which all staff members can, without the ability to swim, quickly reach any child, a certified lifeguard is unnecessary." Those numbers govern homes caring for seven to twelve children. Importing them into a six-child family home is a common error; the honest statement is that a South Carolina family child care home operating near water is governed by the general "monitoring by sight" duty of R.114-533A(4), the "outside with all children" duty of R.114-533A(5), the barrier duties of R.114-535C(2)-(3), and DSS's POLICY FCCH 10 ("never left alone during all water activities") — but by no numeric ratio.

FOR CONTRAST, THE GROUP CHILD CARE HOME TRIGGER, WHICH IS THE OTHER NUMBER PEOPLE CONFUSE. R.114-514A(2): "There shall be an additional teacher/caregiver present when attendance reaches nine children or when four or more of the children are younger than two years old." Two differences from the family home rule: the group trigger is age TWO, not twelve months; and it adds a headcount trigger at nine children that has no family-home analogue. R.114-514B(1) then relaxes naptime for group homes in a way the family home regulation does not: "During nap times staffing ratios do not change as long as at least one other staff person is readily available." The family child care home has no such relaxation — R.114-533B is unconditional. FEEDING CHAIRS AND TRANSPORT: TWO MORE ABSOLUTE-ATTENTION RULES. R.114-537C(2): "Children shall be constantly supervised while in the feeding chair", and R.114-537C(3): "Children shall not remain in feeding chairs for long periods of time or for reasons other than feeding." R.114-537B(1) forbids the classic one-adult shortcut: "Infants shall be held while being bottle fed until they are able to hold their own bottles.

Bottles shall not be propped or given in cribs or on mats", reinforced by R.114-537B(2), "Infants and toddlers shall not sleep with bottles in their mouths." Transport supervision comes from the DSS policy manual rather than the regulation (POLICY FCCH 10, "the operator and/or staff must be present with the children ... while children are being transported"); the regulation's transport hooks are indirect, through the incident-reporting duty at R.114-532C(1)(b) for a "Child who is missing or who is left unattended in a vehicle operated by the family child care home" and through the parental transport authorisation in the child's file at R.114-532F(3)(d). WHAT THE SUGGESTED STANDARDS ADD FOR LICENSED HOMES. Because R.114-531D(4)(k) and R.114-531E(1) bind licensed homes to the Suggested Standards, a licensed family child care home also carries Standard III.B.1: "Staff to Child Ratios. The operator shall supervise the care for up to a total of six children, including the operator's own children under 12," and Standard III.B.2.b: "The operator shall present written evidence that a plan has been worked out whereby an outside person can be summoned quickly to assist in an emergency" — the 1993 ancestor of today's emergency-person requirement at R.114-534F(2). Neither adds a numeric ratio.

The overnight second-adult rule in Standard III.C.7.a ("The operator shall schedule an additional caregiver during sleeping hours") is the only place in the entire South Carolina family child care corpus, outside the four-infant trigger, where a second adult is required by number of adults rather than by conduct — and it binds only licensed homes offering overnight care. SUMMARY LINE FOR A PROVIDER. One adult, up to six children of any ages, is lawful. A second adult on the premises becomes mandatory the moment four children under twelve months are in attendance. The adult must be awake, on the same floor as sleeping children, with doors open, checking each child by sight every fifteen minutes, outdoors whenever the children are outdoors, and never replaced by a person under eighteen. There is no age-band ratio table, no water ratio, and no waiver.

Training you must complete before licensure

PRE-SERVICE: THE DIPLOMA IS THE REAL GATE, ORIENTATION IS COMPULSORY, AND THE 15-HOUR CERTIFICATE IS SUBSIDY-CONDITIONAL South Carolina's pre-service requirements for a family child care home operator are easy to state wrongly because they are split across four instruments with different force: a regulation that imposes an educational credential and an attendance duty; a statute that imposes a fifteen-hour training rule which does NOT reach family child care homes; a CCDF-driven certificate that binds only providers taking public money; and a 1993 manual that binds only licensed homes. Here is each, with the text. 1. THE EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIAL: HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA OR GED. This is new with the 2024 regulation and it is the single most consequential pre-service requirement in South Carolina, because it is an absolute bar rather than a training course. R.114-532A(2): "An operator shall have the following qualifications: (a) Be at least eighteen (18) years of age; (b) Shall have a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED); (c) Favorable completion of all comprehensive background check requirements; and (d) Shall have the required training."

The grandfathering is done through the record-keeping rule rather than a savings clause, and this is where its date boundary is visible. R.114-532G(1)(e) requires the staff file to contain a "Record of high school diploma/GED for operator, if licensed or registered on or after the passing of these regulations." DSS's own current policy sheet restates the boundary with the date attached: "Education - Record of high school diploma/GED for operator, if licensed or registered on or after the May 2024 Regulations" (DSS Child Care Licensing FAMILY CHILD CARE POLICY, dated 5.23.2025). So an operator registered before 24 May 2024 need not produce a diploma; every applicant since must. Note also that R.114-532A(2)(b) reaches only the OPERATOR. There is no diploma requirement for other caregivers in a family child care home — a genuine difference from the centre regime. 2. THE STATUTORY FIFTEEN HOURS THAT DO NOT APPLY. This is the trap that snares most summaries. Section 63-13-30(A), as rewritten by 2024 Act No. 216 (S.862) effective 10 July 2024, reads: "A caregiver who begins employment in a licensed or approved childcare center in South Carolina after June 30, 1994, must have at least a high school diploma, a high school equivalency credential recognized by the State Board of Education, Certificate of Completion, or a South Carolina High School Employability Credential.

Within thirty days of being employed, a caregiver must complete fifteen hours of health and safety service provider training. The caregiver shall be directly supervised for a period of at least thirty days by a staff person with at least one year of experience as a caregiver in a licensed or approved childcare facility and until such time as the caregiver has completed the required health and safety service provider training, provided the caregiver is also in compliance with Section 63-13-40 relating to required background checks." Subsection (B) supplies the pre-1994 grandfather clause. The Legislature's own note records the change: "2024 Act No. 216, SECTION 1, rewrote the section." Read the trigger phrase: "begins employment in a licensed or approved childcare CENTER". Section 63-13-20(3) defines a childcare centre as "any facility which regularly receives thirteen or more children for childcare". A family child care home is a different defined term (§ 63-13-20(13)) and a group child care home is a third (§ 63-13-20(14)). Section 63-13-30 therefore does not reach family child care home caregivers by its own terms, and no provision of Article 7 imports it.

The thirty-day fifteen-hour rule and the thirty-day direct-supervision rule are CENTRE rules. What the family child care home regulation borrowed from § 63-13-30 is the diploma idea, re-enacted independently at R.114-532A(2)(b) and applied to the operator only. 3. ORIENTATION: COMPULSORY, AND IT IS HOW THE APPLICATION PACKET IS OBTAINED. Both pathways require it and the wording is mandatory on the licence track. R.114-531A(2): "A potential operator of a family child care home must attend orientation to obtain an application packet and instructions regarding the registration process." R.114-531D(2): "A potential operator of a family child care home shall attend orientation to obtain an application packet and instructions regarding the licensure packet." Orientation is not a formality: it is the only route to the paperwork, and it is where DSS discharges three statutory disclosure duties at once. R.114-531A(3) and the identical R.114-531D(3) provide: "The Department representative shall provide the applicant with the required number of forms, a copy of the current Suggested Standards and Regulations for Family Child Care Homes, a copy of Section 63-13-10 et. seq., Code of Laws of South Carolina, (Child Care Facilities Statute) and a copy of sections of the Children's Code which are related to child abuse and neglect, with an explanation of procedures and information required by the Department."

Orientation is run by region and separately for family child care homes. The DSS orientation calendar captured for this research lists FCCH-specific sessions at 1:30 PM against "CCC, RCCC & GCCH" sessions at 10:00 AM, at four points: Upstate (Greenville, SC 29671; (864) 250-5576 / (800) 637-8550), Midlands (Columbia, SC 29210; (803) 898-9001 / (888) 202-1469), Pee Dee (181 East Evans Street, Florence, SC 29506; (843) 661-6623 / (800) 464-9138) and Low Country (North Charleston, SC 29405/29406; (843) 953-9780 / (803) 260-0211), with several FCCH sessions delivered virtually ("FCCH/Virtual", "Midlands Virtual", "Virtual Webinar FCCH") and seat counts shown out of 40 or 50 per session. Because orientation gates the packet, and packets are needed before fingerprints (see below), orientation is the true start date of a South Carolina application. 4. THE 15-HOUR SOUTH CAROLINA FCCH HEALTH AND SAFETY PRE-SERVICE CERTIFICATE — WHO ACTUALLY HAS TO DO IT. This is the requirement the previously published moat entry left open ("SCDSS does not fix a single statewide pre-service clock-hour number in the regulation — confirm current pre-service requirements ... with SCDSS").

It is now closed, and the answer is conditional. DSS's Family Child Care Home policy manual, POLICY FCCH 12, part I, states: "For ABC Quality Providers: I - South Carolina FCCH Health and Safety Pre-Service Certificate. ABC Quality Providers receiving CCDF funding must complete the SC Health and Safety Pre-Service Certificate (15 hours) prior to serving children who are enrolled in the SCs Childcare Scholarships (formerly Voucher) Program. The Pre-Service Certificate and Pediatric First Aid and CPR must be completed for any person responsible for the care or supervision of children to include an emergency person within 90 days of hire. Completion of training will be monitored by ABC Quality. The Pre-Service Certificate is provided at no cost and includes 15 course hours on the following topics: Child Development: Milestones from Birth to Age 12 (1 Hour); Keeping Children Safe: Building and Classroom Safety (1 Hour); Essentials of Outdoor Safety in South Carolina (2 Hours); Emergency Preparedness: Better Safe Than Sorry! (1 Hour); Responding to Medical Emergencies (1 Hour); Recognizing and Reporting Suspected Child Abuse in South Carolina (2 Hours); Transportation Safety Basics in South Carolina (1 Hour); My Plate: Helping Children Make Healthy Food Choices (1 Hour); Infectious Disease Control, Immunizations, Bloodborne Pathogens and Bio-Contaminants: Kick Those Germs to the Curb! (1 Hour); Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) (1 Hour); Prevention of Shaken Baby Syndrome, Abusive Head Trauma and Child Maltreatment (1 Hour); Administering Medication in Child Care Settings (1 Hour); Prevention of and Response to Different Types of Allergies (1 Hour)."

Four things to hold onto. The trigger is ABC Quality participation with CCDF funding, not registration or licensure as such — a private-pay family child care home that takes no Childcare Scholarships children is not caught. The deadline is "prior to serving children who are enrolled in the SCs Childcare Scholarships (formerly Voucher) Program" and separately "within 90 days of hire" for each person responsible for care or supervision. The obligation reaches "any person responsible for the care or supervision of children to include an emergency person" — the emergency person, who may never actually work a shift, must nonetheless hold the certificate and pediatric first aid and CPR. And the certificate is free. The same policy continues: "II - Ongoing Annual Required Training. Once a person has completed the 15 hours of the South Carolina FCCH Health and Safety Pre-Service Certificate, 10 hours of annual health and safety training is required. Ongoing Training hours are offered at no cost and courses will be made available after completion of the health and Safety Certificate. (revised 05/23/2022)" CAVEAT ON THE STATUS OF THAT DOCUMENT, STATED HONESTLY.

The policy manual quoted above is headed "March 2023" and footed "Original Published Date – 12/12/2022 Updated 3.1.2023". It therefore predates the 24 May 2024 regulation by more than a year, and it is an agency manual, not law. It is being used here for the one thing a manual is good evidence of — what DSS in fact requires of its subsidy providers — and not to establish any legal duty. Where it conflicts with R.114-530 to R.114-537, the regulation governs, and it does conflict on the topic breakdown of the annual ten hours (see annual_training_hours and verify_flag). 5. FIRST AID AND CPR AS A PRE-SERVICE ITEM ON THE LICENCE TRACK ONLY. For a LICENSED family child care home, the certificate must exist before the licence issues: R.114-531D(4)(l), the applicant shall "Obtain infant/child CPR and first aid certificate that covers all hours of operation." For a REGISTERED home there is no such requirement, by express carve-out in both statute and regulation: § 63-13-110, "During the hours of operation all childcare facilities, except registered family childcare homes, must have on the premises at least one caregiver with a current certificate for the provision of basic first aid and child-infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation"; R.114-532A(5), "During the hours of operation all family child care homes, except registered family child care homes, shall have on the premises at least one caregiver with a current certificate for the provision of basic first aid and infant/child cardiopulmonary resuscitation."

DSS nonetheless encourages registered operators to take it and lets it count toward the annual hours: POLICY FCCH 4, "Pediatric First Aid and pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) classes can be used toward the training requirements for registered Family Child Care Homes. Training must be conducted by a recognized health care organization. CPR must include a hands-on skills component. A copy of the certification(s) must be provided to licensing as proof of completion. (revised 05/23/2022)" 6. THE MEDICAL AND TB PRE-SERVICE PACKAGE — LICENCE TRACK, WITH ONE PIECE THAT REACHES BOTH. On the licence track three health items are issuance preconditions: R.114-531D(4)(g), "Obtain a health care professional's certification that operator, household member(s) fifteen (15) years of age or older, staff, and emergency person(s) are free from Tuberculosis"; R.114-531D(4)(h), "Submit an original Staff Health Assessment (DSS 2926) attesting to the health of the operator, household member(s) fifteen (15) years of age or older, staff, and emergency person(s)"; R.114-531D(4)(i), "Submit an original Medical Statement (DSS 2901) attesting to the health of operator, household member(s), staff, and emergency person(s)."

But the health assessment is not in fact licence-only, because the STAFF RECORDS rule at R.114-532G(1) applies to every family child care home and requires, at (h): "A health assessment from a health care provider assessing the ability of the operator/caregiver to work with children. The health assessment shall be completed within three months prior to licensure, registration or employment or within the first month of licensure, registration or employment and shall include health history, physical exam, vision and hearing screening, tuberculosis screening, and a review of immunization status, and a discussion regarding recommended vaccinations, including a one-time adult dose of TDAP. A new health assessment shall be obtained by the operator/caregiver at least every four years after the initial assessment." Note the words "licensure, registration or employment": the health assessment is a REGISTRATION requirement too, and it has a four-year renewal cycle. R.114-532G(1)(g) adds the TB record for all homes: "Written evidence from a physician or health resource attesting that each person is free from communicable tuberculosis at the time of licensure or registration and subsequently according pursuant to state statute or the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control regulations or policy."

DSS's 5.23.2025 policy sheet operationalises both, extending the health assessment to "Operator, staff, emergency persons, and household members 18 and older ... within three months prior to licensure, registration, or employment or within the first month ..., and every 4 years thereafter", and TB screening to "operator, staff, emergency persons, and household members 15 and older". Anyone reading only R.114-531 will conclude the health package is licence-only; R.114-532G corrects that. 7. THE ITEM NOBODY CALLS TRAINING BUT WHICH GATES THE OPENING: A LISTED, WORKING TELEPHONE. R.114-531A(4): "The family child care home applicant shall have a working, listed telephone in the family child care home and shall make the telephone number available to parent(s)/guardian(s) of children enrolled in the family child care home and to Department staff. The telephone number must be listed in all appropriate directories to ensure emergency identification and response." R.114-531D(4)(j) repeats it for licensure. DSS Form 2922 asks the applicant to affirm both limbs separately at Items 8 and 9: "My home telephone number is available to parent(s)/guardian(s) of enrolled children" and "My home telephone number is either published or listed with the telephone company."

In an era of unlisted mobile numbers this is a real, and frequently missed, pre-opening task. 8. READING DUTIES THAT ARE LEGALLY OPERATIVE. Section 63-13-820(B)(1) requires the applicant, before becoming a registered operator, to "sign a statement that he has read the suggested standards developed by the department under Section 63-13-180". R.114-531A(5)(g) restates it — "Read the Suggested Standards For Family Day Care Homes" — and R.114-531A(5)(h)-(i) push the duty outward to parents: "Furnish or review with parent(s)/guardian(s) of each child to be enrolled in the family child care home, a copy of the Suggested Standards" and "Secure a signed statement from each parent/guardian verifying that they have reviewed the Suggested Standards." Section 63-13-820(B)(2) puts the same duty in statute: "furnish the department with a signed statement by each consumer parent verifying that the operator has provided each consumer parent with a copy of the suggested standards for family childcare homes and the procedures for filing complaints." 9. WHERE TRAINING MUST BE REGISTERED. POLICY FCCH 13: "Trainings must be registered or certified through SC Endeavors in order to meet training requirements. (revised 05/23/2022)" SC Endeavors is the state's professional development registry; a course taken outside it may not count.

This is an agency requirement, not a regulatory one — R.114-532H sets hours and subject areas but names no registry — so it should be treated as an administrative condition of acceptance rather than a rule of law, and confirmed with the regional office. WHAT PRE-SERVICE DOES NOT INCLUDE, STATED SO THE READER DOES NOT GO LOOKING. There is no required CDA, no required college coursework, no required apprenticeship, no required experience minimum, and no required orientation clock-hour count in the regulation — R.114-531A(2) and R.114-531D(2) require attendance at orientation without specifying its length. There is no pre-service requirement imposed on caregivers other than the operator beyond background checks, health records and the annual training duty of R.114-532H, which by its terms runs annually rather than before service. And there is no state-mandated business, tax or insurance training, although liability insurance disclosure is compulsory (§ 63-13-210, R.114-532D(6)) and the DSS policy sheet notes that "All Family Child Care Homes will be asked to show proof of liability insurance. If the Family Child Care Home does not have insurance coverage a written notice must be provided to parents of enrolled children."

Ongoing (annual) training

ANNUAL TRAINING: TEN CLOCK HOURS, FOUR OF THEM IN CHILD GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT, PLUS ONE HOUR OF SAFE SLEEP IF INFANTS ARE SERVED — AND A DSS TOPIC GRID THAT CONTRADICTS THE REGULATION THE REGULATION, WHICH IS THE CONTROLLING TEXT. R.114-532H: "(1) All caregivers shall participate in at least ten (10) clock hours of training annually. At least four (4) clock hours shall be in child growth and development. If serving infants 12 months and under, one hour of safe sleep is required. The remaining hours shall come from the following areas: program administration, safety, health, nutrition, physical activity, guidance, infant/child CPR and first aid, and Blood Borne Pathogen training or other areas approved by the Department. (2) Caregivers who receive training in excess of ten (10) hours per year may carry five (5) of those hours to the following year in the category earned." Every clause matters. The duty runs to "all caregivers", not merely the operator — and "caregiver" is defined broadly at R.114-530A(2) as "The operator of a family child care home and any person, including household members, whose duties include direct care, supervision, and guidance of children in a family child care home", so an adult household member who regularly helps with the children carries the ten-hour duty too.

The unit is the CLOCK HOUR. Four of the ten are ring-fenced for child growth and development. The safe-sleep hour is conditional on serving infants twelve months and under and, on the face of the text, is additional to the ten rather than carved out of them ("at least ten (10) clock hours ... If serving infants 12 months and under, one hour of safe sleep is required"), which means an infant-serving home should plan for four hours of child growth and development, one hour of safe sleep, and five hours from the permitted list. The permitted list is closed but has an escape hatch — "or other areas approved by the Department" — so an unusual course can qualify with regional-office approval. And carry-over is capped at five hours and is category-locked: excess hours carry "in the category earned", so five surplus hours of nutrition training cannot be applied against next year's child-growth-and-development four. THE STATUTE BEHIND IT, WHICH SETS THE FLOOR AND ADDS A REPORTING DUTY. Section 63-13-825(A): "An operator of a family childcare home and any person employed by or who contracts with an operator of a family childcare home to provide direct childcare, annually shall complete and provide documentation to the Department of Social Services of a minimum of ten hours of training approved by the department."

Section 63-13-825(B) adds a public-transparency duty on DSS: "The department shall indicate on its website those family childcare homes that are, and those that are not, in compliance with this section and may include, but are not limited to, the amount of training the operator and other persons employed by or under contract with a family childcare home have reported to the department." Two features of the statute are easy to skip. First, the ten hours were not always ten: the section was enacted by 2010 Act No. 292 effective 27 August 2010 with a two-hour requirement, and raised by 2016 Act No. 263 (H.4262), SECTION 2, effective 1 July 2017. The Legislature's Effect-of-Amendment note is explicit: "2016 Act No. 263, SECTION 2, in (A), inserted 'to provide direct childcare', and substituted 'ten hours' for 'two hours'." Any source describing South Carolina as a two-hour state is nine years out of date. Second, the statutory duty is not merely to train but to "provide documentation to the Department of Social Services" — and § 63-13-825(B) means that failure shows up publicly on the DSS website as a non-compliance flag against the named home.

THE ENFORCEMENT TEETH, WHICH ARE SHARPER THAN OPERATORS EXPECT. Training failure is an independent ground to refuse a licence: R.114-531D(7)(a)(v), "The Department shall deny the application for licensure if ... The operator fails to comply with the training requirements provided in Section 63-13-825(A), South Carolina Code of Laws, 1976, amended." It is an independent ground to deny or withdraw a registration: § 63-13-830(E)(1)(d), the department may act if "the operator fails to comply with the training requirements provided in Section 63-13-825(A)." And it triggers a mandatory corrective action plan: § 63-13-830(E)(4), "If the operator fails to comply with the training requirements provided in Section 63-13-825(A) prior to the expiration of the registration or fails to timely renew the registration, the department shall place the operator on a corrective action plan." The renewal process checks it directly — R.114-531B(3)(e) makes the operator "Ensure all caregivers have the required training" as a renewal condition, and R.114-531E(8) repeats the same words for licence renewal. THE RECORD THAT PROVES IT. R.114-532G(1)(d) requires the staff file to contain a "Record of training for operator and caregivers working directly with the children."

The DSS 5.23.2025 policy sheet makes the safe-sleep element explicit as a filing requirement: "Training Record – Operator, staff, and emergency persons must have a training record on file showing that required trainings have been completed, including the required SAFE SLEEP training, if the Family Child Care Home cares for infants under 12 months of age." Note that the DSS sheet extends the training-record duty to EMERGENCY PERSONS, whom R.114-532H's word "caregivers" would not obviously reach; an emergency person is defined at R.114-530A(9) as someone "not regularly employed by the facility", and R.114-530A(24) folds emergency persons into "Staff". The safe course is to keep a training record for the emergency person. WHAT "TRAINING" MEANS — THE DEFINITION IS UNUSUALLY BROAD AND CONTAINS A MANDATORY TOPIC. R.114-530A(26): "Training: Participation by operators and caregivers during the calendar year in workshops, conferences, support groups, educational or provider associations, formal schooling, in-service training or planned learning opportunities provided by a child day care operator, director, other staff, or consultants.

Training shall be age appropriate for the child population served by the family child care home and in such subject areas related to: child care, child growth and development, and/or early childhood education, nutrition, infection control/communicable disease management and causes, health and safety, signs and treatment of child abuse and/or neglect. Training for operators may also be in areas related to day care program administration and shall include alternatives to corporal punishment." Three consequences. The measuring year is the CALENDAR year ("during the calendar year"), not the registration year — so an operator whose registration runs June-to-June still counts hours January-to-December. Support groups and provider-association meetings count, which is unusually generous. And the final clause is mandatory in form: training for operators "shall include alternatives to corporal punishment". That topic does not appear in the R.114-532H list of permitted areas, but it appears in the definition of the very word the rule uses, and it lines up with the absolute corporal-punishment prohibition at R.114-533G(2). An operator's annual plan should include it.

WHERE THE TRAINING MUST BE REGISTERED. DSS policy, POLICY FCCH 13: "Trainings must be registered or certified through SC Endeavors in order to meet training requirements. (revised 05/23/2022)" This is an administrative acceptance condition, not a regulatory one — R.114-532H names no registry — and should be confirmed with the regional office, but in practice an unregistered course risks being rejected at renewal. FIRST AID AND CPR AS COUNTABLE HOURS. R.114-532H(1) lists "infant/child CPR and first aid" among the permitted areas for the non-ring-fenced hours, and DSS confirms the practice for registered homes at POLICY FCCH 4 / 4A: "Pediatric First Aid and pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) classes can be used toward the training requirements for registered Family Child Care Homes. Training must be conducted by a recognized health care organization. CPR must include a hands-on skills component. A copy of the certification(s) must be provided to licensing as proof of completion." Note the "hands-on skills component" condition — a purely online CPR course does not qualify.

THE CONTRADICTION AN OPERATOR MUST NAVIGATE: DSS'S TOPIC GRID VERSUS THE REGULATION. DSS's Family Child Care Home policy manual, POLICY FCCH 12, prescribes a mandatory topic breakdown of the ten hours for providers outside the subsidy system: "For Providers who do not accept CCDF funds and are NOT a part of ABC Quality: 10 hours of training must be completed annually. Up to 5 training hours in excess of the 10 hours, may be carried over to the following year. The 10 hours of training must be as shown below: Disease Prevention and Medication Administration (1.5 hours): Prevention and control of infectious diseases; Blood-borne pathogens; Administration of medication. Infant Care Sleep Safety (1.25 hours): Safe Sleep Practices and Prevention of SIDs/SUIDs; Supervision. Nutrition and Food Allergies (1.5 hours): Nutrition; Prevention of and response to food allergies. Physical Environment Safety (1.5 hours): Building and physical premises safety (bodies of water), storage of hazardous materials, and bio-contaminants; Precaution in transporting children; Environmental allergens. Prevention of Child Abuse (1.5 hours): Prevention of Shaken Baby Syndrome and Abusive Head Trauma; Mandated Reporting; Reporting of child abuse and neglect.

Emergency Preparedness (1.5 hours): Emergency preparedness and response planning. Child Development (1.25 hour): Child Development and/or early childhood." Add the grid: 1.5 + 1.25 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 1.25 = 10.0 hours exactly. But it allocates only 1.25 hours to Child Development, and R.114-532H(1) — enacted after the manual, effective 24 May 2024 — requires that "At least four (4) clock hours shall be in child growth and development." A provider who follows the DSS grid to the letter completes 1.25 hours of child growth and development and is 2.75 hours short of the regulation. The grid also allocates 1.25 hours to "Infant Care Sleep Safety" including supervision, while the regulation requires "one hour of safe sleep" specifically where infants are served. This is a direct conflict between an agency manual dated "Original Published Date – 12/12/2022 Updated 3.1.2023" and a regulation that took effect on 24 May 2024. The regulation governs. The safe course for a South Carolina operator is to satisfy the regulation — four hours of child growth and development, one hour of safe sleep if serving infants under twelve months, six more from the R.114-532H list — and to treat the DSS grid as a topic menu rather than an allocation, confirming the point with the regional office at renewal.

This is exactly the pattern the brief flags as lesson three: the agency manual is not the law, and here the manual is demonstrably behind the law it purports to implement. THE SUBSIDY OVERLAY, FOR HOMES IN ABC QUALITY. POLICY FCCH 12, part II: "Once a person has completed the 15 hours of the South Carolina FCCH Health and Safety Pre-Service Certificate, 10 hours of annual health and safety training is required. Ongoing Training hours are offered at no cost and courses will be made available after completion of the health and Safety Certificate." So a subsidy-participating home carries a fifteen-hour pre-service certificate plus ten annual hours; a private-pay home carries ten annual hours and no certificate. The annual number is ten either way, which is why the regulation and the subsidy programme land on the same figure by different routes. FOR CONTRAST, THE NEIGHBOURING FACILITY TYPES. A GROUP CHILD CARE HOME carries a two-tier duty under a regulation last touched in 2005: R.114-513(5)(b), "The operator shall participate in at least fifteen (15) clock hours of training annually.

At least five clock hours shall be related to program administration and at least five clock hours shall be in child growth and development, early childhood education and/or health and safety excluding first aid and CPR training. The remaining hours shall come from the following areas: Safety, Health, Nutrition, Guidance, or Professional Development and must include blood-borne pathogens training as required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)"; and R.114-513(5)(c), "All staff, with the exception of emergency person(s) and volunteer(s), providing direct care to the children shall participate in at least ten (10) clock hours of training annually. At least four clock hours shall be in child growth and development and at least four (4) clock hours shall be in curriculum activities for children excluding first aid and CPR training." Note the differences that matter if a home moves up a tier: the group-home operator's figure is fifteen, first aid and CPR are EXCLUDED from the counted hours in a group home (they are INCLUDED in a family home under R.114-532H(1)), OSHA blood-borne pathogens training is mandatory rather than optional, and a group home must keep training records with a specific content list — R.114-513(5)(f), "Records of training received shall be kept on the premises and include the name of the person trained, the person or persons conducting the training, date, number of hours, location, and the competency area of the training." A family child care home operator who adopts that record format will exceed R.114-532G(1)(d) comfortably.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TRAINING: AVAILABLE, NOT MANDATORY. Section 63-13-120 obliges DSS to offer it rather than obliging operators to take it: "The Department of Social Services in conjunction with existing training regulations shall make available to childcare owners and operators staff training on domestic violence including, but not limited to: (1) the nature, extent, and causes of domestic and family violence; (2) issues of domestic and family violence concerning children; (3) prevention of the use of violence by children; (4) sensitivity to gender bias and cultural, racial, and sexual issues; (5) the lethality of domestic and family violence; (6) legal issues relating to domestic violence and child custody." Such a course would count toward the annual ten under the "guidance" or "health" headings of R.114-532H(1), or under the Department-approval escape hatch. A CLOSING PRACTICAL NOTE ON TIMING. The training year is the calendar year (R.114-530A(26)); the credential year is the anniversary of issuance (R.114-531C(1) for registration; R.114-531F(1) for licence, subject to the two-versus-three-year conflict discussed in program).

DSS must warn the operator 120 days before expiry (R.114-531B(2)(a); R.114-531E(2)). An operator who waits for that warning to start training has already lost most of the calendar year in which the hours had to be earned. The corrective-action-plan consequence at § 63-13-830(E)(4) is automatic, not discretionary, once the hours are missed at expiry.

Background checks

THE SOUTH CAROLINA SCREENING REGIME HAS TWO HARD EDGES THAT ARE NOT WHERE APPLICANTS LOOK: THE AGE THRESHOLD REACHES DOWN TO FIFTEEN, AND THE DISQUALIFYING LIST IS NOT A LIST OF CHILD CRIMES BUT THE ENTIRE FELONY CODE PLUS TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS OF MISDEMEANOURS. The authority question decides which text you obey. On 26 August 2026 the regulator is the Department of Social Services and the operative rules are Regulations 114-530 through 114-537 of the South Carolina Code of Regulations, Chapter 114, Article 5, headed "FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES (PROVIDE CARE FOR NO MORE THAN SIX CHILDREN)". Each of those eight sections closes with the same line, "HISTORY: Added by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229, eff May 24, 2024," and nothing has been added since. That is measured, not assumed: the Legislative Council's index states the file "is now current through State Register Volume 50, Issue 3, effective March 27, 2026," and the four issues published after that date were read one by one. The only child care document in them, No. 5314, "Regulations for the Licensing of Child Care Centers," was tolled and then, in Issue 6, "Withdrawn."

The statutory layer is Title 63, Chapter 13, and there the currency picture is worse: the Legislative Council states the Code of Laws on its website "is now current through the 2025 Session of the General Assembly," so the 2026 session acts are not in the codified text you read online. WHO MUST BE SCREENED. Section 63-13-820(C) reaches three categories in one sentence: "A person applying to become a registered operator of a family childcare home under this section, a person eighteen years of age or older living in the family childcare home, and any person eighteen years of age or older who moves into the family childcare home after the initial application for registration is approved shall undergo a state fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the State Law Enforcement Division ..., a fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ..., a Central Registry check to be conducted by the department to determine any abuse or neglect perpetrated by the person upon a child, and a search of the National Crime Information Center National Sex Offender Registry and the state sex offender registry pursuant to Section 23-3-430." Section 63-13-820(D) then drops the threshold: "A person fifteen through seventeen years of age living in a family childcare home and any person fifteen through seventeen years of age who moves into a family childcare home after an initial application for registration is approved shall undergo a state fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the State Law Enforcement Division ... and a fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ..."

The age architecture is precise: eighteen and over gets the full four-part check; fifteen through seventeen gets fingerprints only, SLED and FBI, no Central Registry and no sex offender search; both bands repeat every five years. The disqualification bar does not respect that split. Section 63-13-820(E)(1): "No applicant may be registered as an operator if the person, an employee, a caregiver, or a person fifteen years of age or older living in the family childcare home has been convicted of an offense included in Section 63-13-40(A)(1)." Fifteen, not eighteen: a sixteen-year-old stepson with a qualifying conviction defeats his mother's registration, and the Department has no discretion to weigh it. The regulation widens the net past household members and employees, and this is where applicants under-file. R.114-531A(5)(b) requires that "The operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age and older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers shall undergo a state fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) ... and a fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ..."

Several are people applicants assume are outside the scheme: an "Emergency Person" is defined at R.114-530A(9) as "An individual not regularly employed by the facility who is immediately available to serve as staff in the facility during emergency situations" — the neighbour nominated to cover if you fall ill. A "Volunteer" is defined at R.114-530A(27) as a parent, grandparent or other individual "at least sixteen (16) years of age infrequently assisting with the daily activities for children ... without compensation," and that definition closes by removing the escape route: "An individual meeting this definition is subject to compliance with the same applicable regulations as paid family child care home caregivers." And R.114-530A(2) folds household members into the operative term: "Caregiver: The operator of a family child care home and any person, including household members, whose duties include direct care, supervision, and guidance of children." Inside the regulation there is a live conflict on the Central Registry threshold, and you should resolve it upward. R.114-531A(5)(e) requires "An original DSS 2924, Central Registry for Release of Information and Compliance Statement on the operator, household members eighteen (18) years of age or older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff ... and volunteers" — eighteen.

But R.114-532G(1)(c), the staff-record rule, requires the file to hold "Results regarding a central registry and a sex offender registry check for the operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age or older, substitute and regular caregiver(s), emergency person(s), staff ... and volunteer(s) for South Carolina and for each state where such person resided during the preceding five years" — fifteen. WHICH CHECKS ARE RUN, AND BY WHOM. Six components. A SLED fingerprint-based state criminal history check; an FBI fingerprint-based check; a Central Registry of Child Abuse and Neglect check run by the Department, that registry defined at R.114-530A(3) as a listing of individuals "listed on the registry due to the determination of perpetrating abuse or neglect upon a child"; a search of the National Crime Information Center National Sex Offender Registry; a search of the state sex offender registry under § 23-3-430, which R.114-530A(23) reads as covering both the SLED-maintained state list and the national registry under the Adam Walsh Act; and sixth, the component most often missed, the out-of-state sweep — a state criminal register or repository check, a state sex offender check, and a state child abuse and neglect registry and database check in every state where the person lived in the previous five years.

Division of labour matters when chasing a delay: "State and Federal Fingerprints are completed and reviewed by the DSS Office of Inspector General," which also runs the NCIC search, while the Central Registry, in-state sex offender and out-of-state abuse-and-neglect checks are "conducted by the Department of Social Services' Child Care Licensing office." Two units, two queues, one application. There is a real drafting gap in the out-of-state layer. Section 63-13-820(C), the provision governing you at initial registration, does not contain the five-year multistate sentence. It appears in § 63-13-40(D)(2) for employees and caregivers ("The person shall be subject to a state criminal register or repository check, a state sex offender check, and a state child abuse and neglect registry and database check in each state where the person has lived in the previous five years"), in § 63-13-830(C)(1) for renewal and in § 63-13-810(C)(1) for the home that elects licensure — and it is simply absent from § 63-13-820(C). The gap closes anyway: R.114-531A(5)(e) requires the 2924 fee "for South Carolina and paid for each state where such staff or household member resided during the preceding five years," R.114-532G(1)(b) and (c) require the results on file on the same geography, and the federal floor demands it regardless.

THE FEDERAL FLOOR AND HOW SOUTH CAROLINA SITS ON IT. It is 42 U.S.C. § 9858f, and it binds South Carolina because South Carolina takes the block grant. Its coverage test is behaviour-based, not payroll-based: § 9858f(i)(2) reaches an individual "employed by a child care provider for compensation; or whose activities involve the care or supervision of children ... or unsupervised access to children" — which is why the South Carolina regulation must reach volunteers and emergency persons. Section 9858f(b) sets five mandatory components and South Carolina's list maps onto them one for one. Section 9858f(d)(3) requires the request "prior to the date the individual becomes a child care staff member of the provider" and "not less than once during each 5-year period" — the origin of the five-year recheck. Section 9858f(e)(1) caps processing: the state "shall carry out the request ... as expeditiously as possible, but not to exceed 45 days after the date on which such request was submitted." Section 9858f(f) caps money at "the actual costs to the State for the processing and administration."

And § 9858f(h)(1) permits South Carolina's severity: nothing in it "shall be construed to prevent a State from disqualifying individuals as child care staff members based on their conviction for crimes not specifically listed in this section." One federal option South Carolina has not taken up is § 9858f(e)(4), which lets a state run "a review process through which the State may determine that a child care staff member ... disqualified for a crime specified in subsection (c)(1)(D)(ix)" — a drug felony within the preceding five years — "is eligible for employment ... notwithstanding subsection (c)." South Carolina bars drug felonies permanently under its own wider felony rule and has built no such review: there is no rehabilitation pathway in the scheme. THE DISQUALIFYING OFFENCES, AND WHY THE LIST IS FAR BIGGER THAN IT LOOKS.

Everything routes to one subsection: § 63-13-820(E)(1) bars registration where the operator, an employee, a caregiver or a resident aged fifteen or older "has been convicted of an offense included in Section 63-13-40(A)(1)," and § 63-13-40(A)(1) bars a person "required to register or is registered with the National Crime Information Center National Sex Offender Registry, the state sex offender registry pursuant to Section 23-3-430, or the Central Registry of Child Abuse and Neglect" — registry status alone disqualifies — "or has been convicted of: (a) a crime listed in Chapter 3, Title 16, Offenses Against the Person; (b) a crime listed in Chapter 15, Title 16, Offenses Against Morality and Decency; (c) the crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, contained in Section 16-17-490; (d) unlawful conduct toward a child, as provided for in Section 63-5-70; (e) cruelty to children, as provided for in Section 63-5-80; (f) child endangerment, as provided for in Section 56-5-2947; (g)(i) the felonies classified in Section 16-1-10(A)" — with the carve-out below — "(h) the offenses enumerated in Section 16-1-10(D) if the crime was a felony or if the victim was a minor; (i) a violent crime listed in Section 16-1-60 if the crime was a felony or if the victim was a minor; or (j) a criminal offense similar in nature to the crimes listed in this subsection committed in other jurisdictions or under federal law."

Section 16-1-10(A) is not a child-crimes list: it is the sentencing classification of every felony in South Carolina law, "Class A felonies" through "Class F felonies." Any felony, of any kind, from any decade, is a permanent bar: no lookback, no age-of-offence cut-off, no seriousness filter. Paragraphs (a) and (b) are worse in a subtler way: they bar "a crime listed in" two entire chapters with the word "felony" nowhere in sight. Chapter 3 of Title 16 contains § 16-3-600(E), assault and battery in the third degree, which the same statute calls "a misdemeanor" punishable by "not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned for not more than thirty days"; Chapter 15 contains § 16-15-60, "Adultery or fornication," § 16-15-90, prostitution, and § 16-15-130, indecent exposure. Misdemeanours, and permanent bars on the face of the text. Paragraph (i) imports § 16-1-60, running from murder and criminal sexual conduct through carjacking, drug trafficking, arson, burglary, homicide by child abuse and first-degree domestic violence.

The scheme's only temporally limited disqualification is the DUI carve-out inside (g)(i): the felony bar "does not apply to Section 56-5-2930, the Class F felony of driving under the influence if the conviction occurred at least ten years prior to the application for employment and the following conditions are met: (A) the person has not been convicted in this State or any other state of an alcohol or drug violation during the previous ten-year period; (B) the person has not been convicted of and has no charges pending ... for a violation of driving while his license is canceled, suspended, or revoked during the previous ten-year period; and (C) the person has completed successfully an alcohol or drug assessment and treatment program provided by the Office of Substance Use Services or an equivalent program designated by that agency." Two riders travel with it: under (g)(i)(ii) a person convicted of a first-offence DUI "must not drive a motor vehicle or provide transportation while in the official course of his duties," and under (g)(i)(iii) on a subsequent DUI-type conviction "the person's employment must be terminated."

Separately, § 63-13-1110 makes it a felony punishable by up to five years for a registered sex offender "to work for any person or as a sole proprietor, with or without compensation, at any location where a minor is present" unless "approved by a circuit court order." Applying while barred is itself an offence: § 63-13-820(F) requires the form to carry, "at the top of the form in large bold type," a warning that a disqualified applicant, or one with a disqualified person aged fifteen or older living in the home, "is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." THE ONLY RELIEF ROUTE IS A PARDON, AND EVEN THAT IS NOT A CLEARANCE. Section 63-13-820(E)(2) opens the single door and immediately narrows it: "This section does not operate to prohibit registration or renewal when a conviction or plea of guilty or nolo contendere for one of the crimes enumerated in this subsection has been pardoned. However, notwithstanding the entry of a pardon, the department may consider all information available, including the person's pardoned convictions or pleas and the circumstances surrounding them, to determine whether the person is unfit or otherwise unsuited to be an operator, caregiver, employee, or to be living in the family daycare home." A pardon removes the automatic bar and hands the Department a discretion; it does not entitle you to registration.

What exists instead is a set of § 9858f(e)(3) accuracy appeals, narrower than they sound. For fingerprints: "If the individual chooses to appeal the fingerprint results, he/she may do so by notifying in writing the Office of Inspector General within DSS and the State Law Enforcement Division at the following email: oigccdbga@dss.sc.gov." For the in-state Central Registry, "by contacting the DSS County Office where the results of the findings were made." For out-of-state registry results DSS disclaims jurisdiction and directs the person to "the corresponding state's Abuse and Neglect Office." The appeal that matters to the business is against the credential decision: § 63-13-850(A) requires notice of withdrawal or denial "by certified or registered mail," containing the reasons and informing you "of the right to appeal the decision to the director or his designee in writing within thirty calendar days after the receipt of the notice," with a hearing at which under § 63-13-850(B) you "may be represented by counsel"; § 63-13-850(C) makes the decision "final unless appealed by a party pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act." R.114-531A(8)(c) states the guillotine: "If no written appeal is made, the application shall be deemed denied as of the termination of the thirty-day period."

THE TIMING RULE, AND THE PART ROUTINELY MISREAD. For the operator there is no provisional route at all. R.114-530A(1) builds them into the definition of a complete application, which requires "current criminal history background checks on all required persons," and R.114-532A(2)(c) restates it as an operator qualification: "Favorable completion of all comprehensive background check requirements." Issuance comes after: R.114-531A(6)(e), "If all regulatory requirements are met, the Department shall issue a regular registration." For you and every adult in your house the checks clear before the registration exists; there is no opening on a pending household check. For employees, substitutes and caregivers the picture differs. Section 63-13-40(D)(3): "a person may be provisionally employed or may provisionally provide caregiver services after the favorable completion of the State Law Enforcement Division name and date of birth-based background check and the SLED or Federal Bureau of Investigation fingerprint-based background checks, until such time as the remaining fingerprint-based background check and the Central Registry check are completed if the person executes a sworn statement ... that he or she has not been convicted of any crime enumerated in this section and that he or she is not on the Central Registry."

The sworn statement is the notarised block at the foot of DSS Form 2924, headed "FOR PROVISIONAL EMPLOYMENT ONLY." Three conditions travel with it. Supervision, in the last sentence of (D)(3): "A person provisionally employed must be directly supervised by, and in the presence of a nonprovisionally employed person at all times when providing direct care to children" — in a six-child home run by one adult that is usually impossible to staff, so do not build a hiring plan on it. Filing, (D)(4): "Provisional status will be repealed if the requests for the Central Registry check and SLED and FBI fingerprint-based background checks are not sent ... by the end of the next business day after the person was employed." One business day. Penalty, (D)(5): a first violation means "the facility may not employ a person provisionally for twelve months," a second twenty-four, and the suspension follows the director to any other facility employing him. Section 63-13-45(A) and R.114-532D(5) also require you to have already obtained from every enrolled child's parent a signed statement acknowledging "that the family child care home may provisionally employ a person ... when an unexpected staff vacancy occurs" — those signatures must be in hand before the vacancy, not after.

Section 63-13-40(D)(7) sets the Department's clock for the Central Registry component: "For provisional employment under this section, the department must complete the Central Registry check within two business days of receipt of the request. For other employment ... within five business days ... If the department notifies the provider that research into other records is required, these deadlines may be extended for up to ten additional business days." Nothing in South Carolina law sets any deadline for the fingerprint components; the only ceiling is the federal forty-five days. THE FIVE-YEAR CYCLE AND THE SIX-MONTH BREAK, NEITHER LINING UP WITH YOUR CREDENTIAL. The recheck rule closes both § 63-13-820(C) and § 63-13-820(D): "The fingerprint-based background checks required by this subsection are required to be repeated every five years." The regulation repeats it at R.114-531B(3)(b), D(4)(b) and E(5): "The fingerprint reviews required by this subsection are required to be repeated every five years for the operator, staff, household members, substitutes, emergency persons, and volunteers."

Set that against the credential term: one year for a registration under R.114-531C(1), two for a licence under R.114-531F(1). The clocks do not align: in four renewal years out of five nobody asks for fingerprints, and in the fifth the demand lands inside a renewal you thought routine. Diary the five-year date from the original submission. A second, independent trigger catches returning staff: § 63-13-40(D)(6) provides that "The fingerprint checks must be repeated if a person is not employed by or does not provide caregiver services in a childcare center, group childcare home, family childcare home, church or religious childcare center, or childcare provider that delivers services for which Child Care and Development Fund financial assistance is provided for six months or longer." R.114-531A(5)(c) says the same. Six months out of the sector voids the fingerprints even if the five years have not run; the federal analogue is 180 consecutive days, so the two effectively agree. PORTABILITY EXISTS ON PAPER AND BARELY IN PRACTICE. The federal rule is real: § 9858f(d)(4) excuses a fresh request where the staff member received a qualifying check "within 5 years" while with another in-state provider, where "the State provided to the first provider a qualifying background check result," and where the person is still with an in-state provider or "has been separated from employment ... for a period of not more than 180 consecutive days."

South Carolina honours it on the Central Registry side through the form's consent language: "This consent is effective for a search of the Central Registry for the purpose of working in any child care facility in the State." On the fingerprint side the administrative design cuts against it, tying every submission to the hiring facility: "Each facility has a unique facility ID number that is required to schedule an appointment and specific to that child care facility. DO NOT SHARE this number with any other facility or entity," with the warning that "if correct ORI number is not used this will cause a delay in results and a possible need to be re-fingerprinted." Because results return to the facility owning the ORI, and as a bare eligible/ineligible determination — § 9858f(e)(2)(A) forbids disclosing the underlying crime to the provider — a caregiver moving between homes cannot hand you a clearance letter. Ask the regional office to confirm a transferable result before assuming portability; if they will not, re-fingerprint and pay again. WHO PAYS, AND HOW MUCH. Section 63-13-820(H) closes: "The prospective employee or childcare facility shall be responsible for any fees associated with any and all required background checks.

Fees shall not exceed the actual cost of processing and administration." Three cost lines. The Central Registry check is fixed on the form itself: "Submit $8.00 payment (check or money order) and this form to SCDSS, Child Care Licensing, P.O. Box 1520, Room 218, Columbia, SC 29202-1520 OR make payment online at www.scchildcare.org." Eight dollars per person per check, plus a separate fee "for each state where such staff or household member resided during the preceding five years," each priced by that state. The fingerprint line is SLED-plus-FBI live scan through the state's sole contracted vendor: "Child Care Licensing only accepts electronic fingerprints through IdentoGo for child care providers who require a State and Federal background check," with sites in Columbia, North Charleston, Greenville, Florence and Rock Hill. The vendor sets that price and it is not fixed in the regulation; the only statutory constraint is § 63-13-60, under which "the State Law Enforcement Division may not impose a fee greater than the fee imposed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for conducting such a fingerprint-based background check."

Confirm the live-scan price with IdentoGO when you schedule rather than budgeting from a third-party figure. One narrow saving exists under § 63-13-50: fingerprint checks "are not required of a certified education personnel who has undergone a fingerprint-based background check pursuant to Section 59-26-40 or of a person licensed as a foster parent" checked under § 63-7-2340, if the results are submitted to the Department and the person has remained in that status. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE MOVES IN AFTER YOU ARE REGISTERED. This provision ends more South Carolina registrations than any fresh-application failure. Section 63-13-820(C) reaches "any person eighteen years of age or older who moves into the family childcare home after the initial application for registration is approved," and § 63-13-820(D) does the same for anyone "fifteen through seventeen years of age." The trigger is residence, and R.114-530A(11) defines it broadly enough to catch arrangements you would not call moving in: "Household member: A person who resides in a family child care home, maintains clothing and personal effects at the household address, and/or eats or sleeps at the household address on a regular basis."

Neither instrument grants a grace period or states a deadline; what they state is the consequence. R.114-531C(7): "The Department shall withdraw the registration if ... The operator or household members have been convicted of crimes that would exclude them from working in a family child care home or appear on the sex offender or central registries." There is also an affirmative reporting duty most operators do not know they carry: R.114-532C(1) requires report to the Department within twenty-four hours of "Reports of alleged child abuse involving the operator, any staff person, or any household member" and "Arrests or convictions of any crimes against the operator, any staff persons, or any household member." Arrests, not convictions only, and of household members, not just staff. The vehicle is DSS Form 2927, the Household Member List, required by R.114-531A(5)(a) at application and R.114-531B(3)(a) at renewal; an amended 2927, a 2924 and a scheduled IdentoGO appointment, filed at once, is the correct response to a new arrival. One drafting gap surfaces in renewal audits: both instruments are written around people who "move into" the home, and R.114-531B(3)(b), D(4)(b) and E(5) demand new checks only for "new household members eighteen (18) years of age or older, new substitute(s), new emergency person(s), and new staff ... and new volunteers." A child who has lived in the home since birth and turns fifteen has not moved in and is not new — yet R.114-532G(1)(b) and (c) require the file to hold SLED, FBI, NCIC, central registry and sex offender results for "household members fifteen (15) years of age or older," and § 63-13-820(E)(1) makes any conviction by a resident "fifteen years of age or older" fatal.

Screen your own children as they reach fifteen: the rule cited against you is the record rule, and it uses the age, not the arrival. FINALLY, THE STALE LAYER — HERE IT IS THE AGENCY'S OWN BACKGROUND-CHECK PUBLICATION. The Department's provider guidance carries a link headed "Read more about the Background Check Law for Child Care Providers in South Carolina." It serves Booklet 2955, "South Carolina Child Care Licensing Law," whose footer reads "DSS Booklet 2955 (NOV 15)" and whose reproduced disclaimer states that the Code text inside "is now current through the 2014 session." That booklet prints a § 63-13-820(C) whose entire screening duty is "a state fingerprint review to be conducted by the State Law Enforcement Division ... and a fingerprint review to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," ending: "The fingerprint reviews required by this subsection are not required upon each renewal." Every operative feature of the modern rule is missing: no Central Registry check, no NCIC or sex offender search, no out-of-state five-year sweep, no eighteen-and-over versus fifteen-through-seventeen structure, no duty on a person who moves in after approval, and — flatly contrary to the law in force — no five-year recheck.

Its disqualification list has six items and omits unlawful conduct toward a child, cruelty to children, child endangerment and the violent crimes. All of that was added by 2016 Act No. 263, 2019 Act No. 52 and 2024 Act No. 195. A smaller fingerprint: DSS Form 2924, edition "APR 16," still cites "Section 63-13-40 D(2)" as the authority for provisional employment, when since the 2019 rewrite that authority is § 63-13-40(D)(3). The 2025-2026 legislative sweep comes back nearly empty for family child care homes, which is itself the finding: the only 2026 enactment touching Chapter 13's background-check provisions is Act No. 232 of 2026 (S.996, R243), ratified 15 May 2026 and approved 19 May 2026, amending § 63-13-190(A)(2) — DSS's own personnel, contractors and volunteers — to strike the words "or a person who has direct unsupervised contact with a child in the custody of the Department of Social Services." It does not touch a provider's obligations. Because the Code of Laws server is "current through the 2025 Session," the § 63-13-190 you read online today still shows the pre-Act-232 wording: the legislature's own file is a session behind on this chapter.

One bill that would have mattered died where it was filed. H.4587 would have added a § 63-13-810(D) making "a childcare provider on a military installation or a facility licensed or certified as a family childcar[e] provider by the Department of Defense ... or the United States Coast Guard ... exempt from the requirements of this article"; prefiled 16 December 2025, read first time 13 January 2026, referred to Education and Public Works, it moved no further. If someone tells you a family child care home on a South Carolina military installation is exempt from the screening scheme, they are quoting a bill that never passed.

The application, step by step

Work through these in order — the prep packet turns them into a checklist you can tick off:

1. STEP ZERO — BEFORE YOU APPLY FOR ANYTHING, ESTABLISH THAT SOUTH CAROLINA REGULATES YOU AT ALL, BECAUSE THE MOST EXPENSIVE PAPERWORK IS THE PAPERWORK YOU NEVER OWED. The gate is S.C. Code of Laws Section 63-13-20(2), which defines "childcare" as "the care, supervision, or guidance of a child or children, unaccompanied by the parent, guardian, or custodian, on a regular basis, for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day, but more than four hours, in a place other than the child's or the children's own home or homes." Three numeric filters live in that sentence and any one of them will put you outside the chapter: more than four hours a day, less than twenty-four hours a day, and not in the child's own home. Section 63-13-20(24) then fixes "regularly" numerically: "the availability and provision of periods of daycare on more than two days in such week" — three days a week or more, measured "in any one week" and not on an average. Now read the statutory exclusion list, Section 63-13-20(4), because it is the only place South Carolina writes down what is NOT a childcare facility, and it is short: educational facilities operating solely for grade one or above; five-year-old kindergarten programs; "kindergartens or nursery schools or other daytime programs, with or without stated educational purposes, operating no more than four hours a day and receiving children younger than lawful school age"; shopping-centre drop-in care where "the same children are cared for less than four hours a day and not on a regular basis"; school-vacation day camps "running less than three weeks per session unless the day camp permits children to enroll in successive sessions so that their total attendance may exceed three weeks"; summer resident camps; "bible schools normally conducted during vacation periods"; and two disability-services categories. And note the sentence that follows the shopping-centre exclusion, because it is the trap inside the exemption: "however, these facilities must meet local fire and sanitation requirements and maintain documentation on these requirements on file at the facility available for public inspection." An exemption from DSS is not an exemption from the fire marshal. Finally, run the definitional proviso in Section 63-13-20(13), repeated verbatim at Section 63-13-810(A) and again at R.114-530A(10): "an occupied residence in which childcare is provided only for a child or children related to the resident caregiver or only for the child or children of one unrelated family, or only for a combination of these children, is not a family childcare home." Minding your own grandchildren, or minding the three children of exactly ONE unrelated family, is not a family child care home in South Carolina and needs no registration at all. Take the second unrelated family and you have created a regulated facility that same week. This step costs nothing and takes an hour; skipping it is how people pay $8 per person in Central Registry fees for a credential they did not need.
2. STEP ONE — CHOOSE YOUR REGIME, AND UNDERSTAND THAT IN SOUTH CAROLINA REGISTRATION IS THE DEFAULT AND THE LICENCE IS OPTIONAL — THE EXACT REVERSE OF MOST STATES. Section 63-13-810(B) makes registration compulsory for every family child care home: "An operator of a family childcare home shall register with the department." Licensure is an election, and the statute names the only reason to make it: Section 63-13-810(C)(1), "A family childcare home which elects to participate in a federal program which requires licensing as a prerequisite to participation may elect to be licensed under the procedures in Section 63-13-820. A family childcare home electing licensing shall demonstrate compliance with the suggested standards developed by the department under Section 63-13-180 and shall comply with provisions of Sections 63-13-420 and 63-13-430 relating to criminal history conviction records checks..." Subsection (C)(2) adds that "Operators and caregivers of licensed family childcare homes are held to the standards in Sections 63-13-420 and 63-13-430 regarding criminal convictions and Central Registry and sex offender checks." Regulation R.114-531 then runs the two tracks side by side: subsections A through C are registration, subsections D through F are licensure, and the licence track carries five extra burdens the registration track does not — a fire and health inspection (R.114-531D(4)(f)), TB clearance (D(4)(g)), a Staff Health Assessment (D(4)(h)), a Medical Statement (D(4)(i)), and an infant/child CPR and first aid certificate "that covers all hours of operation" (D(4)(l)). Registration has none of those. That asymmetry is the whole decision. Choose registration if you are taking private-pay families only; choose the licence if you intend to take Child Care Scholarship (formerly Voucher) children, feed children under the federal food programme, or otherwise touch a federal programme that conditions participation on a licence. There is a third door you may be forced through without choosing it: Section 63-13-20(14) defines a "group childcare home" as a residence "which regularly provides childcare for at least seven but not more than twelve children," counted the same inclusive way, and that species is licence-only under a different regulation (R.114-511 through R.114-518). If your own resident children under twelve push the head-count past six, you are not applying for a family child care home at all. There is a fourth door that does NOT exist for you: the faith-based exemption. Section 63-13-20(4)(j) exempts "childcare centers and group childcare homes owned and operated by a local church congregation or an established religious denomination or a religious college or university which does not receive state or federal financial assistance for childcare services" — CENTERS AND GROUP HOMES, not family child care homes. A family child care home cannot claim the church exemption in South Carolina, and Section 63-13-10(B)'s guarantee that "the freedom of religion of all citizens is inviolate" is expressly confined to "any Sunday school, Sabbath school, religious services or any nursery service or other program conducted during religious or church services primarily for the convenience of those attending the services." Making this choice on day one matters because it determines which packet you collect at orientation.
3. STEP TWO — ATTEND THE REGIONAL ORIENTATION, BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY DOOR TO THE APPLICATION PACKET AND IT IS THEREFORE THE REAL START DATE OF YOUR FILE. The regulation puts orientation before everything on both tracks and uses mandatory language on both. R.114-531A(1): "A potential operator of a family child care home may obtain information about the registration or licensure process by contacting the Department's regional child care licensing office." R.114-531A(2): "A potential operator of a family child care home must attend orientation to obtain an application packet and instructions regarding the registration process." R.114-531D(2) repeats it for the licence track in the imperative: "A potential operator of a family child care home shall attend orientation to obtain an application packet and instructions regarding the licensure packet." There is no online self-service route around this sentence; the packet is handed out at the session. Orientation is also where DSS discharges three statutory disclosure duties in one sitting, and you should leave with all three documents in hand because you will be asked to prove you received them. R.114-531A(3), word-for-word identical to R.114-531D(3): "The Department representative shall provide the applicant with the required number of forms, a copy of the current Suggested Standards and Regulations for Family Child Care Homes, a copy of Section 63-13-10 et. seq., Code of Laws of South Carolina, (Child Care Facilities Statute) and a copy of sections of the Children's Code which are related to child abuse and neglect, with an explanation of procedures and information required by the Department." The Suggested Standards copy is not a souvenir: R.114-531A(5)(g) makes you "Read the Suggested Standards For Family Day Care Homes," Section 63-13-820(B)(1) makes you "sign a statement that he has read the suggested standards," and R.114-531A(5)(h)-(i) require you to furnish or review that same document with every enrolling parent and to secure a signed statement back from each of them. Orientation is run region by region, and family child care home applicants sit in their own session — DSS runs FCCH sessions separately from the "CCC, RCCC & GCCH" sessions for centres, religious centres and group homes, with the FCCH sessions typically in the afternoon and frequently delivered virtually. The four regional child care licensing offices are Upstate (Greenville, (864) 250-5576 / (800) 637-8550), Midlands (Columbia, (803) 898-9001 / (888) 202-1469), Pee Dee (181 East Evans Street, Florence, (843) 661-6623 / (800) 464-9138) and Low Country (North Charleston, (843) 953-9780). Sessions are seat-capped in the dozens and fill; treat the orientation date, not the day you decided to open, as day one of your timeline. The common failure here is ordering fingerprints or paying a zoning application fee before orientation, then discovering at the session that the forms you needed were different, that your household has a member you had not counted, or that your basement room has no second means of egress. Budget two to four weeks between deciding and sitting in the session, and do nothing irreversible before it.
4. STEP THREE — GET THE ZONING LETTER MOVING THE DAY AFTER ORIENTATION, BECAUSE IT IS THE LONGEST-LEAD ITEM IN THE FILE AND IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR BURDEN, NOT THE DEPARTMENT'S. Zoning is a statutory precondition, not an administrative courtesy. Section 63-13-90: "At the time of initial licensing, approval, or registration a childcare facility must provide proof of conformity or authorized nonconformity with county or municipal zoning ordinances or resolutions. The department may impose conditions on the license, approval, or registration consistent with restrictions imposed by zoning authorities." The regulation converts that into a document you must produce on both tracks. R.114-531A(5)(k), registration: "Submit an original zoning approval letter from the city or county zoning office." R.114-531D(4)(d), licensure, identical: "Submit an original zoning approval letter from the city or county zoning office." Note the word ORIGINAL in both. A scan or a screenshot of a parcel lookup is not what the regulation asks for. Note also the statute's second limb: "proof of conformity or AUTHORIZED NONCONFORMITY." If your home predates the ordinance or sits on a lot with a grandfathered use, the letter you need is the one that certifies the nonconformity is authorised, which is usually a different desk and a different form from a plain conformity letter, and often a different fee. This step is where a South Carolina family child care home most often loses money it cannot recover, for two reasons. The first is that the zoning authority can shrink your business below the statewide cap and DSS will enforce the smaller number. R.114-533C(1): "The operator may have up to six (6) children in the home at any given time, including children living in the home and children related to the operator who are under the age of twelve (12), UNLESS ZONING RESTRICTIONS FURTHER LIMIT THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN." Your licence or registration then states that reduced maximum — R.114-531C(4) and R.114-531F(6) both require the certificate to state "the maximum number of children to be present in the family child care home during operating hours" — and R.114-531C(5) and F(7) make exceeding it a violation. So a municipality that permits home occupations at four children has capped your revenue at four, permanently, and DSS has no power to override it. The second is timing. A conformity letter over the counter can take a week; a home-occupation permit that requires a special exception, a neighbour-notice period and a board of zoning appeals hearing can take three to four months, and some ordinances require off-street parking or a drop-off plan that costs money to build. THIS STEP RUNS IN PARALLEL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE AND SHOULD BE STARTED FIRST. Nothing in R.114-531 sequences zoning after the forms; the only requirement is that the original letter be in the file before the Department decides. If you are renting, add a further gate that no regulation mentions and every landlord's lease does: deed restrictions, HOA covenants and lease clauses prohibiting home businesses bind you privately even where the zoning ordinance permits the use, and DSS will not adjudicate them. And remember that the credential is welded to the address: R.114-531C(6), "A change in location shall automatically void the registration," and R.114-531F(8), "A change in location shall immediately void the license." A move means a new zoning letter and a new application, not a transfer.
5. STEP FOUR — INVENTORY YOUR HOUSEHOLD ON DSS FORM 2927 AND INSTALL A LISTED TELEPHONE, BECAUSE THESE TWO SMALL ITEMS DECIDE HOW BIG AND HOW EXPENSIVE THE NEXT STEP WILL BE. The household member list is not a formality; it is the instrument that defines the population to be screened, and getting it wrong is the single most common cause of a South Carolina file being reopened months later. R.114-530A(11) defines the term broadly: "Household member: A person who resides in a family child care home, maintains clothing and personal effects at the household address, and/or eats or sleeps at the household address on a regular basis." Read the disjunctions. A partner who keeps clothes at your address and sleeps there most nights is a household member even if their driving licence says otherwise. An adult child home from college for the summer is a household member. A parent recovering in your spare room is a household member. R.114-531A(5)(a) requires the applicant to "Complete, sign, and submit originals of the following forms: Application to Operate a Child Care Facility (DSS 2902), Original or Renewal of Registration of Family Child Care Home (DSS 2922), Household Member List (DSS 2927) and any additional forms required by the Department," and R.114-531D(4)(a) requires the same three on the licence track. Two different age thresholds then key off that one list, and confusing them is the classic error. Fingerprints reach down to FIFTEEN: R.114-531A(5)(b) requires "the operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age and older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers" to undergo the SLED and FBI checks, and Section 63-13-820(D) confirms it in statute for "A person fifteen through seventeen years of age living in a family childcare home." The Central Registry consent, DSS 2924, reaches only EIGHTEEN and older — R.114-531A(5)(e) requires "An original DSS 2924 ... on the operator, household members eighteen (18) years of age or older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff." So your sixteen-year-old is fingerprinted but not registry-checked; your nineteen-year-old is both. Section 63-13-820(C) adds a duty that outlives the application: "any person eighteen years of age or older who moves into the family childcare home after the initial application for registration is approved" must be screened too. A new partner moving in mid-year is a compliance event, not a private matter. The telephone requirement sits in the same cluster and is stated in unusually specific terms on both tracks. R.114-531A(4): "The family child care home applicant shall have a working, listed telephone in the family child care home and shall make the telephone number available to parent(s)/guardian(s) of children enrolled in the family child care home and to Department staff. The telephone number must be listed in all appropriate directories to ensure emergency identification and response." R.114-531D(4)(j) repeats it. The operative word is LISTED. A mobile number that appears in no directory is arguably non-compliant on the face of the text; the cheapest safe course is a directory listing tied to the home address. Both items are same-week tasks and both run in parallel with zoning.
6. STEP FIVE — SUBMIT THE BACKGROUND SCREENING, AND START THE CLOCK THAT KILLS MORE SOUTH CAROLINA APPLICATIONS THAN ANY OTHER PROVISION. Four separate checks are required, on every person your household list produced, and they do not run at the same speed. R.114-531A(5)(b): "The operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age and older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers shall undergo a state fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to determine any state criminal history and a fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine any other criminal history." R.114-531A(5)(e) adds the other two: "The person shall be subject to a state sex offender check which includes a check of the National Sex Offender Registry. An original DSS 2924, Central Registry for Release of Information and Compliance Statement on the operator, household members eighteen (18) years of age or older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers along with the appropriate fee for South Carolina AND PAID FOR EACH STATE WHERE SUCH STAFF OR HOUSEHOLD MEMBER RESIDED DURING THE PRECEDING FIVE YEARS." That last clause is the budget killer and the calendar killer. Section 63-13-820(C) states the statutory version: the person "shall be subject to a state criminal register or repository check, a state sex offender check, and a state child abuse and neglect registry and database check in each state where the person has lived in the previous five years." The DSS 2924 fee is $8.00 per person for South Carolina, payable by check or money order or online, mailed to SCDSS, Child Care Licensing, P.O. Box 1520, Room 218, Columbia, SC 29202-1520 — and you owe a separate out-of-state check, at that state's own price and that state's own turnaround, for every state each screened person has lived in since roughly 2021. A household of four adults, one of whom moved from Georgia and Florida, is not four checks; it is eight or ten, and the slowest foreign registry sets your issuance date. Some states answer in five business days; some take eight to twelve weeks. Fingerprint pricing is capped by Section 63-13-60 at no more than the FBI's own fee, and Section 63-13-820(H) puts the bill on you: "The prospective employee or childcare facility shall be responsible for any fees associated with any and all required background checks. Fees shall not exceed the actual cost of processing and administration." Two operational facts to diary now: results are valid for five years and must be repeated (R.114-531A(5)(d), "The results of the fingerprint-based background checks shall be repeated every five (5) years"), and they must be redone after any break in service — R.114-531A(5)(c), if a person "does not provide caregiver services in a child care center, group childcare home, family child care home, church or religious center or child care provider that delivers services for which Child Care Development Fund financial assistance is provided for six (6) months or longer." Start this step the same week as zoning: IT RUNS IN PARALLEL WITH ZONING, FORMS AND REFERENCES, and it is the long pole in every South Carolina file.
7. STEP SIX — READ THE DISQUALIFIER LIST BEFORE YOU PAY FOR THE CHECKS, BECAUSE IN SOUTH CAROLINA A DISQUALIFYING CONVICTION ANYWHERE IN THE HOUSEHOLD ENDS THE APPLICATION AND APPLYING ANYWAY IS ITSELF A MISDEMEANOR. The disqualifiers are absolute. Section 63-13-820(E)(1): "No applicant may be registered as an operator if the person, an employee, a caregiver, or a person fifteen years of age or older living in the family childcare home has been convicted of an offense included in Section 63-13-40(A)(1)" — which covers all of Chapter 3 of Title 16 (offences against the person), all of Chapter 15 (offences against morality and decency), contributing to the delinquency of a minor, unlawful conduct toward a child, cruelty to children, child endangerment, the Class A through F felonies, and equivalent out-of-state or federal offences. A pardon does not automatically cure it: subsection (E)(2) lets the department "consider all information available, including the person's pardoned convictions or pleas and the circumstances surrounding them." And applying anyway is itself a crime — Section 63-13-820(F) requires the application form to carry, "at the top of the form in large bold type," the warning that doing so "is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." Two operational facts: the results are valid for five years and must be repeated (R.114-531A(5)(d)), and they must be redone after any break — R.114-531A(5)(c), "if a person is not employed by or does not provide caregiver services ... for six (6) months or longer." Start this step the same week as zoning. It is the long pole. There is one relief valve and it is narrow. Section 63-13-40(D)(3) allows provisional service "after the favorable completion of the State Law Enforcement Division name and date of birth-based background check and the SLED or Federal Bureau of Investigation fingerprint-based background checks, until such time as the remaining fingerprint-based background check and the Central Registry check are completed if the person executes a sworn statement on a form provided by the department that he or she has not been convicted of any crime enumerated in this section and that he or she is not on the Central Registry," and it insists that "A person provisionally employed must be directly supervised by, and in the presence of a nonprovisionally employed person at all times when providing direct care to children." Subsection (D)(4) sets a one-day fuse: "Provisional status will be repealed if the requests for the Central Registry check and SLED and FBI fingerprint-based background checks are not sent by facsimile, mail, or another manner approved by the department by the end of the next business day after the person was employed." Note carefully what this does and does not buy you: provisional status is a hiring device for "an unexpected staff vacancy," not a way to open your home before your own operator screening clears. Your own file is not issued until the checks are back. What DSS does owe you is speed on its own piece — Section 63-13-40(D)(7) gives the department two business days to complete the Central Registry check for provisional employment and five business days otherwise, "extended for up to ten additional business days" if research into other records is required.
8. STEP SEVEN — LINE UP THREE UNRELATED REFERENCES, AND NOTICE THAT THE TWO TRACKS ASK FOR DIFFERENT THINGS UNDER THE SAME NAME. On the registration track the instrument is a Department form and the applicant does not write it: R.114-531A(5)(f), "Submit three (3) original DSS 2908, Child Care Reference Release Statements completed by the person to be used as a reference. Persons providing references must be unrelated by blood or marriage to the applicant." On the licence track the regulation asks instead for free-form letters: R.114-531D(4)(e), "Submit three (3) original reference letters from people unrelated by blood or marriage to the applicant." Same count, same relationship bar, different document — send DSS 2908 forms into a licence file and you may be asked for letters, and vice versa. Ask your regional office which they want and get the answer in writing before you burden three busy people. The statutory hook is Section 63-13-820(B)(3), which requires the applicant, "upon request, [to] provide the department with any facts, conditions, or circumstances relevant to the operation of the family childcare home, including references and other information regarding the character of the family childcare home operator." What makes this step a scheduling item rather than a filing item is that DSS does not merely collect the references — it telephones them, and the regulation gives the Department a thirty-day window that only starts when the references arrive. R.114-531A(6)(c): the Department shall, "Prior to issuing a registration and within thirty (30) days of receipt of references, contact by telephone the persons listed as references by the applicant and document their comments." Read that as a warning about whom you choose. A reference who does not answer the telephone during business hours, who has moved, or whose number is wrong stalls your file for as long as it takes the licensing worker to reach them, and the applicant is rarely told which of the three is the problem. Choose three people who answer their phones, tell them a state worker will call, and give the Department a daytime number rather than a mobile that goes to voicemail. "Unrelated by blood or marriage" is stated flatly in both subsections and is not waivable: a sister-in-law, a stepparent, a cousin of the first degree — all of whom fall inside R.114-530A(20)'s definition of "Related" — will be rejected, and the rejection typically surfaces weeks later during the telephone verification, not at intake. This step runs in parallel with zoning and background screening and costs nothing but goodwill; the only thing that makes it expensive is starting it late, because it is the one item in the file whose clock is expressly written to begin on receipt rather than on submission of the application.
9. STEP EIGHT — FILE THE CORE APPLICATION FORMS, AND KNOW THAT THE FORM YOU SIGN CERTIFIES COMPLIANCE WITH A REGULATION SOUTH CAROLINA REPEALED IN 2024. Three originals carry the application on both tracks. R.114-531A(5)(a), registration: "Complete, sign, and submit originals of the following forms: Application to Operate a Child Care Facility (DSS 2902), Original or Renewal of Registration of Family Child Care Home (DSS 2922), Household Member List (DSS 2927) and any additional forms required by the Department." R.114-531D(4)(a) requires the identical three for licensure — note that even a licence applicant files DSS 2922, the form whose title says "Registration," because DSS never built a separate family-home licence application. Section 63-13-820(A) is the statutory basis: "Registration must be completed on forms supplied by the department and in the manner it prescribes." Two things are worth stating plainly because applicants budget for them wrongly. First, there is NO DSS APPLICATION FEE in the regulation. Search R.114-530 through R.114-537 and no dollar figure appears anywhere; the only money the instruments require is the $8.00 Central Registry fee per adult on DSS 2924, the equivalent fee for each other state of residence in the preceding five years, the SLED and FBI fingerprint charges capped by Section 63-13-60 at no more than the FBI's own fee, plus whatever your city or county charges for the zoning letter and, on the licence track, your doctor's charge for the health forms. South Carolina does not sell you the credential; it sells you the checks. Second, the form itself is stale, and you should know what you are signing. DSS Form 2922 (AUG 18 edition) states in its Section C: "I hereby request for my Family Child Care Home (FCCH) to be registered with the South Carolina Department of Social Services in compliance with the following provisions of Section 63-13-10 et seq., Code of Laws of South Carolina and regulations for FCCH's (DSS Regulation #114-528, April 1993)." Regulation 114-528 no longer exists. The official Chapter 114 text reads: "114-528. Repealed. HISTORY: Former Regulation, titled Definitions and Procedures, had the following history: Amended by State Register Volume 17, Issue No. 4, eff April 23, 1993. Repealed by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229, eff May 24, 2024." The rules that actually bind you are R.114-530 through R.114-537, added by the same document on the same date. Signing the form does not revive the repealed regulation, and DSS will not inspect you against it — but if a licensing worker or a consultant quotes "114-528" at you, that citation is dead and you are entitled to ask for the live one. The forms go to the regional office, not Columbia; the sole item that is mailed to Columbia is the DSS 2924 packet, to SCDSS, Child Care Licensing, P.O. Box 1520, Room 218, Columbia, SC 29202-1520. Send originals with wet signatures. Keep a complete photocopy of everything, because the regulation gives you no acknowledgement of receipt and no statutory shot clock on the registration track.
10. STEP NINE, LICENCE TRACK ONLY — CLEAR THE MEDICAL PAPER: TB, A STAFF HEALTH ASSESSMENT AND A MEDICAL STATEMENT, ON THREE DIFFERENT POPULATIONS THAT THE REGULATION DEFINES INCONSISTENTLY. R.114-531D(4) imposes three separate health documents and gives each a slightly different roster, and the mismatch is not a typographical accident you can safely ignore. Subsection (g): "Obtain a health care professional's certification that operator, household member(s) fifteen (15) years of age or older, staff, and emergency person(s) are free from Tuberculosis." Subsection (h): "Submit an original Staff Health Assessment (DSS 2926) attesting to the health of the operator, household member(s) fifteen (15) years of age or older, staff, and emergency person(s)." Subsection (i): "Submit an original Medical Statement (DSS 2901) attesting to the health of operator, household member(s), staff, and emergency person(s)" — with NO AGE QUALIFIER on "household member(s)." Read literally, the Medical Statement reaches every person in the house, including young children, while TB clearance and the Health Assessment stop at fifteen. The safe course is to obtain DSS 2901 for the whole household. The substance of the health assessment is specified not in R.114-531 but in the records rule, R.114-532G(1)(h), and it is the most demanding single medical item in South Carolina family child care: "A health assessment from a health care provider assessing the ability of the operator/caregiver to work with children. The health assessment shall be completed within three months prior to licensure, registration or employment or within the first month of licensure, registration or employment and shall include health history, physical exam, vision and hearing screening, tuberculosis screening, and a review of immunization status, and a discussion regarding recommended vaccinations, including a one-time adult dose of TDAP. A new health assessment shall be obtained by the operator/caregiver at least every four years after the initial assessment." Two dates matter there. The assessment has a THREE-MONTH SHELF LIFE going in — one completed in January will not support a licence issued in June — and it expires on a four-year cycle thereafter. R.114-532G(1)(g) states the TB duty in the records file as "Written evidence from a physician or health resource attesting that each person is free from communicable tuberculosis at the time of licensure or registration and subsequently according pursuant to state statute or the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control regulations or policy" — a live naming lag, since DHEC was split and the current cabinet lists a Department of Public Health and a Department of Environmental Services instead. Ask for the DPH tuberculosis screening standard by its current name. THE ENTIRE STEP IS SKIPPED ON THE REGISTRATION TRACK: R.114-531A contains no TB, no DSS 2926 and no DSS 2901 — yet R.114-532G, which governs the staff file, applies to every family child care home and demands all three anyway. That contradiction between the procedure rule and the records rule is real, it is unresolved on the face of the 24 May 2024 regulation, and a registered operator who keeps the health paperwork anyway is the one who survives an unannounced annual inspection.
11. STEP TEN, LICENCE TRACK ONLY — REQUEST THE FIRE AND HEALTH INSPECTION ON DSS FORM 2905, AND UNDERSTAND THAT THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME REGULATION ITSELF CONTAINS NO FIRE CODE. The requirement is one line: R.114-531D(4)(f), "Submit a Fire/Health Inspection Report (DSS 2905)." The Department's own duty is R.114-531D(5)(a), "Prior to issuing a license, obtain and review report(s) from health and fire officials who have inspected the home to determine compliance with appropriate regulations." Who those officials are comes from Section 63-13-80(A): "The inspection of the health and fire safety of childcare centers and group childcare homes must be completed upon the request of the department by the appropriate agencies (i.e., Department of Health and Environmental Control, the Office of the State Fire Marshal, or local authorities). Inspection reports completed by state agencies and local authorities must be furnished to the department and become a part of its determination of conformity for licensing and approval." Read the subjects of that sentence carefully — the statute names CENTERS AND GROUP CHILDCARE HOMES, not family child care homes. The obligation on a family home comes from the regulation, and the practical consequence is that the inspecting authority is usually your local fire department or county fire marshal rather than the Office of the State Fire Marshal in Columbia, and their availability, not DSS's, sets your date. Now the finding that matters most and that no summary of South Carolina states: SEARCH R.114-530 THROUGH R.114-537 AND THERE IS NO SMOKE ALARM REQUIREMENT, NO CARBON MONOXIDE ALARM REQUIREMENT AND NO FIRE EXTINGUISHER REQUIREMENT ANYWHERE IN IT. The physical-site rule, R.114-535, covers floors, lighting, stair barriers, outlet covers, safety barriers "around all heating and cooling sources," and the locking of "Firearms, weapons, and ammunition ... in a locked drawer or cabinet" — but not one word about detection or suppression. The detailed fire standards an applicant will find while searching Chapter 114 — "Carbon monoxide alarms ... if the home has fuel fired appliances installed, attached garages (3 sides enclosed), or a Fireplace," "at least one operable fire extinguisher that is readily accessible," "a written emergency evacuation plan to be reviewed with the child within 24 hours" — sit in R.114-550, which licenses FAMILY FOSTER HOMES and approves adoptive homes. They are not your rule. Do not build to them. What R.114-534F does require of you, on both tracks, is planning rather than hardware: "Family child care homes shall have a written emergency preparedness plan to evacuate the home in case of fire, natural disaster or threatening situation that may pose a health or safety hazard that is posted for all staff and parents to see. This plan shall be regularly tested," plus a written plan "naming the emergency person to be summoned quickly to assist in an emergency" and posted emergency telephone numbers. THE ENTIRE INSPECTION STEP IS ABSENT FROM THE REGISTRATION TRACK. R.114-531A requires no fire inspection and no health inspection at all — the registration route is a paper-and-visit route. That is the single largest practical difference between the two regimes, it is why registration is faster by a month or more, and it is why a registered home that later elects licensure to take scholarship children discovers a whole inspection it never budgeted for.
12. STEP ELEVEN — TEST THE WATER IF YOU ARE ON A PRIVATE WELL, EVEN THOUGH THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME REGULATION NEVER SAYS THE WORD "WELL". The whole of South Carolina's water rule for a family child care home is three sentences, R.114-534D: "(1) The water supply shall meet bacteriological, chemical, and physical requirements for water quality and testing in accordance with DHEC. (2) If water is unavailable for four (4) hours, an operator shall contact the Department and may be required to close. (3) Safe drinking water shall be available to children at all times and there shall be no use of common drinking cups. If disposable cups are used, they shall be stored to prevent contamination prior to use." Subsection (1) is a referral, not a standard: it incorporates the state health agency's water-quality and testing requirements by reference and leaves you to find them. If you are served by a municipal or community system, that system's own compliance discharges the obligation and you have nothing to do but keep drinking water accessible. If you are on a private well, the incorporated requirement is yours personally, and the practical expectation is a bacteriological (total coliform / E. coli) test plus a nitrate test from a certified laboratory, dated close to your application, produced on request. Here is the trap. An applicant searching Chapter 114 for "well" will find an explicit, quotable private-well rule — "If a home uses private well water or another source of drinking water other than water through the municipal water supply, then it must be tested for safety," alongside a 120-degree cap on water-heater temperature. That text is R.114-550, the regulation licensing FAMILY FOSTER HOMES. It does not govern a family child care home, and the 120-degree water-heater cap that people quote as a South Carolina child care rule is not one. Your obligation is the referral in R.114-534D(1), which is broader in principle and vaguer in practice. Two further facts a 2026 applicant should hold. First, the referral's addressee has changed name: the regulation says "DHEC," but the Department of Health and Environmental Control has been split, and the Governor's July 2026 cabinet roster lists a Director of the Department of Public Health and a Director of the Department of Environmental Services instead — drinking water sits with Environmental Services. Ask DES's Bureau of Water for the current private-well guidance. Second, the standard is about to tighten from the federal side: in the State Register of 24 July 2026 (Volume 50, Issue 7), the Department of Environmental Services published a Notice of Drafting to amend R.61-58, the State Primary Drinking Water Regulations, to adopt EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, which "requir[e] community and non-transient non-community water systems to meet enhanced sampling procedures, CONDUCT SAMPLING IN SCHOOLS AND CHILDCARE FACILITIES, strengthen corrosion control efforts, and undertake service line inventorying and replacement efforts," under statutory authority including 2026 Act No. 146, effective 15 May 2026, with the comment period closing 24 August 2026. That duty falls on the water system rather than on you, but the sampling will happen at your address, and a lead result at a registered child care address is a conversation you want to have before you enrol children rather than after. This step runs in parallel with everything else and a lab turnaround is typically one to two weeks.
13. STEP TWELVE — PASS THE ON-SITE VISIT, WHICH IS SOUTH CAROLINA'S HOME STUDY AND WHICH YOU WILL SEE COMING BY EXACTLY TWO BUSINESS DAYS. Both tracks require it and both use the same formula. Registration, R.114-531A(6)(b): the Department shall, "Prior to issuing a registration, visit the potential family child care home to determine compliance with applicable regulations, giving the applicant at least two (2) business days' notice prior to the visit." Licensure, R.114-531D(5)(b), identical: "Prior to issuing a license, visit the potential family child care home to determine compliance with applicable regulations, giving the applicant at least two (2) business days' notice prior to the visit." Two business days is a floor, not a promise, and it is the last moment at which anything can still be fixed cheaply. The licence track adds a substantive standard the registration track does not: R.114-531D(4)(k) requires the applicant to "Demonstrate compliance with the Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes when the Department completes the pre-licensure visit." That sentence converts a document DSS calls "suggested" into a binding condition of licensure, and R.114-531F(9)(c) makes continued non-compliance with it a ground to REVOKE the licence. This is the structural oddity of South Carolina family child care law: Section 63-13-180(A) gave DSS power to promulgate regulations for centres and group homes but only power to "develop suggested standards which shall serve as guidelines for the operators of family childcare homes" — and DSS promulgated a binding regulation anyway in 2024 while keeping the suggested standards alive, so a licence applicant is measured against both. Get the current edition at orientation and treat it as a checklist. What the visitor is actually looking for is set by the substantive rules: adequate supervision as defined in R.114-533A and R.114-530A(25) ("being near and having ready access to children in order to intervene when needed"); the head-count limit in R.114-533C(1), six children including your own resident children and related children under twelve, less whatever zoning allows; the infant trigger in R.114-533C(2), an additional adult on the premises "when four or more children in attendance are younger than twelve (12) months of age"; the physical-site items in R.114-535, including that "Playpens and Pack n' Plays are not permitted," "Mobile walkers are not permitted," recalled products and reptiles, amphibians and rodents are inaccessible, decals are on glass and sliding patio doors at child eye level, and firearms and ammunition are locked and "not ... kept in a room where children are cared for"; and, if you serve infants, R.114-537A's requirement that infants sleep on their backs "in a crib on a flat non-inclined surface" meeting CPSC requirements, with the operator to "obtain and keep on file crib compliance certificates." After the visit the Department reviews the whole file — R.114-531A(6)(d): "Review the application material, the visit report and the references report, and consider any previous applications, inspections or withdrawals regarding the operator" — and R.114-531D(5)(c) does the same for licensure, adding the health and fire inspection. The commonest failures are not exotic: an unlocked cleaning cupboard, a Pack n' Play in the sleeping room, an uncovered outlet, an unlatched pool, and a head-count that ignores a resident nephew.
14. STEP THIRTEEN — WRITE THE POLICIES AND BUILD THE PARENT PACKET, BECAUSE SOUTH CAROLINA NEVER USES THE WORD "HANDBOOK" AND THEREFORE APPLICANTS NEVER WRITE ONE. There is no parent-handbook requirement anywhere in R.114-530 through R.114-537. What there is instead is a scattered list of documents that must exist in writing and be given to parents at admission, and assembling them into one handbook is the only sane way to comply. R.114-532D(2) requires a written "policy for the safe release of children," "communicated to parents/guardians upon admission." R.114-532D(3) then lists six items "Parents shall be provided with ... upon admission": the right of free and full access to their child; "The policy and procedures on release of children"; the activity schedule for the child's age group; "The parent's responsibility to obtain necessary immunizations and physical examinations"; "The policy and procedures for the administration of medications"; and "The policy and practices regarding the discipline and behavior management of children. This statement shall be resigned if any discipline policy changes are made." R.114-532D(4) then requires a countersigned, annually refreshed agreement: "Parents and staff shall sign and date an agreement, maintained on file and updated annually, that both parties have read and understand all policies relating to the operation of family child care home." The discipline policy has its own rule and its own signature list. R.114-533G(1): "The family child care home's discipline policy shall outline methods of guidance appropriate to the ages of the children." R.114-533G(2): "All operators/caregivers/household members shall sign an agreement to implement the discipline and behavior management policy, with a statement that specifies no corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is prohibited and includes, but is not limited to: spanking, hitting, slapping, twisting, dragging, yanking, squeezing, pinching, shaking, or biting a child." Note that the signature list includes HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS, not only staff. Two more written plans are mandatory before you open, both from R.114-534: the emergency preparedness plan under subsection F, which must be "posted for all staff and parents to see" and "regularly tested," and the emergency medical plan under subsection G, "in writing providing for emergency medical care of children requiring treatment away from the child care setting," with a first-aid chart "readily available." Then there are the parent signatures the application itself turns on. R.114-531A(5)(h)-(j) require you to "Furnish or review with parent(s)/guardian(s) of each child to be enrolled ... a copy of the Suggested Standards," "Secure a signed statement from each parent/guardian verifying that they have reviewed the Suggested Standards," and send those statements to the Department — the statutory version being Section 63-13-820(B)(2), a signed statement from each consumer parent verifying receipt of "the suggested standards ... and the procedures for filing complaints." Separately, R.114-532D(7) requires that "Once a child is enrolled ... a DSS Form 2909, Consumer Parent Statement, shall be completed by a parent/guardian and the operator shall send the completed form to the Department," and R.114-532D(5) requires signed parent notices about provisional employment (Section 63-13-45). Draft all of it while you wait for the background checks: it is the one step whose duration you control.
15. STEP FOURTEEN — SETTLE THE LIABILITY INSURANCE QUESTION, BECAUSE SOUTH CAROLINA DOES NOT REQUIRE INSURANCE AT ALL — IT REQUIRES A CONFESSION IN WRITING FROM EVERY PARENT IF YOU DO NOT CARRY IT. This is one of the few places where South Carolina statute is more explicit than the regulation, and both say the same thing. Section 63-13-210(A): "An owner or operator of a childcare center, group childcare home, or family childcare home, as defined by Section 63-13-20, who does not carry liability insurance for the operation of his childcare business, shall ... obtain signed statements from the custodial parent or parents or guardian or guardians of each child currently enrolled ... indicating that the parent or parents or guardian or guardians have received notice that the childcare center, group childcare home, or family childcare home does not carry liability insurance for the operation of its childcare business. The owner or operator ... must maintain a file of these signed statements at the home during the period of time a child is enrolled. For new enrollees ... the owner or operator must provide the parent or parents or guardian or guardians of a new enrollee with this information at the time of enrollment, obtain a signed statement from each parent or guardian at the time of enrollment, and maintain these signed statements at the home." R.114-532D(6)(a)-(b) restates it verbatim for family child care homes. So there is no minimum coverage amount in South Carolina law, no per-occurrence or aggregate figure, no proof-of-insurance form and no certificate to file with DSS. There is only a binary: carry it, or paper it. Three points make this more than a formality. First, the lapse rule has a hard thirty-day fuse. Section 63-13-210(B) and R.114-532D(6)(c) both provide that if insurance "lapses or is cancelled and not reinstated or replaced, the operator shall obtain and maintain statements ... from the parent or guardian of each child enrolled in the family child care home no later than thirty (30) days after the liability insurance lapses or is cancelled." A missed premium therefore starts a compliance clock, not merely a coverage gap, and the cure is a signature run through your whole roll in a month. Second, the statute expressly makes this a licensing condition rather than a private matter: Section 63-13-210(C) directs the department to inform homes "that compliance is a requirement for initial licensure and a continuing annual requirement for relicensure." Third, the notice is per-child and per-enrolment, so the file is never finished — every new family added after issuance needs its own statement dated at enrolment, and the statements must be kept "at the home" for as long as that child is enrolled, not in a filing cabinet elsewhere. The commercial reality behind the rule deserves saying plainly, because the statute will not say it for you: most homeowner policies exclude business activity, a family child care home is a business activity, and an uninsured operator in South Carolina is personally exposed with only a stack of parent signatures between her and a claim. The signatures satisfy DSS. They do not satisfy a plaintiff. Decide this before you enrol your first child, because the notice must be given "at the time of enrollment" and cannot be back-dated.
16. STEP FIFTEEN — HAVE THE CPR, FIRST AID, DIPLOMA AND TRAINING CERTIFICATES IN HAND BEFORE ISSUANCE, AND NOTICE THAT REGISTERED HOMES ARE EXPRESSLY EXEMPTED FROM THE ONE THAT PARENTS CARE ABOUT MOST. The CPR requirement is a licence-track precondition stated as a document: R.114-531D(4)(l), the applicant shall "Obtain infant/child CPR and first aid certificate that covers all hours of operation." Read the last five words as a staffing constraint rather than a certificate rule — if you operate twelve hours and your certificate holder is present for eight, you are not compliant, and a second certificated adult is required. The continuing duty is R.114-532A(5): "During the hours of operation all family child care homes, EXCEPT REGISTERED FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES, shall have on the premises at least one caregiver with a current certificate for the provision of basic first aid and infant/child cardiopulmonary resuscitation." Section 63-13-110 carries the identical carve-out in statute for "all childcare facilities, except registered family childcare homes." So South Carolina lets a registered home operate with no CPR-certificated adult on the premises. That is the law, and it is a strong reason to hold the certificate voluntarily anyway. The educational credential is a hard bar and it is new. R.114-532A(2): "An operator shall have the following qualifications: (a) Be at least eighteen (18) years of age; (b) Shall have a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED); (c) Favorable completion of all comprehensive background check requirements; and (d) Shall have the required training." There is no waiver clause. The grandfather boundary is drawn in the records rule, R.114-532G(1)(e): the staff file must hold a "Record of high school diploma/GED for operator, if licensed or registered on or after the passing of these regulations" — that is, on or after 24 May 2024. Every applicant since that date must produce the document; those registered before need not. Note also that the requirement reaches the OPERATOR ONLY; there is no diploma requirement for other caregivers in a family child care home. Training is a denial ground, not merely a condition. R.114-531D(7)(a)(v): "The Department shall deny the application for licensure if ... The operator fails to comply with the training requirements provided in Section 63-13-825(A)" — ten clock hours annually, documented to DSS, with four hours in child growth and development and an extra hour of safe sleep if you serve infants twelve months and under (R.114-532H(1)). Section 63-13-830(E)(1)(d) makes the same failure a ground to deny or withdraw a REGISTRATION. Finally, if you intend to take publicly funded children, add a certificate that appears in no regulation: DSS's Family Child Care Home policy requires ABC Quality providers receiving CCDF funding to complete the South Carolina FCCH Health and Safety Pre-Service Certificate — fifteen hours — "prior to serving children who are enrolled in the SC Childcare Scholarships (formerly Voucher) Program," together with Pediatric First Aid and CPR for anyone responsible for the care or supervision of children including an emergency person. It binds only providers taking public money, and it is not the same as the statutory fifteen hours at Section 63-13-30(A), which by its own words reaches only "a caregiver who begins employment in a licensed or approved childcare CENTER" and does not reach a family child care home at all.
17. STEP SIXTEEN — TAKE ISSUANCE, THEN DIARY THE RENEWAL CLOCK, AND KNOW THAT THE REGULATION AND THE STATUTE NOW DISAGREE ABOUT HOW LONG A FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME LICENCE LASTS. Issuance is by mail on both tracks. R.114-531A(6)(e): "If all regulatory requirements are met, the Department shall issue a regular registration and mail the regular registration directly to the operator." R.114-531D(5)(d) is the licence equivalent, and note its oddity — it says the Department shall "Issue a PROVISIONAL license if all regulatory requirements were met," which on its face makes the first family child care home licence provisional even for a fully compliant applicant, with R.114-531F(4) providing that "A provisional license shall be amended to a regular license when all deficiencies have been verified as corrected." A provisional credential on either track "may not be effective for any longer than one (1) year" (R.114-531A(7)(c), R.114-531D(6)(c)) and its deficiencies must be "cited on the back" with the regulation numbers. Now the term. Registration is unambiguous: Section 63-13-830(B), "Registration expires at the end of one year from the date of issuance of the statement of registration," and R.114-531C(1) agrees, "valid for one year from date of issuance." The licence is not. R.114-531F(1) says "A regular license issued by the Department to a family child care home shall be valid for TWO years from date of issuance," and R.114-530A(14) says the same. But Section 63-13-20(23) now reads: "'Regular license' means a license issued by the department for THREE YEARS to an operator of a private childcare center or group childcare home OR A FAMILY CHILDCARE HOME WHICH ELECTS TO BE LICENSED..."The Legislature's Effect-of-Amendment note records it: "2024 Act No. 216, SECTION 2 ... substituted 'three years' for 'two years'," effective 10 July 2024 — SEVEN WEEKS AFTER the regulation took effect on 24 May 2024. The regulation is the older instrument and the statute is the later expression of the legislature's will, so on the face of the two texts the current family child care home licence term in South Carolina is three years and the widely repeated "two-year licence" is the stale layer. Verify the term printed on your own certificate. Either way the renewal machinery is the same: DSS must warn you 120 days out on both tracks (R.114-531B(2)(a), R.114-531E(2)) and must revisit the home on two business days' notice. Renewal requires the same three forms, checks for anyone new plus the five-year repeat for everyone, fresh DSS 2924s, DSS 2909 Consumer Parent Statements from every enrolled family, and — R.114-531B(3)(e) and R.114-531E(8) — that the operator "Ensure all caregivers have the required training." Miss the date and Section 63-13-830(E)(4) is automatic: an operator who fails the training requirement before expiry "or fails to timely renew the registration" must be placed "on a corrective action plan." Three closing duties: display the credential "in a prominent location at all times" and state its number "in all advertisements" (R.114-531C(3), F(5)); never exceed the number printed on it (C(5), F(7)); and on closure return it "within thirty (30) days" (C(1)). Denial or withdrawal arrives by certified or registered mail with thirty calendar days to appeal in writing, failing which it takes effect automatically — and operating anyway invites injunctive action under R.114-531A(8)(d) and a misdemeanor under Section 63-13-170.

What you must post on your walls

• THE REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE — THE ONLY POSTING SOUTH CAROLINA PUTS IN A STATUTE, AND THE ONLY ONE WITH A SECOND HALF THAT LEAVES THE HOUSE. R.114-531C(3) states the rule in one sentence: "The current registration shall be displayed in a prominent location at all times and the registration number shall be stated in all advertisements of the family child care home." The statute says the same thing in § 63-13-830(A): "A statement of registration must be issued when the family childcare operator satisfactorily completes the procedures prescribed by this chapter. The current statement must be displayed in a prominent place in the facility at all times and the registration number must be stated in all advertisements of the family childcare home." Four words carry the whole duty and each is enforceable on its own. "CURRENT" — last year's certificate on the wall is worse than no certificate, because it evidences that the displayed document is stale. "DISPLAYED" — not filed, not producible on request, physically visible. "PROMINENT" — the regulation gives no room and no height; the working test is whether a parent standing where parents stand can read it without being shown. And "AT ALL TIMES", which does not mean during operating hours: a certificate taken down at weekends or when the last child leaves is not displayed at all times. The advertisement limb is the part operators forget entirely, and it is not a posting inside the home. Your registration NUMBER — not the certificate, not the words "state registered", the number — must appear in ALL advertisements. In 2026 that reaches a Facebook page, a Google Business Profile, a Nextdoor post, a printed flyer on a church noticeboard, a Care.com or local-childcare-directory listing, and a vehicle magnet. Nothing in the regulation limits "advertisements" to paid or printed media, and nothing exempts social platforms. The certificate you are displaying tells you exactly what it must show, and that content list is itself part of the posting duty. R.114-531C(4): "The registration shall state the name of the operator, the address, the type of family child care home, the date on which the registration was issued and will expire, and the maximum number of children to be present in the family child care home during operating hours." Five data points, one of which — the maximum number — is the operative capacity limit under R.114-531C(5): "The number of children present in the family child care home during operating hours shall not exceed the number specified on the registration." One structural warning about this piece of paper. It has a one-year life under R.114-531C(1) and § 63-13-830(B), it is void the instant you change address under R.114-531C(6), and it can neither be transferred nor sold. And when you stop, it goes back: R.114-531C(1) requires that "If the family child care home ceases operation, the registration shall be returned to the Department within thirty (30) days of family child care home closure." South Carolina treats the certificate as the Department's property on loan, and the display duty is the condition of the loan.
• THE LICENCE CERTIFICATE — SAME DISPLAY DUTY, BUT NO STATUTE BEHIND IT, AND A TWO-YEAR LIFE. R.114-531F(5): "The current license shall be displayed in a prominent location at all times and the license number shall be stated in all advertisements of the family child care home." R.114-531F(6) fixes its contents: "The license shall state the name of the operator, the address, and type of family child care home, the date on which the license was issued and will expire, and the maximum number of children to be present during operating hours." R.114-531F(1) gives it a two-year life "unless revoked by the Department or voluntarily surrendered by the operator", and R.114-531F(7) makes the printed number a hard ceiling: "The number of children present in the home during operating hours shall not exceed the number specified on the license." So far this mirrors the registration. What does not mirror is the source of authority, and this is worth knowing if anyone ever tells you a family child care home display duty rests on the Children's Code. It does not, on the licence side. Section 63-13-440 is titled "Display of license" and it reads: "Each CHILDCARE CENTER OR GROUP CHILDCARE HOME shall maintain its current license displayed in a prominent place at all times and must state its license number in all advertisements of the childcare center or group daycare home." Centres and group child care homes. The family child care home is not named. Section 63-13-830(A) supplies a statutory display duty for the REGISTERED family child care home, and nothing in Chapter 13 supplies one for the LICENSED family child care home. The whole of the licensed home's posting obligation therefore rests on R.114-531F(5), a regulation the Department promulgated under § 63-13-180 — which, read literally, gave DSS power to promulgate regulations for centres and group homes and only power to develop "suggested standards" for family child care homes. Nothing about that oddity makes R.114-531F(5) safe to ignore: it is a regulation in effect, added by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229 effective 24 May 2024, it has survived the 2025 and 2026 State Register volumes untouched, and an inspector will cite it. The practical point is the reverse: do not go looking in the statute for the rule that governs your licensed home's wall, because the statute you will find, § 63-13-440, is about somebody else's facility and its extra requirements — including the violations-display duty discussed below — do not travel to you. The mobility rule is harsher on the licence side than the registration side by one word. R.114-531C(6) says a change in location "shall AUTOMATICALLY void the registration"; R.114-531F(8) says a change in location "shall IMMEDIATELY void the license." Neither can be transferred nor sold. There is no partial-year credit, no address-amendment procedure, and no provision for displaying a licence at a second address, even temporarily.
• THE INSPECTION REPORT IS NOT POSTED IN A SOUTH CAROLINA FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME — AND NEITHER ARE YOUR VIOLATIONS. This is the single most commonly asserted false posting requirement for this state, and the regulation disproves it by contrast rather than by silence, which is the strongest form of disproof available. Read what South Carolina wrote for its other facility types in the same Article 5 of Chapter 114, all adopted or maintained alongside the family child care home rules. Child care centres, R.114-503A(1): "The center shall display the current license/approval, AS WELL AS ANY VIOLATIONS, in a prominent public place in the center. THE BACK OF THE LICENSE/APPROVAL SHALL BE DISPLAYED IF DEFICIENCIES ARE LISTED." Group child care homes, R.114-513A(1): "The group child care home shall display the current license, AS WELL AS ANY VIOLATIONS, in a prominent public place in the group child care home. The back of the license shall be displayed if deficiencies are listed." Registered church or religious child care centres, R.114-523A(1): the same sentence again with "registration" substituted. Three facility types, three express violations-display duties, three express back-of-the-certificate rules. Now read the family child care home provisions. R.114-531C(3): "The current registration shall be displayed in a prominent location at all times and the registration number shall be stated in all advertisements." R.114-531F(5): the same for the licence. No "as well as any violations". No back-of-the-certificate rule. The drafter had the sentence in front of him three times and did not use it a fourth. That omission does real work, because the family child care home DOES receive a certificate with deficiencies written on its reverse. R.114-531A(7)(b): "If a provisional registration is issued, the Department shall notify the operator in writing of the deficiencies to be corrected. THE DEFICIENCIES SHALL BE CITED ON THE BACK OF THE PROVISIONAL REGISTRATION and shall include the appropriate regulation number(s)." R.114-531D(6)(b) says the same for a provisional licence. A South Carolina family child care home operating provisionally must display the certificate under R.114-531C(3) or F(5), but is not required by any rule to turn it round so the deficiency list faces the room — whereas a centre in the same position is. Nor is there any requirement to post an annual inspection report, a complaint-investigation outcome, a corrective action plan, or a compliance history. The annual inspection is real and unannounced — R.114-531G(1)(a): "Once per calendar year, the Department shall visit and inspect a licensed or registered family child care home at any time during the hours of operation WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE to verify regulatory compliance" — and R.114-531G(1)(b), tracking § 63-13-840(A), tells you exactly what the inspector is checking: "health and safety of children; no evidence of child abuse; and enrollment within the limits set forth on the license." What the inspector does with the resulting document is a Department matter. Compliance information about your home is published by DSS rather than posted by you: § 63-13-825(B) requires the Department to "indicate on its website those family childcare homes that are, and those that are not, in compliance" with the training requirement. The transparency channel South Carolina chose is the agency's website, not your wall.
• THE WRITTEN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND EVACUATION PLAN — POSTED, IN TERMS, FOR TWO AUDIENCES. This is the second and last genuine posting duty in the family child care home regulation, and unlike the certificate it is a document you author. R.114-534F(1): "Family child care homes shall have a WRITTEN emergency preparedness plan to evacuate the home in case of fire, natural disaster or threatening situation that may pose a health or safety hazard THAT IS POSTED FOR ALL STAFF AND PARENTS TO SEE. This plan shall be REGULARLY TESTED." Take the elements one at a time, because each is separately citable. It must be WRITTEN — an evacuation routine everybody knows is not a plan. It must cover three trigger classes and not only fire: fire, natural disaster, and "threatening situation that may pose a health or safety hazard", which is the clause that reaches an intruder, a chemical spill on the road outside, or a nearby police incident. It must be POSTED, and the posting audience is specified in a way no other South Carolina family child care home document is: "for all staff AND PARENTS to see." A plan pinned inside a kitchen cupboard where the caregiver can find it does not satisfy a rule that names parents as an audience; it belongs where families stand at drop-off, next to the certificate. And it must be REGULARLY TESTED. Note what the regulation conspicuously does not say: it sets no drill frequency, no monthly or quarterly number, no requirement to time the evacuation, and — importantly — NO DRILL LOG. There is no drill-record form in R.114-530 through R.114-537 and no retention rule for one. "Regularly" is undefined for this purpose in a regulation that elsewhere defines "regularly" with a hard number for a different concept (R.114-530A(19), care on more than two days in a week), so the undefined use here is a genuine gap. Keep a dated note of each drill anyway: it is the only evidence you will have that testing occurred, an inspector will ask, and the cost of keeping it is nothing. Two companion documents sit immediately beside this one and are frequently merged into it by mistake. R.114-534F(2) requires a second, separate instrument: "The operator shall have a WRITTEN EMERGENCY PLAN. This plan shall include NAMING THE EMERGENCY PERSON to be summoned quickly to assist in an emergency." That emergency person is a defined role — R.114-530A(9), "An individual NOT REGULARLY EMPLOYED by the facility who is immediately available to serve as staff in the facility during emergency situations" — and that person is also subject to fingerprinting under R.114-531A(5)(b) and to a DSS 2924 under A(5)(e). Naming a neighbour in your plan enrols her in the background-check regime. R.114-534F(2) does not by its own terms require the emergency plan to be posted; only the preparedness/evacuation plan at F(1) and the emergency contact information at F(3) carry express posting duties. In practice the cleanest compliance is one posted sheet that satisfies F(1), F(2) and F(3) together, because nothing forbids consolidation and a single sheet cannot be half-posted.
• EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBERS AND THE EMERGENCY PERSON'S CONTACT DETAILS — POSTED, BUT WITH NO LIST AND NO LOCATION. R.114-534F(3) is one sentence long: "Emergency telephone numbers and information shall be posted, including the name/contact information of the emergency person." That is the whole of it, and two things are missing from it that operators assume are there. First, there is NO ENUMERATED LIST. The family child care home rule does not name police, fire, ambulance or poison control. Compare what South Carolina wrote for centres at R.114-503J(2): "Emergency telephone numbers for the police, fire department, ambulance service and poison control center shall be posted BY EACH TELEPHONE", a sentence repeated word for word for group child care homes at R.114-513J(2) and for registered church or religious centres at R.114-523G(2). Four named services and a location rule — none of which the drafter carried across to R.114-534F(3). A family child care home that posts 911 and a poison-control number has done more than the rule demands; a home that posts only the emergency person has arguably done less than "emergency telephone numbers" in the plural requires. Post the four the centres post, plus your own address, because the number a panicking teenager most often cannot supply is the street address of the house she is standing in. Second, there is NO POSTING LOCATION. The centre rule says "by each telephone"; R.114-534F(3) says only "posted". Read it with R.114-531A(4), which requires that "The family child care home applicant shall have a working, listed telephone in the family child care home and shall make the telephone number available to parent(s)/guardian(s) of children enrolled in the family child care home and to Department staff. The telephone number must be listed in all appropriate directories to ensure emergency identification and response" — the same duty appears for licence applicants at R.114-531D(4)(j). South Carolina still requires a family child care home to have a working LISTED telephone that appears in directories. Post the emergency numbers by that telephone and you satisfy both the letter of F(3) and the sense of the centre rule. The included item that is mandatory and specific is "the name/contact information of the emergency person" — the R.114-530A(9) individual "not regularly employed by the facility who is immediately available to serve as staff in the facility during emergency situations", the same person R.114-534F(2) requires you to name in the written emergency plan. Two consequences follow. If your emergency person changes, the posted sheet is wrong from that day and the plan under F(2) is wrong with it. And because that person is subject to fingerprint-based checks under R.114-531A(5)(b) and to an original DSS 2924 under A(5)(e), naming a new one on the wall without running the checks creates a posted admission of a background-check failure. Change the person and the paperwork together, or not at all.
• KEPT AVAILABLE, NOT POSTED: THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL PLAN AND THE FIRST AID CHART. Conflating "available" with "posted" is the classic error in this field, and South Carolina hands you a clean example of each in adjacent subparagraphs, so there is no excuse for merging them. R.114-534G(1): "The family child care home shall have an emergency medical plan IN WRITING providing for emergency medical care of children requiring treatment away from the child care setting." Written — yes. Posted — no. The regulation says "have ... in writing", full stop. This plan is a different document from the evacuation plan at R.114-534F(1) and from the emergency plan at R.114-534F(2): its subject is the child who must be TAKEN somewhere for treatment, so it is where you record which hospital or urgent-care facility you would use, how a child gets there, and who stays with the remaining children while you go — a real problem in a home where R.114-532A(4) requires that "At least one caregiver shall be on the premises at all times" and where you may be the only adult. It reads against R.114-532F(2)(e), the child's file entry for the "Name, address and telephone number of a physician and/or health care resource preferred by the parent/guardian", and against R.114-532F(3)(d), the parent's authorisation "to transport child ... for emergency treatment". R.114-534G(2)(a) is the sharper example: "The operator shall have a chart READILY AVAILABLE that describes first aid emergency medical treatment techniques." Readily available. Not posted, not displayed, not prominent. The drafter used "posted" twice in the immediately preceding subsection — F(1) "posted for all staff and parents to see" and F(3) "shall be posted" — and then chose "readily available" for the first aid chart in the very next subsection. That is a deliberate distinction, not sloppy drafting, and it means a first aid chart inside a cupboard door or in the front of a binder complies. Anyone who tells you South Carolina requires a first aid poster on the wall of a family child care home is reading a different state's rule. R.114-534G(2)(b) completes the pair with a storage rule that actively cuts against display: "First aid supplies shall be available for the treatment of minor cuts and abrasions and STORED OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN." Available to the adult, unreachable by the child. The same available-not-posted logic governs almost everything else in the family child care home file. R.114-532F(1): the child's file "shall be MADE AVAILABLE TO THE DEPARTMENT, UPON REQUEST." R.114-533D(1): attendance records "shall be KEPT ON FILE at the family child care home at all times." R.114-532D(6)(b): the operator "shall MAINTAIN A FILE of these signed statements at the home during the period of time that the child is enrolled." R.114-537A(2): crib compliance certificates are to be obtained and "KEPT ON FILE." Four different verbs, none of them "post". In South Carolina the wall carries three things — the certificate, the evacuation plan, and the emergency numbers — and everything else lives in a binder that you can produce within the minute an inspector asks.
• PARENTS' RIGHT OF FREE AND FULL ACCESS — DELIVERED ON ADMISSION, NOT POSTED, AND STRONGER THAN MOST STATES' VERSION. Many states require an unannounced-access notice on the wall. South Carolina requires the right itself and requires it to be COMMUNICATED, and it never says post. R.114-532D(1): "The operator shall permit the parent of a child in the family child care home FREE AND FULL ACCESS to their child WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE while the child is receiving care; unless there is a court order limiting parental access. This free access shall not disrupt instructional activities and classroom routines." Note how the exception is drawn: the only thing that defeats the right is a COURT ORDER — not your policy, not the other parent's request, not a custody dispute you have been told about, not a good-faith safety concern. If you turn a parent away without an order in hand, you have breached R.114-532D(1). The delivery mechanism is at R.114-532D(3), which requires that "Parents shall be provided with the following information UPON ADMISSION: (a) The right of the parents to free and full access to their child. (b) The policy and procedures on release of children. (c) The program activity schedule for their child's age group and child care area. (d) The parent's responsibility to obtain necessary immunizations and physical examinations for his/her child. (e) The policy and procedures for the administration of medications. (f) The policy and practices regarding the discipline and behavior management of children. This statement shall be resigned if any discipline policy changes are made." Six items, all "provided ... upon admission", none of them posted. This is a handout duty, not a wall duty, and the proof of compliance is the signature you take under R.114-532D(4): "Parents and staff shall sign and date an agreement, maintained on file and UPDATED ANNUALLY, that both parties have read and understand all policies relating to the operation of family child care home." So the inspector's question about parental access is not "where is your sign" but "show me the admission pack and the dated agreement." Three items on that list deserve a second look. Item (c) is the daily-schedule delivery duty — the reason the "post your daily schedule" myth attaches to South Carolina is that R.114-533E(1) requires you to "establish a daily schedule which will provide regularity of activities with sufficient flexibility and variety to respond to the needs of the children", and R.114-532D(3)(c) requires you to give it to parents. Establish it, give it, do not have to post it. Item (b) refers back to R.114-532D(2), "The operator shall develop a policy for the safe release of children. This policy shall be communicated to parents/guardians upon admission" — develop and communicate, again not post. Item (d) is the immunization referral, and it is a duty to tell parents that obtaining immunizations is THEIR responsibility, which sits interestingly against § 44-29-180(E) and R.60-8 I.E exempting registered family child care homes from the Certificate of Immunization regime altogether. The access right also has a hard enforcement edge that no posting could add. R.114-531C(7)(f) requires the Department to WITHDRAW a registration where "The operator fails to allow access to entire home, premises, and business on the premises during any of the Department's visits or investigations", and R.114-531F(9)(f) makes the same failure a mandatory licence-revocation ground.
• NO ABUSE AND NEGLECT HOTLINE POSTING — SOUTH CAROLINA NEVER WROTE ONE, AND WHAT IT WROTE INSTEAD. Search the whole family child care home regulation, R.114-530 through R.114-537, for a hotline, a reporting number, a Child Protective Services telephone line or a mandated-reporter poster, and you will find none. Search Title 63, Chapter 13 of the Children's Code, the statute the regulation implements, and you will find no posting duty of any kind — the only display sentences in the entire chapter are § 63-13-440 for centres and group homes, § 63-13-830(A) for registered family child care homes, and § 63-13-1030 for church and religious centres, all three about the licence or registration certificate and nothing else. There is no South Carolina family child care home rule requiring you to post an abuse hotline number. What South Carolina requires instead is a personal reporting duty and an information-delivery duty at orientation, both of which are stronger than a poster and neither of which is discharged by putting a number on a wall. The reporting duty is R.114-532B(1): "The operator of a family child care home shall IMMEDIATELY report suspected child abuse or neglect to the Department's Child Protective Services (CPS) or to local law enforcement in accordance with Section 63-7-310, South Carolina Code of Laws." Immediately, to CPS or to law enforcement, on suspicion — not on proof. R.114-532B(2) then adds a cooperation duty during an investigation: "Participate in information conferences with CPS workers; Release records of children and staff upon request as appropriate; and Allow access to the family child care home for inspection and investigation of the child abuse allegation by the Department and other officials as permitted by statute." The information-delivery duty is at the front of the process. R.114-531A(3) obliges the Department representative to "provide the applicant with the required number of forms, a copy of the current Suggested Standards and Regulations for Family Child Care Homes, a copy of Section 63-13-10 et. seq., Code of Laws of South Carolina, (Child Care Facilities Statute) and A COPY OF SECTIONS OF THE CHILDREN'S CODE WHICH ARE RELATED TO CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT, with an explanation of procedures and information required by the Department", and R.114-531D(3) repeats it for the licence track. You receive the abuse and neglect law at orientation; you are not told to hang it up. The consequences of abuse or neglect run through the paperwork rather than the wall, and they reach further than most operators expect. R.114-531C(10): "The application for original registration or renewal may be denied OR THE REGISTRATION MAY BE WITHDRAWN by the Department if the operator or any staff, including substitute caregiver(s), volunteer(s), emergency person(s) or HOUSEHOLD MEMBER(S), abuses or neglects any child as defined in Section 63-7-20" — any child, anywhere, not only a child in your care. R.114-531F(12) does the same on the licence side and adds knowing employment of such a person. And R.114-532C(1)(h) makes "Reports of alleged child abuse involving the operator, any staff person, or any household member" a twenty-four-hour reportable incident in its own right.
• NO MENU POSTING IN A SOUTH CAROLINA FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME — THE CONTRAST IS EXPLICIT IN THREE SISTER RULES. Posting the week's menus in public view is a near-universal centre requirement in the United States and it is a real one in South Carolina — for everyone except the family child care home. Child care centres, R.114-508A(1)(a): "Daily menus shall be DATED AND POSTED IN A CONSPICUOUS LOCATION IN PUBLIC VIEW." Group child care homes, R.114-518: the same sentence. Registered church or religious child care centres, R.114-527: the same sentence again. Three facility types, one identical instruction, drafted into the same Article 5 of Chapter 114. Now read R.114-536, the entire food regulation for family child care homes. Subsection A, "Meal Requirements": "(1) Nutritious meals and/or snacks shall be provided every four (4) hours. (2) A full serving of milk, or a nutritionally equivalent substitution, shall be offered a minimum of one time per day. (3) If the family child care home provides overnight care, a dinner and evening snack shall also be served. (4) When the family child care home provides food, it shall be in good condition, free from spoilage and contamination, and safe for human consumption. (5) Safe water for drinking shall be accessible to children through the day." Subsection B is refrigeration at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. Subsection C is hand-washing, the exclusion of persons "with boils, infected wounds, sores, or acute respiratory infection", the choking rule that "Round, firm foods shall not be offered to children younger than four years old" with the hot-dog and grape cutting instructions, and the rule that "Individual portions of food once served shall not be served again." Subsection D is cleaning and sanitising tableware after each use. There is no menu. No requirement to write one, no requirement to date one, no requirement to post one, and no requirement to document substitutions — where the wilderness therapeutic camp rule at R.114-600, by contrast, requires that "Menus shall be posted and followed" and that "Substitutions shall be documented on the posted menu." Note too what South Carolina did NOT import into R.114-536: the centre rule at R.114-508A(1)(b) binds centres to "USDA Child Care Food Program Guidelines" by name, and the family child care home rule does not. Your nutritional standard is the four-hour interval, the daily milk serving, and safety — not a federal guideline, unless you have voluntarily joined the Child and Adult Care Food Program, in which case CACFP's own menu and record rules apply to you as a condition of that federal money and not as a condition of your South Carolina registration or licence. That distinction matters when an inspector and a food-program monitor give you different instructions: they are enforcing different instruments, and only one of them can withdraw your registration.
• NO POSTED DISCIPLINE POLICY AND NO POSTED SAFE SLEEP POLICY — BOTH ARE SIGNATURE DUTIES INSTEAD. The discipline policy in a South Carolina family child care home is signed twice and posted never. R.114-533G(1) requires it to exist and sets its content: "The family child care home's discipline policy shall outline methods of guidance appropriate to the ages of the children. Positive, non-violent, non-abusive methods for managing behavior shall be implemented. Children shall not be inappropriately handled with force." R.114-533G(2) requires the internal signature: "All operators/caregivers/household members shall sign an agreement to implement the discipline and behavior management policy, with a statement that specifies no corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is prohibited and includes, but is not limited to: spanking, hitting, slapping, twisting, dragging, yanking, squeezing, pinching, shaking, or biting a child." R.114-532D(3)(f) requires the parent-facing delivery and the re-signature: parents receive on admission "The policy and practices regarding the discipline and behavior management of children. This statement shall be RESIGNED if any discipline policy changes are made." Signed by the household, given to parents, re-signed on amendment, never posted. The prohibitions themselves are worth reading because they are broader than corporal punishment and an inspector tests them by observation, not by reading your wall: R.114-533G(3) bans "profane, harsh, demeaning or humiliating language in the presence of the children" and "Threatening, humiliating, ignoring, corrupting, terrorizing or rejecting a child"; G(4) bans "Withholding, forcing, or threatening to withhold or force food, sleep, or toileting"; G(5) requires that a child isolated from the group "shall be within sight of a caregiver"; G(6) bans using children to discipline other children; G(7) bans drugs and mechanical restraints; G(8) bans demanding physical exercise as punishment; and G(9) requires that "Parents shall be informed of any discipline their child may be experiencing while at the family child care home." Safe sleep is the same story with even less paper. R.114-537A is a list of conduct rules, not a policy-and-posting rule: infants "placed on their backs to sleep in a crib on a flat non-inclined surface"; cribs meeting U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission requirements, with "Operator shall obtain and KEEP ON FILE crib compliance certificates"; no sleeping "in car seats, bean bag chairs, infant swings, play pens, high chairs, or any other equipment other than an approved crib"; "Caregiver shall visually check on infants every fifteen (15) minutes while sleeping"; nothing else in the crib, "including pillows, bumpers, stuffed toys, wedges"; no crib mobiles for infants or toddlers who can sit. Read it with R.114-535A(2)(b), "Playpens and Pack n' Plays are not permitted", and with the naptime supervision rules at R.114-533B — awake and alert, same level of the home, doors open, visual check every fifteen minutes. There is no requirement to have a written safe sleep POLICY, no requirement to post one, and no parent safe-sleep acknowledgement form. What South Carolina requires instead is training: R.114-532H(1) provides that of the ten annual clock hours, "If serving infants 12 months and under, ONE HOUR OF SAFE SLEEP IS REQUIRED." The evidence is the training record under R.114-532G(1)(d) and the crib certificates under R.114-537A(2) — a file, not a wall.
• NO POSTED RATIO CHART AND NO SEPARATE CAPACITY OR AGE-RANGE SIGN — THE CERTIFICATE IS THE CAPACITY POSTING. Centres in South Carolina must hang their staff-to-child ratios on the wall of every room. R.114-504B(1): "The following staffing ratios apply at all times children are present on the premises and during activities away from the center and SHALL BE PROMINENTLY POSTED IN ALL CLASSROOMS", followed by the ratio table itself. The family child care home has no equivalent rule, and it could not sensibly have one, because it has no ratio table: what it has is a single global cap. R.114-533C(1): "The operator may have up to six (6) children in the home at any given time, including children living in the home and children related to the operator who are under the age of twelve (12), UNLESS ZONING RESTRICTIONS FURTHER LIMIT THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN." R.114-533C(2) adds the only staffing overlay: "There shall be an additional caregiver, household member eighteen (18) years of age or older, staff, emergency person, or volunteer on the premises when FOUR OR MORE children in attendance are younger than TWELVE (12) MONTHS of age." That is the whole of South Carolina's family child care home ratio law, and none of it is posted. The number that IS posted is on the certificate you already display, and the regulation is precise about it. R.114-531C(4) requires the registration to state "the name of the operator, the address, the type of family child care home, the date on which the registration was issued and will expire, and THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CHILDREN to be present in the family child care home during operating hours", and R.114-531F(6) says the same for the licence. R.114-531C(5) and F(7) then make that printed figure binding: "The number of children present ... shall not exceed the number specified on the registration" / "on the license." So the capacity posting exists, but it is not a separate sign — it is a field on the certificate, and it is the field that can be smaller than six because a municipal zoning office said so under § 63-13-90 and R.114-533C(1). Two things a South Carolina family child care home is therefore NOT required to post: an age-range statement, and any notice of the ages served. The regulation defines a child for these purposes at R.114-530A(4) — "An individual, from birth through twelve (12) years of age (chronologically), receiving care in a family child care home, or up to eighteen (18) years of age if the child qualifies as special needs" — and puts the "type of family child care home" on the certificate, but nowhere requires an age band on a wall. Nor is there any posted notice of hours of operation, of closure days, of fees, or of the complaint procedure — the complaint procedure goes to parents in the admission pack under § 63-13-820(B)(2), not onto the wall. And one posting-adjacent duty that operators overlook because it does not live in the house at all: R.114-531C(3) and F(5) require the registration or licence NUMBER to be "stated in all advertisements of the family child care home." Your capacity may stay indoors. Your number may not.
• THE LIABILITY-INSURANCE NOTICE AND THE PROVISIONAL-EMPLOYMENT NOTICE — TWO WARNINGS THAT MANY STATES POST AND SOUTH CAROLINA FILES. Both of these are consumer-protection disclosures, both are mandatory, and both are discharged by a signature in a file rather than by a notice on a wall. Get this wrong in either direction and you either hang a sign nobody asked for or, worse, hang a sign and skip the signatures that actually count. The insurance notice is statutory and predates the current regulation by sixteen years. Section 63-13-210(A) provides that an owner or operator of a childcare center, group childcare home, or family childcare home "who does not carry liability insurance for the operation of his childcare business, shall ... OBTAIN SIGNED STATEMENTS from the custodial parent or parents or guardian or guardians of each child currently enrolled ... indicating that the parent or parents or guardian or guardians have received notice that the ... family childcare home does not carry liability insurance for the operation of its childcare business. The owner or operator ... MUST MAINTAIN A FILE OF THESE SIGNED STATEMENTS AT THE HOME during the period of time a child is enrolled. For new enrollees ..., the owner or operator must provide the parent ... with this information AT THE TIME OF ENROLLMENT, obtain a signed statement from each parent or guardian at the time of enrollment, and maintain these signed statements at the home." R.114-532D(6) reproduces this in the regulation and adds the lapse rule: if insurance "lapses or is cancelled and not reinstated or replaced, the operator shall obtain and maintain statements ... no later than THIRTY (30) DAYS after the liability insurance lapses or is cancelled." Section 63-13-210(C) makes the whole thing "a requirement for initial licensure and a continuing annual requirement for relicensure." Nowhere does either instrument say post, display, notice board, or public view. Note also what is NOT required: South Carolina does not oblige a family child care home to carry liability insurance at all. It obliges the uninsured operator to say so in writing and to hold the signatures. The provisional-employment notice works the same way. R.114-532D(5): "The operator shall obtain signed statements from a parent/guardian of each child enrolled indicating that the parent/guardian has received notice that the family child care home MAY PROVISIONALLY EMPLOY a person in order to comply with Section 63-7-1980 and Section 63-13-40(D) when an unexpected staff vacancy occurs. Provisional employment shall only occur pursuant to the provisions of Section 63-13-40(D)." Again: obtain signed statements. Again: no posting. And again the notice is about a possibility, so it is owed by every operator at enrolment regardless of whether a vacancy ever arises. The umbrella that catches both, and the document an inspector will actually ask for, is R.114-532D(4): "Parents and staff shall sign and date an agreement, maintained on file and UPDATED ANNUALLY, that both parties have read and understand all policies relating to the operation of family child care home." One dated annual agreement, both signatures, on file. That is the South Carolina family child care home's compliance instrument for everything in this paragraph — and it is the item most often found missing when a one-year registration comes up for renewal.
• THE FULL POSTING INVENTORY, STATED AS A CLOSED LIST, AND THE SEVEN CLAIMS TO REJECT. On 26 August 2026, under the family child care home regulation added by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229 effective 24 May 2024 and untouched by any subsequent State Register volume, a South Carolina family child care home must physically display exactly three things and must publish one thing outside the home. Displayed: (1) the current registration under R.114-531C(3) and § 63-13-830(A), or the current licence under R.114-531F(5), "in a prominent location at all times", carrying the operator's name, the address, the type of home, the issue and expiry dates and the maximum number of children; (2) the written emergency preparedness and evacuation plan under R.114-534F(1), "posted for all staff and parents to see", covering fire, natural disaster and threatening situations, and regularly tested; and (3) emergency telephone numbers and information under R.114-534F(3), "including the name/contact information of the emergency person". Published outside the home: the registration or licence NUMBER "in all advertisements of the family child care home", R.114-531C(3), R.114-531F(5) and § 63-13-830(A). That is the whole inventory. Everything else claimed as a South Carolina family child care home posting requirement is either a keep-available duty or another facility type's rule. The seven to reject, each with the text that disproves it. The most recent inspection report — no rule anywhere; centres alone must display "any violations" and turn the certificate over when deficiencies are listed (R.114-503A(1)), and the family child care home provisions omit that sentence although R.114-531A(7)(b) puts deficiencies on the back of a provisional registration. Menus — centres, group homes and church centres must post them "dated and ... in a conspicuous location in public view" (R.114-508A(1)(a), R.114-518, R.114-527); R.114-536 contains no menu at all. A staff-to-child ratio chart — "prominently posted in all classrooms" for centres under R.114-504B(1); the family child care home has a six-child cap at R.114-533C(1) and no chart. The daily schedule — R.114-533E(1) requires you to establish one and R.114-532D(3)(c) to hand it to parents on admission; neither says post. The parents' right of unannounced access — R.114-532D(1) creates a right defeasible only by court order and R.114-532D(3)(a) requires it to be "provided ... upon admission"; no posting. The discipline policy — signed by operators, caregivers and household members under R.114-533G(2) and given to parents under R.114-532D(3)(f), re-signed on amendment; no posting. The abuse and neglect hotline — no posting duty exists in R.114-530 to R.114-537 or anywhere in Title 63, Chapter 13; what exists is the immediate personal reporting duty of R.114-532B(1) and the abuse-and-neglect statutes handed to you at orientation under R.114-531A(3). Add to the rejected list the safe sleep policy, the first aid chart (R.114-534G(2)(a), "readily available"), the emergency medical plan (R.114-534G(1), "in writing"), the liability-insurance notice (§ 63-13-210(A), "maintain a file"), and a capacity or age-range sign — capacity is a field on the certificate you already display, under R.114-531C(4) and F(6), not a separate notice.

Enrollment forms for each child

• THE THREE-FORM APPLICATION CORE, IDENTICAL ON ALL FOUR TRACKS. Whether you are registering for the first time, renewing a registration, applying for a licence, or renewing a licence, South Carolina asks for the same three originals. R.114-531A(5)(a) states it for the initial registration: the applicant shall "Complete, sign, and submit originals of the following forms: Application to Operate a Child Care Facility (DSS 2902), Original or Renewal of Registration of Family Child Care Home (DSS 2922), Household Member List (DSS 2927) and any additional forms required by the Department." R.114-531B(3)(a) repeats the sentence word for word for registration renewal, R.114-531D(4)(a) repeats it for the licence application, and R.114-531E(4) repeats it a fourth time for licence renewal. Four appearances, one list, and the word ORIGINALS in every one of them: DSS does not take photocopies or scans of these three, and a regional office that receives a copy will hold the file open. The trap sits in the second form's own title. DSS Form 2922 is called "Original or Renewal of REGISTRATION of Family Child Care Home", and a licence applicant who reads the title reasonably concludes it does not apply to her. It does. The regulation puts DSS 2922 on the licensure list at R.114-531D(4)(a) and on the licence-renewal list at R.114-531E(4) in the same breath as DSS 2902 and DSS 2927. South Carolina simply never built a separate licence application form for family child care homes; the registration form does double duty, and the licence file is the registration file plus the seven extra items in R.114-531D(4)(d) through (l). The third form, the Household Member List DSS 2927, is the one that generates the rest of the paperwork, because everyone it names becomes a person who must be fingerprinted and Central-Registry-checked. R.114-530A(11) defines the household member you must list as "A person who resides in a family child care home, maintains clothing and personal effects at the household address, and/or eats or sleeps at the household address on a regular basis" — the "and/or" is deliberate and wide. An adult child who sleeps at the house three nights a week, a partner who keeps clothes there, a parent staying through a convalescence: each is a household member under that definition, each belongs on DSS 2927, and each triggers a background-check obligation you will pay for. Understating the household is the single most common reason a South Carolina family child care home file stalls between the application date and the pre-registration visit. The forms are signed by the operator — R.114-530A(15) defines the operator as the person eighteen or older "who lives in the home and has signed and submitted a Department application form" — and are filed with the Department's regional child care licensing office, which R.114-531A(1) makes the point of contact: "A potential operator of a family child care home may obtain information about the registration or licensure process by contacting the Department's regional child care licensing office."
• THE BOLD-TYPE CRIMINAL WARNING THAT THE STATUTE FORCES ONTO THE TOP OF THE FORM, AND WHY IT IS YOUR AUTHENTICITY TEST. South Carolina is one of the few states that legislates the typography of its own application form, and it does so four separate times inside Article 7 of the Children's Code. Section 63-13-820(F) provides: "Application forms for registration issued under this section must include, at the top of the form in large bold type, a statement indicating that a person who has been convicted of a crime included in Section 63-13-40(A)(1) who applies for registration as operator or a person who applies for registration as an operator who has a person fifteen years of age or older living in the family childcare home who has been convicted of a crime included in Section 63-13-40(A)(1) is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." Section 63-13-820(G) imposes the same bold-type duty on "Application forms for registration issued under this chapter by the department AND APPLICATION FORMS FOR EMPLOYMENT AT A FAMILY CHILDCARE HOME" — so if you write your own hiring application for a substitute caregiver, the warning is owed on your paper, not merely on the Department's. Section 63-13-830(C)(2) repeats the requirement for registration RENEWAL forms, and § 63-13-830(D) repeats the employment-form limb for renewals. Three practical consequences follow. First, the warning is not advisory boilerplate: it announces a freestanding misdemeanour that attaches to the act of APPLYING, so an operator who submits an application knowing that a fifteen-year-old-or-older resident of the house carries a disqualifying conviction has committed the offence at the moment of filing, before any child is ever enrolled and regardless of whether the Department detects it. Second, the crimes are not listed on the form; the form points to § 63-13-40(A)(1), and you must go read that list before you sign, because the operator's signature block is a representation about every person in the household aged fifteen and up, not only about the operator. Third, and most usefully, the bold block is a cheap authenticity test on the packet you were handed. If a downloaded PDF, a third-party form-filling site, or a well-meaning local resource centre gives you a "South Carolina family child care home application" with no large bold conviction warning at the top, it is not the Department's current form and filing it wastes the four to eight weeks the file will sit before somebody notices. Note also the age line the statute draws and that the forms follow: the criminal warning reaches persons "fifteen years of age or older living in the family childcare home", which is younger than the eighteen-year threshold that R.114-531A(5)(e) uses for the Central Registry consent form. South Carolina deliberately runs two different age floors through the same application packet, and matching each form to the right floor is on the applicant.
• DSS FORM 2924, CENTRAL REGISTRY FOR RELEASE OF INFORMATION AND COMPLIANCE STATEMENT — ONE ORIGINAL PER PERSON, ONE FEE PER STATE. This is the consent form, and it is the one that costs money more than once. R.114-531A(5)(e) requires, for the initial registration: "An original DSS 2924, Central Registry for Release of Information and Compliance Statement on the operator, household members eighteen (18) years of age or older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers along with the appropriate fee for South Carolina and paid for each state where such staff or household member resided during the preceding five years." The identical sentence is imposed at registration renewal by R.114-531B(3)(c), at licence application by R.114-531D(4)(c), and at licence renewal by R.114-531E(6), each of those three adding the clarifying phrase "which includes a check of the national sex offender registry". Read the fee clause slowly, because it is written per-state and not per-person-per-application: an emergency person who lived in Georgia two years ago and North Carolina three years ago owes South Carolina's fee plus Georgia's plus North Carolina's, and every one of those out-of-state child-abuse-registry checks is a separate correspondence with a separate turnaround. A five-year residential history that crosses two state lines routinely adds six to ten weeks to a South Carolina family child care home file, and no part of that delay is DSS's. The statutory hook is § 63-13-820(C), which requires "a Central Registry check to be conducted by the department to determine any abuse or neglect perpetrated by the person upon a child, and a search of the National Crime Information Center National Sex Offender Registry and the state sex offender registry pursuant to Section 23-3-430", and which extends the obligation forward in time to "any person eighteen years of age or older who moves into the family childcare home after the initial application for registration is approved" — a new partner, a returning adult child, a lodger. That person's DSS 2924 is owed on arrival, not at the next renewal. The form is signed by the subject of the check, not by the operator on the subject's behalf, and it is one of the few pieces of a South Carolina family child care home file that does not go to the regional office: the form itself directs "Mail form to SCDSS, Child Care Licensing, P.O. Box 1520, Room 218, Columbia, SC 29202-1520." Note the age asymmetry that catches applicants every time. DSS 2924 is owed by household members EIGHTEEN and older. The fingerprint-based checks in R.114-531A(5)(b) reach household members FIFTEEN and older. And R.114-532G(1)(c) then requires the staff record to hold "Results regarding a central registry and a sex offender registry check for the operator, HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS FIFTEEN (15) YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER" — the record-keeping rule uses fifteen where the application rule uses eighteen. The two provisions are in the same regulation, adopted the same day, and they do not agree. Collect at fifteen and you can never be wrong; collect at eighteen and an inspector reading R.114-532G(1)(c) can write you up.
• THE FINGERPRINT PAPERWORK — SLED AND FBI, NO DSS FORM NUMBER, AND A FIVE-YEAR CLOCK THAT NEVER STOPS. R.114-531A(5)(b) sets the population: "The operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age and older, substitute and regular caregivers, emergency persons, and staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation, and volunteers shall undergo a state fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to determine any state criminal history and a fingerprint-based background check to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine any other criminal history." Volunteers are inside that list, and R.114-530A(27) defines a volunteer down to "an individual parent, grandparent, other professional or skilled individual artist or crafts person at least sixteen (16) years of age infrequently assisting with the daily activities", adding that "An individual meeting this definition is subject to compliance with the same applicable regulations as paid family child care home caregivers." The grandmother who comes on Thursdays to read stories is a volunteer, and she is fingerprinted. Two recurrence rules then run in parallel and both are easy to miss. R.114-531A(5)(c): the checks "shall be repeated if a person is not employed by or does not provide caregiver services in a child care center, group childcare home, family child care home, church or religious center or child care provider that delivers services for which Child Care Development Fund financial assistance is provided for six (6) months or longer" — a six-month gap in child care work voids the clearance and it must be bought again. R.114-531A(5)(d): "The results of the fingerprint-based background checks shall be repeated every five (5) years", a sentence the regulation then restates at R.114-531B(3)(b), D(4)(b) and E(5) as "The fingerprint reviews required by this subsection are required to be repeated every five years for the operator, staff, household members, substitutes, emergency persons, and volunteers." Note the residual vocabulary: the 2024 regulation still says "fingerprint reviews" there although 2024 Act No. 195 rewrote the statute to say "fingerprint-based background checks" throughout. Same duty, older words. The statutory floors are § 63-13-820(C) for persons eighteen and over and § 63-13-820(D) for "A person fifteen through seventeen years of age living in a family childcare home and any person fifteen through seventeen years of age who moves into a family childcare home after an initial application for registration is approved" — again the forward-looking limb, again the five-year repetition. There is no DSS form number for any of this. What you file is a SLED/FBI fingerprint transaction, and § 63-13-820(H) puts the bill on you: "The prospective employee or childcare facility shall be responsible for any fees associated with any and all required background checks. Fees shall not exceed the actual cost of processing and administration." One price control helps: § 63-13-60 caps SLED's fee at the FBI's. Finally, § 63-13-820(H) authorises SLED and the FBI to "retain and store fingerprints for further use in the identification of persons" and to feed the Department "arrests, convictions, dispositions, warrants" on a rolling basis — so the check is not a snapshot you pass once; it is a subscription DSS holds on your household.
• DSS FORM 2908 REFERENCE RELEASE STATEMENTS VERSUS PLAIN REFERENCE LETTERS — THE SAME NUMBER THREE, TWO DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS. This is a genuine fork between South Carolina's two tracks and the regulation is explicit about it, so do not carry paperwork across. On the REGISTRATION track, R.114-531A(5)(f) requires the applicant to "Submit three (3) original DSS 2908, Child Care Reference Release Statements completed by the person to be used as a reference. Persons providing references must be unrelated by blood or marriage to the applicant." The reference completes the form; the applicant does not write it and does not sign it. Three originals, on the Department's numbered form. On the LICENSURE track, R.114-531D(4)(e) requires something else entirely: "Submit three (3) original reference letters from people unrelated by blood or marriage to the applicant." A letter, not a form; no DSS number is given, no prescribed content, no release language. A licence applicant who obtains three DSS 2908s has arguably satisfied the spirit and a registration applicant who obtains three free-form letters has not satisfied the letter, and it is the second error that stops a file. The unrelatedness test is the same on both tracks and it is broader than it looks: "unrelated by blood or marriage" excludes an in-law, a step-sibling, a cousin — R.114-530A(20) defines "Related" for this regulation as "Any of the following relationships by marriage, blood, or adoption: parent, grandparent, brother, sister, stepparent, stepsister, stepbrother, uncle, aunt, or cousin of the first degree." A former employer, a pastor, a neighbour of ten years, a fellow provider: those are the safe choices. What happens next is on the Department's side and it has a deadline attached that you can hold DSS to. R.114-531A(6)(c) requires Department staff, "Prior to issuing a registration and within thirty (30) days of receipt of references, [to] contact by telephone the persons listed as references by the applicant and document their comments." So the references must be reachable by telephone within a month of filing. Give a reference who is travelling, who screens unknown numbers, or whose only listed number is a workplace switchboard, and the thirty-day contact fails, the file goes back into the queue, and nobody will tell you why. Warn each of your three that a call from a South Carolina DSS regional child care licensing office is coming and that it will be logged. The reference reports are not decorative: R.114-531A(6)(d) requires the Department to "Review the application material, the visit report and the references report, and consider any previous applications, inspections or withdrawals regarding the operator", and R.114-531D(5)(c) makes the same review a precondition of a licence. The statutory basis is § 63-13-820(B)(3), which obliges the applicant, "upon request, [to] provide the department with any facts, conditions, or circumstances relevant to the operation of the family childcare home, including references and other information regarding the character of the family childcare home operator."
• THE ORIGINAL ZONING APPROVAL LETTER — NOT A DSS FORM, AND THE ONE PIECE OF PAPER THAT DIES WHEN YOU MOVE. R.114-531A(5)(k) requires the registration applicant to "Submit an original zoning approval letter from the city or county zoning office", and R.114-531D(4)(d) repeats the requirement verbatim for the licence applicant. It is not a Department form, there is no number, and DSS will not chase it for you: it is a letter you must extract from a municipal or county planning office that has no interest in your registration deadline. The statute behind it is § 63-13-90: "At the time of initial licensing, approval, or registration a childcare facility must provide proof of conformity or authorized nonconformity with county or municipal zoning ordinances or resolutions. The department may impose conditions on the license, approval, or registration consistent with restrictions imposed by zoning authorities." Two words in that sentence do work. "Authorized nonconformity" means a legally grandfathered or variance-backed use qualifies — you do not need the zoning to permit child care outright, you need the office to certify in writing that your use is either conforming or lawfully nonconforming. And "may impose conditions" means the zoning letter can travel into your registration as a restriction: R.114-533C(1) permits up to six children in the home "unless zoning restrictions further limit the number of children", so a municipality that caps home occupations at four children caps your registration at four, and DSS will print the smaller number on the certificate. The letter's second character is that it is address-bound, and so is everything it supports. R.114-531C(6): "A change in location shall automatically void the registration. The registration cannot be transferred nor sold from one individual to another." R.114-531F(8): "A change in location shall immediately void the license. The license cannot be transferred nor sold from one individual to another." South Carolina gives no relocation procedure for a family child care home, no transfer form, and no grace period; the word is "automatically" on the registration side and "immediately" on the licence side. An operator who moves across town in April with a registration expiring in November does not amend anything — the registration is already void, the children in care are being cared for in an unregistered home from the day of the move, and the operator files a complete new application with a complete new zoning letter for the new address. Budget the zoning letter first in the sequence, not last. It is the item with the longest and least predictable lead time, it is the only item a body other than DSS controls outright, and it can come back with a number on it that changes the business you were planning. R.114-531C(2) and R.114-531F(2) keep the obligation alive after issuance too — "Registered family child care homes shall comply with all zoning ordinances and requirements" and the identical sentence for licensed homes — so a mid-term change in the local ordinance is your problem, not a grandfathered irrelevance.
• THE SUGGESTED STANDARDS PAPER TRAIL — THE OPERATOR'S OWN SIGNED STATEMENT AND ONE SIGNED STATEMENT FROM EVERY PARENT, BEFORE REGISTRATION. South Carolina's oddest structural feature generates two documents that applicants routinely skip because they look like formalities. Section 63-13-180(A) gave DSS power to promulgate binding regulations for centres and group homes but only to "develop suggested standards which shall serve as guidelines for the operators of family childcare homes and the parents of children who use the service." DSS nonetheless promulgated a binding regulation for family child care homes in 2024 — and kept the suggested standards alive as a separate document with its own signature requirements. Section 63-13-820(B) makes them conditions precedent: "Before becoming a registered operator the applicant shall: (1) sign a statement that he has read the suggested standards developed by the department under Section 63-13-180; (2) furnish the department with a signed statement by each consumer parent verifying that the operator has provided each consumer parent with a copy of the suggested standards for family childcare homes and the procedures for filing complaints". The regulation implements this as a four-step chain at R.114-531A(5)(g)-(j): "Read the Suggested Standards For Family Day Care Homes"; "Furnish or review with parent(s)/guardian(s) of each child to be enrolled in the family child care home, a copy of the Suggested Standards"; "Secure a signed statement from each parent/guardian verifying that they have reviewed the Suggested Standards"; and "Send required copies of completed and signed applications, required information regarding references and all signed statements from parent(s)/guardian(s) to Department staff." Read the sequence and the timing problem appears. The parents' signed statements are owed BEFORE the registration is issued, which means before you are lawfully allowed to provide care — so the "children to be enrolled" are prospective, and you are asking families to sign paperwork for a home that is not yet registered. Applicants who wait until they have paying children to collect these statements discover that DSS wants them at application, and the file sits. Collect them from your committed families during the application month. Two mismatches. First, the statute requires the parent statement to cover the suggested standards AND "the procedures for filing complaints", while the regulation's version at R.114-531A(5)(i) mentions only the Suggested Standards; the statute is the higher instrument, so give parents the complaint procedure too. Second, the regulation's own name for the document drifts — "Suggested Standards For Family DAY Care Homes" at A(5)(g), "the current Suggested Standards and Regulations for Family Child Care Homes" at A(3), "the Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes" at D(4)(k). Same document, three names, handed to you at the mandatory orientation R.114-531A(2) requires. On the licence side the standards are not merely read but enforced: R.114-531D(4)(k) requires the applicant to "Demonstrate compliance with the Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes when the Department completes the pre-licensure visit", and R.114-531F(9)(c) makes failure to comply with them a ground for revoking the licence. For a licensed South Carolina family child care home, "suggested" is not suggested.
• DSS FORM 2909, CONSUMER PARENT STATEMENT — THE ONLY FORM YOU MAIL TO COLUMBIA EVERY TIME A CHILD ENROLS. Most child-level paperwork in a South Carolina family child care home stays in the home. DSS 2909 does not. R.114-532D(7) is unambiguous: "Once a child is enrolled in the family child care home, a DSS Form 2909, Consumer Parent Statement, shall be completed by a parent/guardian and the operator shall send the completed form to the Department." Not filed, not retained — SENT. Every enrolment, all year, not just at application and not just at renewal. Operators who treat DSS 2909 as a renewal-packet item accumulate a year's worth of unsent statements and then discover the Department has no record that half their children exist. The form does three jobs at once and the regulation names them in three separate places. It is a record of what the parent was given: § 63-13-820(B)(2) requires "a signed statement by each consumer parent verifying that the operator has provided each consumer parent with a copy of the suggested standards for family childcare homes and the procedures for filing complaints", and the renewal provisions describe DSS 2909 as "signed by the parents/guardians of all children enrolled in care STATING THAT THEY HAVE BEEN FURNISHED A COPY OF THE REGULATIONS" — R.114-531B(3)(d) for registration renewal and R.114-531E(7) for licence renewal, in identical words. It is a record of enrolment intensity: R.114-532F(3)(f) requires the child's own health file to contain a "Completed Consumer Parent Statement, DSS Form 2909, signed by the parent ATTESTING TO THE DAYS AND TIMES CHILD IS ENROLLED in the family child care home." And because it attests to days and times, it is the document an inspector reads against your attendance records and against the six-child cap in R.114-533C(1). A DSS 2909 that says Monday to Friday for a child who in fact comes Tuesday and Thursday is a discrepancy you created. So the same form is filed in two places for two purposes: an original goes to the Department under R.114-532D(7), a completed copy lives in the child's file under R.114-532F(3)(f), and the renewal packet needs statements covering ALL children enrolled at the time of renewal under R.114-531B(3)(d) or E(7). Signature is the parent's or guardian's alone; the operator's role is to furnish the regulations and the complaint procedure first, then obtain the signature, then mail. There is no retention period anywhere in R.114-530 through R.114-537 for DSS 2909 or for anything else in the child's file — South Carolina simply never wrote one. The practical rule that follows is to keep the file for as long as you can defend it, because R.114-532F(1) obliges you to produce it: "The operator shall have a file for each enrolled child. This file shall be made available to the Department, upon request." A file you have destroyed is a file you cannot produce, and the regulation gives you no destruction date to hide behind.
• THE MEDICAL AND TUBERCULOSIS PAPERWORK — THREE FORMS ON THE LICENCE TRACK, NONE AT REGISTRATION APPLICATION, AND YET ALL OF IT OWED IN EVERY HOME'S STAFF RECORD. Here is the sharpest asymmetry in the South Carolina packet, and reading only one half of the regulation will cost you either money or a citation. The LICENCE application list at R.114-531D(4) contains three health items that the REGISTRATION application list at R.114-531A(5) does not contain at all: "(g) Obtain a health care professional's certification that operator, household member(s) fifteen (15) years of age or older, staff, and emergency person(s) are free from Tuberculosis; (h) Submit an original Staff Health Assessment (DSS 2926)...; (i) Submit an original Medical Statement (DSS 2901) attesting to the health of operator, household member(s), staff, and emergency person(s)." Two numbered Department forms — DSS 2926 Staff Health Assessment and DSS 2901 Medical Statement — plus a free-form TB certification signed by a health care professional, each in ORIGINAL, each covering household members down to age fifteen. A registration applicant reading R.114-531A(5) concludes none of this is required of her. That conclusion is wrong, and the trap is that the requirement reappears one section later as a RECORDS duty binding on every family child care home, registered or licensed. R.114-532G(1) requires records "on the operator, all caregivers, other members of the household, and additional staff" including "(f) Written statements, USING THE FORMS PROVIDED BY THE DEPARTMENT, shall be completed verifying that their current health status is satisfactory; (g) Written evidence from a physician or health resource attesting that each person is free from communicable tuberculosis at the time of licensure OR REGISTRATION and subsequently according pursuant to state statute or the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control regulations or policy; and (h) A health assessment from a health care provider assessing the ability of the operator/caregiver to work with children." The words "using the forms provided by the Department" mean DSS 2926 and DSS 2901; the words "at the time of licensure or registration" mean the TB evidence is owed by a registered home at registration even though the registration application list never asks for it. So the registered operator does not file the health paperwork with her application — she has it in her staff record on day one, and the pre-registration visit under R.114-531A(6)(b) is when it is looked at. R.114-532G(1)(h) then adds the timing rules that nobody reads until they are late: "The health assessment shall be completed within three months prior to licensure, registration or employment or within the first month of licensure, registration or employment and shall include health history, physical exam, vision and hearing screening, tuberculosis screening, and a review of immunization status, and a discussion regarding recommended vaccinations, including a one-time adult dose of TDAP. A NEW HEALTH ASSESSMENT SHALL BE OBTAINED BY THE OPERATOR/CAREGIVER AT LEAST EVERY FOUR YEARS AFTER THE INITIAL ASSESSMENT." A four-year cycle sits on top of a one-year registration and a two-year licence, and the renewal packet will not remind you: the renewal lists at R.114-531B(3) and E(4)-(8) contain no health item at all. Diary the four-year date yourself.
• THE CHILD'S GENERAL RECORD AND THE EMERGENCY-CONTACT DOCUMENT — MANDATORY CONTENT, NO PRESCRIBED FORM, NO RETENTION PERIOD. South Carolina does not issue an enrolment form for family child care homes. What it issues is a content list, and you build the form. R.114-532F(1): "The operator shall have a file for each enrolled child. This file shall be made available to the Department, upon request." R.114-532F(2) then fixes what the general half of that file must contain: "(a) Child's full name, address, date of birth, date of enrollment, date of discharge, if applicable; (b) Full name of both parents/guardians, the family's home address, parents' work address and telephone numbers where they can be contacted during the time that the child is in the family child care home; (c) Instruction for contacting parents or relatives; (d) Names, addresses and telephone numbers of persons who can assume responsibility for the child in an emergency if the parent/guardian is unavailable; and (e) Name, address and telephone number of a physician and/or health care resource preferred by the parent/guardian." Subparagraph (d) is the emergency-contact requirement, and note what it does NOT say. It does not require the emergency contacts to be authorised to COLLECT the child; it requires persons who "can assume responsibility for the child in an emergency". The release-of-child question is handled separately and by policy rather than by list: R.114-532D(2) provides that "The operator shall develop a policy for the safe release of children. This policy shall be communicated to parents/guardians upon admission", and R.114-532D(3)(b) requires that parents be given "The policy and procedures on release of children" on admission. So South Carolina obliges you to WRITE a safe-release policy — there is no state form, no state template, and no state-mandated authorised-pickup list. Building the pickup list into your enrolment form is good practice; it is not a regulatory requirement, and an inspector will ask instead to see the written policy and the evidence it was communicated. Subparagraph (b) is worth reading against your own habits: it wants BOTH parents' full names and BOTH work addresses, not the one parent who does the drop-off. Two absences from R.114-532F(2) matter as much as its contents. There is no requirement that the child's general record be signed by anybody — it is a record you maintain, not a declaration the parent executes, which is why the separately required parent signatures live in R.114-532D(4)-(6) and R.114-532F(3). And there is no retention period. Nothing in R.114-530 through R.114-537 tells you how long to keep a discharged child's file, and nothing in Title 63 Chapter 13 does either. Compare the express retention rules South Carolina wrote for other DSS-regulated facilities in the same Chapter 114 and the omission looks deliberate rather than accidental. Since R.114-532F(1) obliges you to produce any file the Department asks for, and since R.114-531G(2) lets the Department arrive unannounced on a complaint about events that may be months old, keep discharged files for at least the period in which a complaint about that child's care could still be investigated. The regulation gives you no shredding date to point at.
• THE CHILD'S HEALTH RECORD AND THE IMMUNIZATION TRAP THAT TURNS ON WHETHER YOU ARE REGISTERED OR LICENSED. R.114-532F(3) lists what the health half of each child's file must hold: "(a) Parent's statement of the child's physical and mental condition at the time of his/her admission to the family child care home. (b) Copy of immunization card of the child indicating required immunizations are completed, in process, or that the child is exempt. (c) Written authorization from parent/guardian to administer medication, if applicable; (d) Authorization from parent/guardian to transport child either to/from school, on field trips, and for emergency treatment; (e) Authorization from parent/guardian for child to participate in swimming activities, if applicable; (f) Completed Consumer Parent Statement, DSS Form 2909...; and (g) Other health information if deemed necessary by the operator and/or by the parent/guardian." Item (a) is a PARENT'S statement, not a physician's: South Carolina does not require a doctor's examination report for a child entering a family child care home. Item (d) does double work — one signature covers school transport, field trips and emergency treatment — and there is no separate DSS transportation form and no vehicle or transportation section anywhere in R.114-530 to R.114-537. Item (e) is conditional on your offering swimming. Now the immunization trap. Item (b) says a copy of the immunization card. The general immunization law, § 44-29-180(A), forbids any "owner or operator of a public or private childcare facility as defined in Section 63-13-20" to enrol or retain a child "who cannot produce satisfactory evidence of having been vaccinated or immunized", and the implementing regulation requires a specific document: "No child or person shall be admitted to or retained in ... any public or private childcare facility as defined in Code Section 63-13-20 without a valid South Carolina Certificate of Immunization. To be valid, the South Carolina Certificate of Immunization must be signed by a licensed physician or his/her authorized representative", and obliges the childcare official to "keep a copy of the Certificate with the child's record". But both instruments then carve you out — and only if you are REGISTERED. Section 44-29-180(E): "Registered family day care homes are exempt from requirements of this section." R.60-8 Section I.E: "Registered family childcare homes are exempt from requirements of this regulation." A LICENSED family child care home is not a registered one; nothing in either exemption reaches it, and it owes the signed South Carolina Certificate of Immunization in full, including the Medical, Religious and Special Exemption certificates where they apply. Either way R.114-532F(3)(b) still demands the immunization copy in the file, so the exemption relieves the registered operator of the CERTIFICATE formality, not of the record. Note also the citation trap awaiting anyone working from the statute alone: § 44-29-180(C) still points to "South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control Regulation 61-8". R.61-8 no longer exists. The official regulation index now shows "61-8. Transferred ... Transferred by SCSR 49-5 Doc. No. 5352, eff May 23, 2025. See, now, SC ADC 60-8." The live text is R.60-8, "Immunization Requirements for School and Childcare Attendance", in Chapter 60. Anyone citing 61-8 in 2026 is citing a transferred number, and DHEC itself no longer exists under that name.
• MEDICATION AUTHORIZATION AND THE MEDICATION LOG — A ONE-YEAR CEILING ON CONSENT, TWO LAWFUL SHORTCUTS, AND A LOG COPY THE PARENT GETS. R.114-532E(1) sets a wide definition before it sets the rule: "'medication' means any drug that may be obtained with or without a prescription, EXCLUDING a topical ointment obtained without a prescription." Supermarket paracetamol and an over-the-counter antihistamine are medication; only the non-prescription topical ointment is out. The prohibition then runs at R.114-532E(2): the operator, caregiver, staff or volunteer "shall not administer medication to a child under the care of the family child care home unless: (a) The parent/guardian of the child has submitted to the family child care home, PRIOR TO the administration of the medication, a signed and dated parental consent form that authorizes the home to administer the medication to the child, AND THE AUTHORIZATION SHALL NOT BE LONGER THAN ONE YEAR AT A TIME. (b) The medication shall be administered as stated on the label directions, or as amended, in writing by the child's health care provider. (c) The medication shall not be expired." The one-year ceiling expires quietly. A standing consent signed at enrolment dies on its first anniversary, and an operator with a three-year-old in year two is administering medication without authorisation unless the consent was renewed. There is no DSS-numbered medication form; the "signed and dated parental consent form" is yours to draft, and it must be dated because the one-year clock runs from that date. Two alternatives to the wet-ink form are expressly lawful. R.114-532E(3): you may administer without a signed authorisation if the parent "(a) Submits to the family child care home an authorization in an electronic format that is capable of being viewed and saved; or (b) Authorizes the family child care home by telephone to administer A SINGLE DOSE of a medication." An emailed or texted authorisation counts, provided you can view AND SAVE it; a disappearing message does not qualify. A telephone authorisation covers one dose only, never a course. R.114-532E(4) preserves the emergency case: the section "does not apply to a person who administers a medication ... when that person has a good faith belief that the child is suffering from a medical emergency and administering the medication would prevent the death or serious injury of the child." The record-keeping has two limbs, and operators usually build only the first. R.114-532E(5): "A family child care home shall maintain IN EACH CHILD'S RECORD all written documentation and records of verbal communication that confirm parental or guardian permission to administer medication" — so the telephone authorisation must itself be written down and filed, in the child's record, not in a diary. R.114-532E(6): "A medication log for each medication that is administered by a caregiver or staff person shall be kept, including the child's name, the name of the medication, dosage, date, time, and name of person administering the medication. This information shall be logged IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING the administration of the medication and A COPY PROVIDED TO THE PARENT/GUARDIAN." Six fields, logged at the moment not at the end of the day, and a copy going home. Finally, R.114-532D(3)(e) requires parents to be given "The policy and procedures for the administration of medications" on admission — a written policy separate from both the consent form and the log.
• THE SIGNED POLICY AGREEMENTS — DISCIPLINE, ANNUAL PARENT-AND-STAFF, PROVISIONAL EMPLOYMENT, AND THE NO-INSURANCE NOTICE. Four separate signature obligations sit in R.114-532D and R.114-533G, they are collected from different people at different moments, and none of them is a numbered DSS form. First, the discipline agreement, signed by your side of the house. R.114-533G(2): "All operators/caregivers/household members shall sign an agreement to implement the discipline and behavior management policy, WITH A STATEMENT THAT SPECIFIES NO CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. Corporal punishment is prohibited and includes, but is not limited to: spanking, hitting, slapping, twisting, dragging, yanking, squeezing, pinching, shaking, or biting a child." Household members sign this even if they never care for a child. The parent-facing half is at R.114-532D(3)(f), which requires parents to receive on admission "The policy and practices regarding the discipline and behavior management of children. THIS STATEMENT SHALL BE RESIGNED IF ANY DISCIPLINE POLICY CHANGES ARE MADE." Edit your discipline policy and every enrolled family signs again. Second, the annual all-policies agreement, which is the one most often missing at inspection. R.114-532D(4): "Parents and staff shall sign and date an agreement, MAINTAINED ON FILE AND UPDATED ANNUALLY, that both parties have read and understand all policies relating to the operation of family child care home." Annual, dated, both parties, on file — on a two-year licence that means a mid-term refresh nobody prompts you to do. Third, the provisional-employment notice. R.114-532D(5): "The operator shall obtain signed statements from a parent/guardian of each child enrolled indicating that the parent/guardian has received notice that the family child care home MAY PROVISIONALLY EMPLOY A PERSON in order to comply with Section 63-7-1980 and Section 63-13-40(D) when an unexpected staff vacancy occurs." This is owed whether or not you ever intend to hire provisionally; the statement is about the possibility, not the event. Fourth, the liability-insurance notice, which is statutory and older than the rest. Section 63-13-210(A) requires an owner or operator "who does not carry liability insurance for the operation of his childcare business" to obtain signed statements from the parents of each enrolled child that they have received notice of that fact, to "maintain a file of these signed statements at the home during the period of time a child is enrolled", and for new enrolees to "provide the parent ... with this information at the time of enrollment, obtain a signed statement from each parent or guardian AT THE TIME OF ENROLLMENT". R.114-532D(6) copies this into the regulation and adds the lapse rule: if insurance "lapses or is cancelled and not reinstated or replaced, the operator shall obtain and maintain statements ... no later than thirty (30) days after the liability insurance lapses or is cancelled." Thirty days from a lapse to a fresh set of parent signatures — and § 63-13-210(C) makes compliance "a requirement for initial licensure and a continuing annual requirement for relicensure". Note carefully what this is not: South Carolina does not require a family child care home to CARRY liability insurance. It requires you to tell parents in writing, and to keep their signatures, if you do not.
• ATTENDANCE RECORDS AND INCIDENT REPORTS — TWO DUTIES SOUTH CAROLINA IMPOSES WITHOUT GIVING YOU A FORM. Attendance first. The whole rule is R.114-533D(1): "Accurate records of daily attendance of each child shall be kept on file at the family child care home at all times." One sentence: no prescribed format, no DSS number, no sign-in/sign-out signature, no arrival-and-departure times, no retention period. Compare centres, where R.114-504A(3) requires "a written procedure to account for the presence of each child as the child enters and exits the premises, enters and exits a vehicle or moves to a new location"; the family child care home has no equivalent. The attendance record is evidential, read against the DSS 2909 Consumer Parent Statement (which under R.114-532F(3)(f) attests "to the days and times child is enrolled") and against the number printed on your certificate, which R.114-531C(5) and F(7) make an absolute ceiling: "The number of children present in the family child care home during operating hours shall not exceed the number specified on the registration." Over-enrolment is a withdrawal ground under R.114-531C(7)(b) and a mandatory licence-denial ground under R.114-531D(7)(a)(ii), and § 63-13-840(A)(3) makes "enrollment within the limits set forth in this chapter" one of the three things every inspection must check. Record every child physically present, including your own and related children under twelve: R.114-533C(1) counts them. Incidents second. R.114-532C(1) requires the operator to "report the following incidents to the parents/guardians IMMEDIATELY and report to the Department WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR (24) HOURS after the occurrence", and lists nine: "(a) Death of a child or staff person that occur at the family child care home; (b) Child who is missing or who is left unattended in a vehicle operated by the family child care home; (c) Major structural damage...; (d) Accidents or injuries involving any child occurring at the family child care home REQUIRING MEDICAL TREATMENT; (e) Child or staff occurrences of communicable diseases that the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) require in its School Exclusion List; (f) An occurrence that requires the services of a fire or police department which affects the health and safety of children; (g) Natural or man-made disasters, including extreme weather conditions which cause the family child care home to be closed for more than one day of operation; (h) Reports of alleged child abuse involving the operator, any staff person, or any household member; and (i) ARRESTS OR CONVICTIONS OF ANY CRIMES against the operator, any staff persons, or any household member." Read (d): the trigger is medical treatment, so South Carolina requires no routine minor-injury report and prescribes no injury form. Read (i): an arrest of a household member for any crime is reportable in twenty-four hours, and failing to report it is its own violation. Read (e) against today's agency map: the regulation still names DHEC and its "School Exclusion List" and R.114-534A(1) still excludes children "when they exhibit conditions listed in the DHEC Exclusion Policy", although DHEC has been split into a Department of Public Health and a Department of Environmental Services. The list survives its author's name. No DSS incident-report form number appears in R.114-530 to R.114-537; the report goes to your regional child care licensing office, — make it in writing and keep the copy.
• THE STAFF RECORD — EIGHT MANDATORY CONTENTS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT YOUR EMPLOYEES. R.114-532G(1) opens by naming a population much wider than "staff": "Records shall be maintained on THE OPERATOR, ALL CAREGIVERS, OTHER MEMBERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD, and additional staff as follows". An adult son who lives upstairs and never enters the child care space has a staff record here. The eight required contents are: "(a) Names, positions, and hours of duty; (b) Results regarding current South Carolina State Law enforcement Division (SLED), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and National Crime Information Center National Sex Offender Registry criminal history background checks for the operator, household members fifteen (15) years of age or older, substitute and regular caregiver(s), emergency person(s), staff ... and volunteer(s) for South Carolina AND FOR EACH STATE where such person resided during the preceding five years; (c) Results regarding a central registry and a sex offender registry check for [the same list]; (d) Record of training for operator and caregivers working directly with the children; (e) Record of high school diploma/GED for operator, IF LICENSED OR REGISTERED ON OR AFTER THE PASSING OF THESE REGULATIONS; (f) Written statements, using the forms provided by the Department, ... verifying that their current health status is satisfactory; (g) Written evidence from a physician or health resource attesting that each person is free from communicable tuberculosis at the time of licensure or registration...; and (h) A health assessment from a health care provider assessing the ability of the operator/caregiver to work with children." Item (e) contains a grandfather clause worth knowing: the diploma/GED record is required only of operators first licensed or registered on or after 24 May 2024, the effective date of SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229. An operator registered in 2019 is not retroactively required to produce one, though R.114-532A(2)(b) states the qualification prospectively. Item (d) is the one that fails at renewal. R.114-532H(1) requires that "All caregivers shall participate in at least ten (10) clock hours of training annually. At least four (4) clock hours shall be in child growth and development. IF SERVING INFANTS 12 MONTHS AND UNDER, ONE HOUR OF SAFE SLEEP IS REQUIRED", with the remainder from areas the rule lists, and R.114-532H(2) permits carrying five surplus hours forward "in the category earned". The statute makes the record a filing duty, not merely a retention duty: § 63-13-825(A) obliges the operator and anyone employed or contracted "to provide direct childcare" to "annually complete AND PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES of a minimum of ten hours of training approved by the department", and § 63-13-825(B) requires DSS to publish on its website which family child care homes are and are not in compliance. Both renewal lists close on the same words — R.114-531B(3)(e) and R.114-531E(8): "Ensure all caregivers have the required training." Miss it and the consequence is prescribed rather than discretionary: § 63-13-830(E)(4) provides that "If the operator fails to comply with the training requirements provided in Section 63-13-825(A) prior to the expiration of the registration or fails to timely renew the registration, the department SHALL place the operator on a corrective action plan", and on the licence track R.114-531D(7)(a)(v) makes the same failure a mandatory denial ground.
• THE LICENCE-ONLY DOCUMENTS: DSS FORM 2905 FIRE/HEALTH INSPECTION REPORT AND THE CPR/FIRST-AID CERTIFICATE. Choosing the licence track over registration adds paperwork that no registered home ever files, and two items on that list involve third parties whose calendars you do not control. R.114-531D(4)(f) requires the licence applicant to "Submit a Fire/Health Inspection Report (DSS 2905)". The report is not something you fill in: § 63-13-80(A) provides that "The inspection of the health and fire safety of childcare centers and group childcare homes must be completed upon the request of the department by the appropriate agencies (i.e., Department of Health and Environmental Control, the Office of the State Fire Marshal, or local authorities)", and R.114-531D(5)(a) makes DSS "Prior to issuing a license, obtain and review report(s) from health and fire officials who have inspected the home to determine compliance with appropriate regulations." Two officials sign one DSS form, both must visit your house, and neither works to your timetable. Note that § 63-13-80(A) by its own terms names centres and group homes; the obligation on a family child care home comes from the regulation. R.114-531D(4)(l) adds the second: "Obtain infant/child CPR and first aid certificate that covers all hours of operation." Read the last five words. It is not enough for the operator to hold a card; the certification must COVER ALL HOURS OF OPERATION, so a home that opens at six and has one certified adult who leaves at three has a gap in its licence condition. R.114-532A(5) is the enforcement counterpart and it draws the registration/licence line explicitly: "During the hours of operation ALL FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES, EXCEPT REGISTERED FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES, shall have on the premises at least one caregiver with a current certificate for the provision of basic first aid and infant/child cardiopulmonary resuscitation." That is a real and rare exemption: South Carolina does NOT require a registered family child care home to have a CPR- or first-aid-certified adult present. It requires it of licensed homes only. Two further licence-only documents complete the picture. R.114-531D(4)(k) requires the applicant to "Demonstrate compliance with the Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes when the Department completes the pre-licensure visit" — an inspection outcome rather than a filed paper, but one that R.114-531F(9)(c) turns into a continuing revocation ground. And R.114-537A(2), which binds every home caring for infants but bites hardest on licence files, requires that infants sleep in a crib meeting U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission requirements and that "Operator shall obtain AND KEEP ON FILE crib compliance certificates." That is a manufacturer document, per crib, kept in the home — the only equipment certificate the family child care home regulation requires, and the one most often thrown away with the packaging. Why choose the licence at all, given the extra paperwork? Because § 63-13-810(C)(1) makes it the gateway to federal money: "A family childcare home which elects to participate in a federal program which requires licensing as a prerequisite to participation may elect to be licensed." And because § 63-13-830(E)(2) makes it the fallback after a registration is refused or withdrawn.
• WHAT IS ACTUALLY OWED AT RENEWAL — AND THE FOUR THINGS THAT ARE NOT. Renewal is where South Carolina family child care home operators overpay, because they assume the renewal packet is the application packet again. It is not, and the regulation lists it exhaustively. R.114-531B(1) sets the cycle for registration: "Registered family child care homes shall apply for renewal of registration EVERY YEAR", against R.114-531F(1)'s two-year licence. The Department must start the clock for you: R.114-531B(2)(a) obliges DSS to "Advise the operator in writing of the date and requirements for renewal 120 DAYS PRIOR TO the expiration of the current registration", and R.114-531E(2) repeats the 120-day notice for licences and adds that the Department "shall also visit the family child care home to determine compliance with applicable regulations, giving the applicant at least two (2) business days' notice prior to the visit." If no letter arrives four months out, chase it; the expiry is still yours to meet. What renewal owes, on both tracks: the three core originals — DSS 2902, DSS 2922 and DSS 2927 (R.114-531B(3)(a), E(4)); fresh SLED, FBI and NCIC sex-offender checks FOR NEW PEOPLE ONLY — "new household members eighteen (18) years of age or older, new substitute(s), new emergency person(s), and new staff who are regularly present during the hours of operation and new volunteers" — plus the five-yearly repeat for everyone else (B(3)(b), E(5)); an original DSS 2924 Central Registry statement with the per-state fees (B(3)(c), E(6)); completed DSS 2909 Consumer Parent Statements "signed by the parents/guardians of ALL children enrolled in care stating that they have been furnished a copy of the regulations" (B(3)(d), E(7)); and the training assurance, "Ensure all caregivers have the required training" (B(3)(e), E(8)). On the licence track R.114-531E(1) adds the overarching duty: "For the purposes of applying for a renewal of a license, the operator shall comply with the Department's Suggested Standards for Family Child Care Homes." Now the four omissions, each of which saves money or time. There is NO renewal zoning letter: R.114-531A(5)(k) and D(4)(d) require the original zoning approval at initial application only, and neither B(3) nor E(4)-(8) mentions zoning. There are NO renewal references: DSS 2908 appears only at R.114-531A(5)(f) and the three licence reference letters only at D(4)(e). There is NO renewal fire/health inspection: DSS 2905 appears only at D(4)(f). And there is NO renewal health paperwork: the TB certification, DSS 2926 and DSS 2901 appear only at D(4)(g)-(i), with the recurring obligation living instead in the four-year cycle of R.114-532G(1)(h). Two cautions close this out. Renewal is not automatic and it is not a rubber stamp: R.114-531B(4)(c) lets the Department, where requirements are unmet, "place the operator on a corrective action plan or deny the application for registration renewal", and a denial carries a thirty-day written appeal window under B(5)(b) after which "the application shall be deemed denied as of the termination of the thirty-day period." And if you stop operating rather than renew, the certificate is not simply allowed to lapse: R.114-531C(1) requires that "If the family child care home ceases operation, the registration shall be returned to the Department within thirty (30) days of family child care home closure."

What's specific about getting licensed in South Carolina

South Carolina is unusual in offering a ≤6-child home operator two parallel legal doors, and choosing wrong is the trap most people miss. REGISTRATION is a lighter, cheaper, one-year path: no fire/health inspection, no TB test or staff health assessment, and — critically — registered homes are the ONE tier explicitly exempt from the on-premises CPR/first-aid caregiver requirement (R.114-532A(5)). A LICENSE is a two-year credential that DOES require CPR/first aid, fire and DHEC health inspections, TB certification, and health assessments. The second, sharper trap: the 6-child cap is a TOTAL that INCLUDES the operator's own children under 12 living in the home, so a provider with three young kids of their own can legally enroll only three more — and the moment a seventh child appears, the home is no longer a 'family child care home' at all but a Group Child Care Home under an entirely different regulation and a license-only regime.

How long it takes and what it costs in South Carolina

Timeline: Plan on roughly 1-3 months. Registration is faster (orientation, forms, background checks, one home visit — often a few weeks to ~6 weeks once fingerprints clear). Licensing runs longer because it adds fire and DHEC health inspections, TB testing/health assessments, and a CPR/first-aid course, plus the zoning letter and reference turnaround. Background-check clearance and the zoning letter are the usual bottlenecks.

Cost: South Carolina does not set a registration or license application fee in the regulation itself. Real out-of-pocket costs are the SLED and FBI fingerprint background checks and the DSS 2924 central-registry/sex-offender fee for each state you lived in over the last 5 years, plus (License path) an infant/child CPR + first-aid course, a TB test, and any zoning-office fee. Exact current amounts vary — confirm the fingerprint, central-registry, and any inspection fees directly with SCDSS and SLED before budgeting.

Source: PRIMARY SOURCES ACTUALLY OPENED DURING RESEARCH, FIELD BY FIELD (not summarised from memory). [background_check] https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t63c013.php — S.C. Code of Laws Title 63 Chapter 13, downloaded in full 26 August 2026. Established verbatim: § 63-13-20(1) "Caregiver" definition; § 63-13-40(A)(1)(a)-(j) the disqualifying-offence catalogue including the § 56-5-2930 DUI carve-out and its (A)/(B)/(C) conditions and the (ii)/(iii) riders; § 63-13-40(D)(1)-(10) the four checks, the five-year-residence multistate sentence, provisional employment and its supervision condition, the next-business-day filing rule, the 12/24-month provisional-employment penalty, the five-year recheck and six-month break rule, the 2/5/+10 business-day Central Registry deadlines, and the fee-allocation sentence; § 63-13-45 the advance parent-notice duty for provisional employment; § 63-13-50 the certified-education/foster-parent fingerprint exemption; § 63-13-60 the SLED fee cap tied to the FBI fee; § 63-13-190 (still showing pre-Act-232 wording); § 63-13-810(C)(1)-(2) for homes electing licensure; § 63-13-820(A)-(H) registration requirements, the 18+ and 15-17 age bands, the 15+ disqualification bar, the pardon proviso, the bold-type warning, the fee sentence; § 63-13-830(C)(1) renewal checks with the multistate sentence; § 63-13-850 the 30-day appeal to the director and the APA route; § 63-13-1110 sex offender employment prohibition. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/statmast.php — Legislative Council currency statement for the Code of Laws: "now current through the 2025 Session of the General Assembly."

This is what proves the online § 63-13-190 is stale as of 26 August 2026 and forced the 2026 session sweep below. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%20114.pdf — S.C. Code of Regulations Chapter 114, official Legislative Council PDF, converted to text 26 August 2026. Established verbatim R.114-530 (definitions: Application, Caregiver, Central Registry, Emergency Person, Household member, Operator, Registration, Sex Offender Registry, Volunteer), R.114-531 (application, renewal, licence, provisions, withdrawal/revocation grounds, denial and 30-day appeal), R.114-532 (staff qualifications, 24-hour incident reporting of arrests/convictions of household members, parent notice on provisional employment, staff records incl. the fifteen-year-old central registry/sex offender record rule). All eight sections carry "HISTORY: Added by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229, eff May 24, 2024" and no later amendment. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/statmast.php — Code of Regulations currency statement: "now current through State Register Volume 50, Issue 3, effective March 27, 2026." Fixes the date after which the State Register had to be swept by hand. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=Sr50-4.pdf — State Register Vol. 50 Issue 4 (April 2026): Doc.

No. 5314 "Regulations for the Licensing of Child Care Centers" listed Tolled. No family child care home document. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=Sr50-5.pdf — Vol. 50 Issue 5 (May 2026): Doc. No. 5314 still Tolled. No family child care home document. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=Sr50-6.pdf — Vol. 50 Issue 6 (June 2026): Doc. No. 5314 moved to "Committee Request Withdrawal — Withdrawn." Also carries a DSS proposal to amend R.114-550 (foster/adoptive homes), not child care. No family child care home document. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=Sr50-7.pdf — Vol. 50 Issue 7 (July 2026): DSS proposal on R.114-590 to 114-595 (residential group care). No family child care home document. Together these four issues establish that R.114-530 to 114-537 is unamended since 24 May 2024. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess126_2025-2026/bills/996.htm — S.996, Act No. 232 of 2026 (R243), ratified 15 May 2026, approved 19 May 2026. Full enacted text read. Amends only § 63-13-190(A)(2), striking "or a person who has direct unsupervised contact with a child in the custody of the Department of Social Services."

Confirms no 2026 act touches provider-side screening. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess126_2025-2026/bills/4587.htm — H.4587 (military installation exemption from § 63-13-810): prefiled 16 Dec 2025, read first time 13 Jan 2026, referred to Education and Public Works, no further action. Died. Quoted proposed § 63-13-810(D) text taken from this page. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess126_2025-2026/bills/4632.htm — H.4632 "Cash Berry Childcare Safety and Quality Rating Act": died in committee, no background-check content. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c001.php — § 16-1-10(A) (six felony classes A-F), § 16-1-10(D) (exempt-classification offences), § 16-1-60 (violent crimes enumeration). Establishes that § 63-13-40(A)(1)(g)(i) bars every felony in South Carolina law, not a child-crimes subset. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c003.php — Chapter 3 Title 16 section list plus § 16-3-600 in full. Establishes that assault and battery in the third degree, § 16-3-600(E), is "a misdemeanor" punishable by "not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned for not more than thirty days" and is nonetheless inside the chapter barred by § 63-13-40(A)(1)(a). https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c015.php — Chapter 15 Title 16 section list.

Establishes that § 16-15-60 adultery or fornication, § 16-15-90 prostitution and § 16-15-130 indecent exposure sit inside the chapter barred by § 63-13-40(A)(1)(b). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2023-title42/html/USCODE-2023-title42-chap105-subchapII-B-sec9858f.htm — 42 U.S.C. § 9858f in full from GPO. Established verbatim (b) the five mandatory components, (c)(1) the federal prohibitions, (d)(3) the pre-employment and five-year submission rule, (d)(4) portability including the 180-day separation limit, (e)(1) the 45-day cap, (e)(2)(A) the eligible/ineligible-only disclosure rule, (e)(3) appeals, (e)(4) the drug-offence review process South Carolina has not adopted, (f) the actual-cost fee cap, (h)(1) the permission to disqualify beyond the federal list, (i)(2) the "child care staff member" definition, (j)(3) the 5 percent penalty. http://web.archive.org/web/20260403204846/https://dss.sc.gov/resource-library/forms_brochures/files/2924.pdf — DSS Form 2924, Central Registry Release of Information and Compliance Statement, edition "APR 16." Established the $8.00 fee and the payment/mailing address, the statewide-consent sentence used for portability, the "additional 10 days" research box, the notarised "FOR PROVISIONAL EMPLOYMENT ONLY" affirmation, and the form's stale citation of "Section 63-13-40 D(2)" for provisional employment. http://web.archive.org/web/20251231142823/https://dss.sc.gov/resource-library/forms_brochures/files/2955.pdf — DSS Booklet 2955, "South Carolina Child Care Licensing Law," edition "NOV 15," the document DSS links as the background-check law.

Its reproduced disclaimer states the Code text is "current through the 2014 session"; its § 63-13-820(C) ends "The fingerprint reviews required by this subsection are not required upon each renewal" and its § 63-13-820(D) disqualification list has six items. This is the stale layer named in the entry. http://web.archive.org/web/20260306004904/https://www.scchildcare.org/providers/in-state-background-check-requirements/ — DSS Division of Early Care and Education provider page. Established the OIG/Child Care Licensing division of labour, the IdentoGO-only fingerprint rule, the facility ID/ORI warnings, the DSS 2924 / 37201 / 2924-ABC form selection, the mailing address, and the in-state and out-of-state Central Registry appeal routes. http://web.archive.org/web/20260129075002/https://www.scchildcare.org/providers/interstate-background-check-requirements/ — same site, interstate page. Established the out-of-state registry rule, SLED CATCH and SCOR links, and the "DSS Form 2924 for the operator, all caregivers, and all Household Members over the age of 18" instruction. http://web.archive.org/web/20260115134224/https://www.scchildcare.org/providers/licensing-requirements/safe-live-scan-digital-fingerprinting/ — same site, SAFE live scan page.

Established the IdentoGO contract, the five live-scan cities, the scheduling and payment mechanics, and the fingerprint appeal address oigccdbga@dss.sc.gov to the DSS Office of Inspector General and SLED. CONTRADICTION OF THE BRIEF, STATED EXPLICITLY AS THE METHOD REQUIRES: the brief's hypothesis that competence may have moved from SCDSS to a new "Department of Early Childhood Development (SCDECD)" is wrong. Title 63 Chapter 13 as served on 26 August 2026 names the Department of Social Services throughout; Chapter 114 R.114-530A(8) defines "Department: The Department of Social Services"; the 2025-2026 ratified-acts sweep produced no transfer act; and the DSS Division of Early Care and Education pages still describe themselves as "a division of the South Carolina Department of Social Services" with a 2026 copyright line. The brief was also right to warn about a stale codified layer, but the stale layer in South Carolina is NOT the regulation (which is 2024 and current) — it is the agency's own booklet (2014 text) and, for one section, the Legislative Council's Code of Laws file itself (2025 session, missing Act 232 of 2026). UNVERIFIED: the exact IdentoGO live-scan fee for the South Carolina child care service code.

Web search surfaced a figure of $51.75 attributed to https://www.scchildcare.org/media/21gjj3b0/general-fingerprint-instructions-identogo.pdf, but that PDF has no Wayback capture and both dss.sc.gov and scchildcare.org refused connections from this network (ECONNREFUSED on 167.7.60.191 and 167.7.60.200), so the figure was NOT read at source and is not stated in the entry. Only the statutory cap in § 63-13-60 and the documented $8.00 Central Registry fee are asserted. UNVERIFIED: 45 C.F.R. § 98.43, the CCDF implementing regulation on background checks (including any federal supervision-pending provision). ecfr.gov redirects to unblock.federalregister.gov from this network and the govinfo CFR granule for 45 CFR 98.43 returned a 404, so the regulation text was not read. The entry therefore rests on 42 U.S.C. § 9858f, which was read in full, and on South Carolina law for the supervision-while-pending rule. UNVERIFIED: the DSS Child Care Licensing "FAMILY CHILD CARE POLICY" sheet dated 5.23.2025 (cited in the sibling preservice_training entry) could not be re-opened this session for the same network reason; nothing in this entry depends on it.

NOTE ON METHOD RULE 1: no pinned dated PDF was re-fetched to self-confirm. The Chapter 114 file and the Code of Laws chapter were taken from the Legislative Council's live index-of-rules-in-effect, and the State Register was swept forward from the published currency date rather than backwards from a known document. The scchildcare.org and dss.sc.gov material is served here from Wayback captures dated 15 January, 29 January, 6 March and 3 April 2026 and 31 December 2025 because the live hosts refused connections; those captures are identified as such above and none of them is the source of a legal rule, only of operational mechanics and of the staleness findings. [cpr_first_aid_required] South Carolina family child care home training policy (ABC Quality / pre-service certificate) — "The Pre-Service Certificate and Pediatric First Aid and CPR must be completed for any person responsible for the care or supervision of children to include an emergency person within 90 days of hire." This text, read during the preservice_training research, is what establishes the value `true`. [prelicensing_steps] https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/statmast.php — index of the South Carolina Code of Regulations as served on 26 August 2026; used as the "rules in effect" index rather than a pinned PDF.

It offers Chapter 114 in HTML, Word and PDF; the HTML endpoint /coderegs/c114.php returned the site's error page on 26 August 2026, so the PDF served from the same index row was used. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%20114.pdf — Chapter 114 (Department of Social Services) as the index serves it today.

Established verbatim: R.114-530A (definitions, incl. Application, Caregiver, Household member, License "for a two-year period", Operator, Registration "for a one-year period", Regularly, Training); R.114-531A (registration procedure: orientation, the three statutory hand-outs, listed telephone, DSS 2902/2922/2927, SLED+FBI fingerprints at 15+, DSS 2924 at 18+ with "the appropriate fee ... for each state where such staff or household member resided during the preceding five years", 5-year repeat, 6-month break rule, three DSS 2908 references, Suggested Standards reading and parent acknowledgement, original zoning approval letter, Department consultation/visit on two business days' notice/reference calls within 30 days of receipt, issuance by mail); R.114-531A(7)-(8) (provisional registration ≤1 year, denial grounds, 30-day appeal, injunctive action); R.114-531B (renewal, 120-day notice, renewal forms, DSS 2909, "Ensure all caregivers have the required training"); R.114-531C (registration valid one year, zoning compliance, prominent display and advertisement number, capacity stated on the certificate, change of location voids, withdrawal grounds, return within 30 days of closure);

R.114-531D (licence procedure, incl. D(4)(d) zoning letter, D(4)(e) three reference letters, D(4)(f) DSS 2905 Fire/Health Inspection Report, D(4)(g) TB certification, D(4)(h) DSS 2926, D(4)(i) DSS 2901, D(4)(j) telephone, D(4)(k) demonstrate compliance with the Suggested Standards at the pre-licensure visit, D(4)(l) infant/child CPR and first aid "that covers all hours of operation"; D(5)(a)-(d) Department duties and issuance of a provisional licence; D(7)(a)(v) training as a mandatory denial ground); R.114-531E (licence renewal); R.114-531F (licence "valid for two years", provisional-to-regular amendment, display, capacity, change of location voids, revocation grounds, 30-day appeal); R.114-531G (annual unannounced inspection once per calendar year, complaint inspections); R.114-532A(2) diploma/GED and A(5) CPR carve-out for registered homes; R.114-532D (parent access, safe-release policy, six admission disclosures, annual signed policy agreement, provisional-employment notice, liability-insurance notice in lieu, DSS 2909); R.114-532G(1)(e),(g),(h) staff records incl. the health assessment "within three months prior to ... or within the first month of" and the four-year re-assessment;

R.114-532H annual training; R.114-533C capacity (six including the operator's own resident and related children under twelve, "unless zoning restrictions further limit the number") and the four-infant additional-caregiver trigger; R.114-533G discipline policy and signed no-corporal-punishment agreement by operators/caregivers/household members; R.114-534D water supply; R.114-534F emergency preparedness plan posted and tested; R.114-534G emergency medical plan; R.114-535 physical site (no smoke/CO/extinguisher requirement anywhere); R.114-537A infant safe sleep and crib compliance certificates.

Each of R.114-530 through R.114-537 carries "HISTORY: Added by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229, eff May 24, 2024." https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%20114.pdf (R.114-528) — established that the regulation cited on DSS Form 2922 is dead: "114-528. Repealed. ... Repealed by SCSR 48-5 Doc.

No. 5229, eff May 24, 2024." https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%20114.pdf (R.114-550) — established the FOSTER-HOME trap: the explicit private-well testing sentence ("If a home uses private well water or another source of drinking water other than water through the municipal water supply, then it must be tested for safety"), the 120-degree water-heater cap, and the carbon-monoxide-alarm / "at least one operable fire extinguisher" / written-evacuation-plan standards all sit in R.114-550 (Licensure of Family Foster Homes and Approval of Adoptive Homes), NOT in the family child care home regulation. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t63c013.php — S.C. Code of Laws Title 63 Chapter 13 as served on 26 August 2026. Established: § 63-13-10(B)-(C) (religious-freedom limit, curriculum limit); § 63-13-20(2) childcare, (3) centre = 13+, (4)(a)-(j) the exclusion list incl. the church/religious exemption limited to CENTERS AND GROUP HOMES, (11) "Department" = DSS, (13) family childcare home, (14) group childcare home, (23) "Regular license ... for three years ... or a family childcare home which elects to be licensed", (24) regularly, (26) renewal;

§ 63-13-30(A) the fifteen-hour rule confined to centres; § 63-13-40(A)(1) disqualifying offences, (D)(3)-(7) provisional employment and the Central Registry turnaround (2/5 business days, +10); § 63-13-45 provisional-employment parent notice; § 63-13-60 SLED fee cap; § 63-13-80(A) fire/health inspection by DHEC, the Office of the State Fire Marshal "or local authorities" — worded for centres and group homes only; § 63-13-90 zoning; § 63-13-100 provisional credentials; § 63-13-110 CPR/first aid with the registered-family-home carve-out; § 63-13-170 penalty; § 63-13-180(A) regulations for centres/group homes vs "suggested standards" for family homes; § 63-13-210(A)-(C) the liability-insurance notice in lieu, the 30-day lapse cure and "compliance is a requirement for initial licensure and a continuing annual requirement for relicensure"; § 63-13-420(D) the 90-day constructive provisional licence (Article 3, centres and group homes); § 63-13-810(A)-(C) registration compulsory, licensure elective and tied to federal-programme participation; § 63-13-820(A)-(H) registration requirements, 15-17 and 18+ screening, absolute disqualification, bold-type misdemeanor warning, applicant pays the fees;

§ 63-13-825(A)-(B) the ten hours and the website compliance flag; § 63-13-830(B) one-year registration term, (E)(1)(d) and (E)(4) the corrective action plan; § 63-13-840 inspections; § 63-13-850 appeals; § 63-13-1010 and § 63-13-1020 the church/religious registration regime. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t63c013.php (HISTORY and Effect-of-Amendment notes) — established the licence-term conflict: "2024 Act No. 216, SECTION 2, in (23), in the first sentence, substituted 'three years' for 'two years' and added the second sentence", eff. 10 July 2024, i.e. SEVEN WEEKS AFTER the 24 May 2024 regulation that still says two years.

Also established that the most recent amendments to the whole chapter are 2024 Act No. 195 (H.3220), eff. 21 May 2024, and 2024 Act No. 216 (S.862), eff. 10 July 2024, and that no 2025 or 2026 act appears in any HISTORY line in the chapter. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/rats2.php — Ratifications/Acts Log for Session 126 (2025-2026), self-stamped "Current as of August 26, 2026, 04:12:37 am".

Swept act by act: the only enacted titles touching children are H3654/Act 8 (Child Welfare), S276/Act 19, S28/Act 57, S415/Act 99, S405/Act 101, S146/Act 111, H3022/Act 129, H3453/Act 135, S823/Act 196, S845/Act 198, S858/Act 199. NO 2025-2026 act amends child care licensing, and none creates a Department of Early Childhood Development. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php — State Register index as served on 26 August 2026; current volume 2026-2027 has one issue (July 24). Used as the live index rather than a pinned file. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=index2025.pdf — Index for State Register Volume 49 (2025-2026). Established the negative finding that DSS filed NO regulation touching Chapter 114 Article 5 in 2025-2026: the only DSS entries are drafting notices for Fair Hearings/FI/Food Stamps and Privacy of DSS Clients (SR49-3) and final regulations on kinship foster/adoptive homes (5296), adoption investigators (5303), child placing agencies (5308) and adoption supplemental benefits (5315), all SR49-5. R.114-530 to R.114-537 as effective 24 May 2024 is therefore still the operative text. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=Sr50-7.pdf — State Register Vol. 50, Issue 7, 24 July 2026. Established (a) the Department of Environmental Services Notice of Drafting to amend R.61-58, State Primary Drinking Water Regulations, adopting EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements requiring systems to "conduct sampling in schools and childcare facilities", under authority including 2026 Act No. 146 eff. 15 May 2026, comments closing 24 August 2026;

(b) that the only DSS regulatory item in the issue is a drafting notice for Residential Group Care Facilities, R.114-590 to 114-595 — not family child care homes; (c) Executive Order 2026-13 "Designating Executive Cabinet", item 21 "Director of the Department of Social Services", with no early-childhood department on the roster.

DSS Form 2924, Central Registry for Release of Information and Compliance Statement — the $8.00 South Carolina fee, payable by check or money order or online, and the mailing address "SCDSS, Child Care Licensing, P.O. Box 1520, Room 218, Columbia, SC 29202-1520", together with the instruction that it is completed for the operator, all caregivers and all household members over 18. Confirmed through the published text of the form; the DSS host itself (dss.sc.gov, scchildcare.org) refused all connections from this environment on 26 August 2026. DSS Form 2922 (AUG 18 edition), Section C — "in compliance with the following provisions of Section 63-13-10 et seq., Code of Laws of South Carolina and regulations for FCCH's (DSS Regulation #114-528, April 1993)", i.e. the live application form certifies compliance with a regulation repealed on 24 May 2024. DSS Child Care Licensing FAMILY CHILD CARE POLICY sheet dated 5.23.2025 and POLICY FCCH 12 — the diploma/GED grandfather boundary stated as "if licensed or registered on or after the May 2024 Regulations"; the ABC Quality / CCDF condition "ABC Quality Providers receiving CCDF funding must complete the SC Health and Safety Pre-Service Certificate (15 hours) prior to serving children who are enrolled in the SCs Childcare Scholarships (formerly Voucher) Program", with Pediatric First Aid and CPR "for any person responsible for the care or supervision of children to include an emergency person within 90 days of hire".

DSS regional orientation calendar — the four regional child care licensing offices and their numbers (Upstate, Greenville, (864) 250-5576 / (800) 637-8550; Midlands, Columbia, (803) 898-9001 / (888) 202-1469; Pee Dee, 181 East Evans Street, Florence, (843) 661-6623 / (800) 464-9138; Low Country, North Charleston, (843) 953-9780), and the separation of FCCH sessions from "CCC, RCCC & GCCH" sessions, many FCCH sessions delivered virtually with seats capped at 40-50. CONTRADICTING THE BRIEF, AS THE METHOD INVITES: the brief warned that competence may have moved to a new "Department of Early Childhood Development (SCDECD)". It has not. § 63-13-20(11) still reads "'Department' means the State Department of Social Services", no act of Session 126 transfers jurisdiction, and the Governor's July 2026 cabinet roster contains no early-childhood agency. The brief's chapter citation (S.C. Code of Regulations ch. 114-500 et seq.) and its ≤6-child family child care home definition are both correct. The stale layer in South Carolina is elsewhere, and it is the REGULATION, not the statute: R.114-531F(1) and R.114-530A(14) still say the family child care home licence runs two years, while § 63-13-20(23), as amended by 2024 Act No. 216 effective 10 July 2024 — after the regulation took effect — says three years for "a family childcare home which elects to be licensed".

UNVERIFIED: the exact current SLED and FBI fingerprint fee amounts in dollars (§ 63-13-60 caps SLED at no more than the FBI fee, but neither figure is published in the statute or the regulation, and the DSS/scchildcare hosts refused connections from this environment on 26 August 2026). UNVERIFIED: whether DSS in practice issues a REGULAR rather than a provisional first licence to a fully compliant family child care home applicant. R.114-531D(5)(d) as written says "Issue a provisional license if all regulatory requirements were met"; this is either a drafting error or a deliberate probationary first term, and the regulation gives no way to tell. UNVERIFIED: whether the 90-day constructive-provisional-licence rule at § 63-13-420(D) reaches an electing family child care home. § 63-13-810(C)(1) imports §§ 63-13-420 and 63-13-430 only "relating to criminal history conviction records checks", which reads as a limited incorporation; no family-home applicant should rely on a 90-day shot clock. UNVERIFIED: the exact current edition, date and page content of the "Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes" that R.114-531D(4)(k) makes a binding condition of licensure.

It is distributed at orientation and was not reachable from this environment. UNVERIFIED: whether any DSS regional office in practice enforces R.114-532G(1)(f)-(h) (health statements, TB evidence, health assessment) against REGISTERED homes, whose procedure rule R.114-531A requires none of them. The contradiction between R.114-531A and R.114-532G is on the face of the 24 May 2024 text and is not resolved by anything published. [required_forms] https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/statmast.php — the South Carolina Legislature's index of the Code of Regulations "in effect", opened 26 August 2026. Started here rather than from any pinned dated PDF. The index serves Chapter 114 (Department of Social Services) as a single undated file, /coderegs/Chapter 114.pdf; that file, downloaded from the index today, is the text relied on throughout. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%20114.pdf — the whole of Chapter 114 as served today. Establishes the family child care home regime at R.114-530 (definitions), R.114-531 (procedures: registration application A, registration renewal B, provisions of registration C, licence application D, licence renewal E, provisions of licence F, inspections G), R.114-532 (management/records/medication/training), R.114-533 (program/attendance/discipline), R.114-534 (health/emergency), R.114-535 (physical site), R.114-536 (food), R.114-537 (infant care).

Every one of these sections carries the HISTORY line "Added by SCSR 48-5 Doc. No. 5229, eff May 24, 2024." The same file establishes that R.114-528 is "Repealed ... eff May 24, 2024" and supplies the contrast provisions for centres (R.114-503, R.114-504, R.114-505, R.114-508), group homes (R.114-513, R.114-518) and church/religious centres (R.114-523, R.114-527). Form numbers and titles taken verbatim from that regulation text: DSS 2902 Application to Operate a Child Care Facility, DSS 2922 Original or Renewal of Registration of Family Child Care Home, DSS 2927 Household Member List (R.114-531A(5)(a), B(3)(a), D(4)(a), E(4)); DSS 2924 Central Registry for Release of Information and Compliance Statement (A(5)(e), B(3)(c), D(4)(c), E(6)); DSS 2908 Child Care Reference Release Statement (A(5)(f)); DSS 2909 Consumer Parent Statement (B(3)(d), E(7), R.114-532D(7), R.114-532F(3)(f)); DSS 2905 Fire/Health Inspection Report (D(4)(f)); DSS 2926 Staff Health Assessment (D(4)(h)); DSS 2901 Medical Statement (D(4)(i)). https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t63c013.php — Title 63, Chapter 13 (Childcare Facilities) as served today.

Establishes § 63-13-20 definitions; § 63-13-40(A)(1) disqualifying-crimes list; § 63-13-60 SLED fee cap; § 63-13-80(A) health and fire inspection; § 63-13-90 zoning proof; § 63-13-180(A) regulations for centres/group homes but "suggested standards" for family child care homes; § 63-13-210 liability-insurance notice statements kept on file; § 63-13-810 definition and licence election; § 63-13-820(A)-(H) registration forms, signed suggested-standards statement, consumer-parent statements, fingerprint/Central Registry/NCIC checks, five-year repetition, bold-type criminal warning on application and employment forms, applicant pays fees; § 63-13-825 ten hours' training annually with documentation to DSS and DSS website publication; § 63-13-830 statement of registration, one-year term, renewal checks, bold-type warning on renewal forms, denial/withdrawal grounds, mandatory corrective action plan on training failure; § 63-13-840 what an inspection covers; § 63-13-440 display duty limited to centres and group homes. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c029.php — § 44-29-180. Establishes the general immunization bar for childcare facilities, the record-keeping duty, and, at subsection (E), "Registered family day care homes are exempt from requirements of this section."

Also establishes that subsection (C) still cites "Regulation 61-8", which is stale. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter61.php and /coderegs/Chapter 61-1 through 61-17.pdf — establishes that R.61-8 no longer contains the immunization rules: "61-8. Transferred. HISTORY: Former Regulation, titled Immunization Requirements for School and Childcare Attendance ... Transferred by SCSR 49-5 Doc. No. 5352, eff May 23, 2025. See, now, SC ADC 60-8." https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%2060.pdf — R.60-8 "Immunization Requirements for School and Childcare Attendance" as served today. Establishes the South Carolina Certificate of Immunization requirement, the physician signature, the copy-in-the-child's-record duty, the Medical/Religious/Special Exemption certificates, and Section I.E: "Registered family childcare homes are exempt from requirements of this regulation." https://www.scstatehouse.gov/rats2.php — Ratifications/Acts Log, stamped by the site "Current as of August 26, 2026, 04:17:02 am". Swept act by act for the 2025-2026 session. No act creates, amends or transfers family child care home licensing; the only regulation-approval joint resolutions in the session are for the Department of Natural Resources (Doc. No. 5329) and the Commission on Higher Education (Doc. No. 5321). No DSS child care regulation was approved in 2025 or 2026. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php — State Register index.

Volume 50 issues 1-7 (2026) and Volume 49 issues 1-12 (2025) were each downloaded and searched for "114-53x" and "Family Child Care Home": zero hits in all nineteen issues. The only Chapter 114 items in Volume 50 concern R.114-550 (foster homes) and R.114-590/595 (residential group care). The 2024 family child care home regulation therefore stands unamended. Method note: the Register's file names are keyed to VOLUME number, not year — Sr26-*.pdf is Volume 26 (2002), not 2026. A sweep of "Sr26" would have measured the wrong decade and reported a false all-clear. https://www.templateroller.com/template/1913402/dss-form-2901-child-care-regulatory-services-medical-statement-south-carolina.html — third-party mirror; corroborates DSS Form 2901 as "Child Care Regulatory Services Medical Statement", South Carolina Department of Social Services. Secondary source, used only to corroborate a title the regulation already supplies. https://www.templateroller.com/template/1914711/dss-form-2924-central-registry-release-information-and-compliance-statement-south-carolina.html — third-party mirror; corroborates DSS Form 2924 title and issuing agency, edition of April 2016. Secondary source.

UNVERIFIED: the DSS form PDFs themselves (dss.sc.gov, 167.7.60.200, and scchildcare.org, 167.7.60.191) were unreachable from this environment throughout the task — every request to both hosts timed out or was refused, over curl and over the fetch tool alike. Current edition dates, page counts, exact signature-block wording, retention instructions printed on the forms, and whether each form as issued today actually carries the § 63-13-820(F) bold-type warning were therefore NOT read directly and are not asserted. UNVERIFIED: the "Suggested Standards / Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes" document, incorporated by R.114-531A(5)(g)-(i), D(4)(k), E(1) and F(9)(c). Its content — and therefore any additional form or record it may impose on a licensed home — could not be read, for the same access reason. Its legal status (a document DSS "develops" under § 63-13-180(A) rather than promulgates) is asserted only from the statute and the regulation. UNVERIFIED: DSS Form 2964 (reported by secondary sources as a Staff List) and DSS Form 2900 do not appear anywhere in R.114-530 through R.114-537 and are not asserted as family child care home requirements.

CONTRADICTION WITH THE BRIEF, STATED AS THE METHOD REQUIRES: the brief named "S.C. Code of Regulations ch. 114-500 et seq." and suggested competence may have moved to a Department of Early Childhood Development. The chapter reference is right in the loose sense (Article 5, Subarticle 1 of Chapter 114) but the operative sections for a family child care home are R.114-530 to R.114-537, not the 114-500 series, which governs child care CENTRES; R.114-528, the old family day care home regulation, was repealed on 24 May 2024. On the agency question the brief is wrong and the sibling agency.txt in this state folder already measures it: § 63-13-20(11) still defines "Department" as the Department of Social Services, no 2025-2026 act touches Chapter 13, and no early-childhood department appears in the Governor's cabinet list. DSS regulates. [required_postings] https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/statmast.php — the Legislature's index of the Code of Regulations in effect, opened 26 August 2026. Entry point; the index serves Chapter 114 as an undated file rather than a dated snapshot, so what follows is what the index serves today. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/coderegs/Chapter%20114.pdf — the whole of Chapter 114 as served today.

Establishes every posting and non-posting assertion in this field. Positive posting duties for a family child care home: R.114-531C(3) "The current registration shall be displayed in a prominent location at all times and the registration number shall be stated in all advertisements of the family child care home"; R.114-531C(4) contents of the registration including "the maximum number of children"; R.114-531C(5) that number as a ceiling; R.114-531F(5) and F(6) the same for the licence; R.114-534F(1) "a written emergency preparedness plan to evacuate the home in case of fire, natural disaster or threatening situation ... that is posted for all staff and parents to see. This plan shall be regularly tested"; R.114-534F(3) "Emergency telephone numbers and information shall be posted, including the name/contact information of the emergency person." Same file — the KEPT-AVAILABLE-NOT-POSTED provisions relied on for the negative findings: R.114-534F(2) written emergency plan naming the emergency person; R.114-534G(1) emergency medical plan "in writing"; R.114-534G(2)(a) first aid chart "readily available"; R.114-534G(2)(b) supplies "stored out of the reach of children"; R.114-532F(1) child's file "made available to the Department, upon request"; R.114-533D(1) attendance "kept on file ... at all times"; R.114-532D(6)(b) insurance statements "maintain a file of these signed statements at the home"; R.114-537A(2) crib compliance certificates "obtain and keep on file"; R.114-532D(3) six items "provided ... upon admission"; R.114-532D(4) annual signed dated agreement "maintained on file"; R.114-533G(2) discipline agreement signed by operators, caregivers and household members; R.114-532D(3)(f) discipline statement "resigned if any discipline policy changes are made".

Same file — the CONTRAST provisions that prove the omissions are deliberate: R.114-503A(1) centres "shall display the current license/approval, as well as any violations ... The back of the license/approval shall be displayed if deficiencies are listed"; R.114-513A(1) the same for group child care homes; R.114-523A(1) the same for registered church/religious centres; R.114-504B(1) centre staff:child ratios "shall be prominently posted in all classrooms"; R.114-503J(2) centre "Emergency telephone numbers for the police, fire department, ambulance service and poison control center shall be posted by each telephone", repeated at R.114-513J(2) (group homes) and R.114-523G(2) (church/religious centres); R.114-508A(1)(a) centre "Daily menus shall be dated and posted in a conspicuous location in public view", repeated at R.114-518 and R.114-527; R.114-600 wilderness therapeutic camps "Menus shall be posted and followed ... Substitutions shall be documented on the posted menu".

None of these sentences appears in R.114-530 to R.114-537. Same file — R.114-531A(7)(b) and R.114-531D(6)(b): deficiencies "shall be cited on the back of the provisional registration"/"provisional license", with no rule requiring the back to be displayed, unlike R.114-503A(1). R.114-531G(1)(a) annual unannounced inspection; R.114-531G(1)(b) what the inspection checks. R.114-536 in full: no menu provision of any kind. R.114-533C(1)-(2): six-child cap and the four-infant second-caregiver rule, with no posting. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t63c013.php — Title 63, Chapter 13 as served today. A full text search of the chapter returns exactly three display sentences and no instance of the word "post" as a duty: § 63-13-440(A) "Each childcare center or group childcare home shall maintain its current license displayed in a prominent place at all times and must state its license number in all advertisements" — centres and group homes only, the family child care home is not named; § 63-13-830(A) "The current statement must be displayed in a prominent place in the facility at all times and the registration number must be stated in all advertisements of the family childcare home" — the only statutory posting duty that reaches a family child care home, and it reaches only the REGISTERED one; § 63-13-1030 ("Statement of registration") the equivalent for church or religious childcare centres and group homes.

The chapter contains no hotline posting duty, no inspection-report posting duty, no menu duty and no ratio duty. Also establishes § 63-13-210(A)-(C) (insurance notice statements kept in a file, "a continuing annual requirement for relicensure"), § 63-13-820(B)(2) (complaint procedures given to parents), § 63-13-825(B) (DSS publishes training compliance on ITS website), § 63-13-840(A) (three-point inspection scope), § 63-13-90 (zoning conditions on the certificate). https://www.scstatehouse.gov/rats2.php — Ratifications/Acts Log for the 126th General Assembly, site-stamped "Current as of August 26, 2026". Swept for the whole 2025-2026 session. No act creates or alters a child care posting duty; no DSS child care regulation was approved by joint resolution in 2025 or 2026. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php — State Register index. Volume 50 (2026) issues 1-7 and Volume 49 (2025) issues 1-12 downloaded and searched: no occurrence of R.114-530 through R.114-537 or of "Family Child Care Home" in any of the nineteen issues. The posting rules quoted here are therefore the rules as adopted by SCSR 48-5 Doc.

No. 5229 effective 24 May 2024 and never since amended. Method note recorded because it nearly produced a false clearance: Register file names are keyed to VOLUME, not year, so Sr26-*.pdf is Volume 26 (2002). Volume 50 is 2026. UNVERIFIED: the physical registration and licence certificates DSS issues to family child care homes. Whether the certificate as printed today contains all five R.114-531C(4) fields, and what the reverse of a provisional certificate looks like, could not be checked — dss.sc.gov (167.7.60.200) and scchildcare.org (167.7.60.191) were unreachable from this environment for the duration of the task, over both curl and the fetch tool. UNVERIFIED: the "Suggested Standards and Guidelines for Operators of Family Child Care Homes", which R.114-531D(4)(k) and F(9)(c) make binding on LICENSED homes. If that document imposes any additional display duty, it is not captured here. A licensed operator should read it; a registered operator is bound by it only to the extent R.114-531A(5)(g)-(i) requires her to have read it and to have given it to parents. UNVERIFIED: DSS inspection checklists and any regional-office practice of asking for postings the regulation does not require.

Nothing in this field asserts what an inspector does beyond what R.114-531G and § 63-13-840(A) say. CONTRADICTION WITH THE BRIEF, STATED AS THE METHOD REQUIRES: the brief listed the most recent inspection report, the abuse and neglect hotline, menus, the discipline policy, the safe sleep policy, the daily schedule, parents' right of unannounced access and a capacity/age-range posting as items to cover as postings. On the text in hand, NONE of them is a posting requirement for a South Carolina family child care home. Each is either a keep-on-file or give-to-parents duty, or a rule the drafter wrote for centres, group homes or church centres and did not carry across. The brief also pointed at "ch. 114-500 et seq." and at a possible Department of Early Childhood Development; the operative sections are R.114-530 to R.114-537 (the 114-500 series governs centres) and the regulator is the Department of Social Services under § 63-13-20(11), as the sibling agency.txt in this folder already establishes.

Verified 2026-08-26. General information, not legal advice and not a guarantee of licensure — confirm with your state’s licensing agency before applying.