Inspection records · California
What California daycare inspectors cite
California made 77,252 visits to 25,568 daycares since October 2023, about 3 visits for each daycare. Of those, 40,818 were inspections and 3,497 were complaint investigations, so read a daycare's own reports before you tour.
- Daycares visited
- 25,568
- Visits in the records
- 77,252
How it works
How daycare inspections work in California
The California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division, licenses daycare centers and family child care homes and visits them. Routine inspections come without notice, and the division also investigates complaints from parents and the public.
Each visit produces a report in the state's records. DaycarePal shows how many visits California recorded at each daycare; the findings themselves, including any rule an inspector cited, are in the state's reports, which you can open from the daycare's listing or the state's facility search.
- Who inspects: California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division.
- Routine visits: California reported inspecting licensed centers once every three years, without notice (national survey of state licensing agencies, 2017).
- Visits in the records since October 2023: 40,818 inspections, 3,497 complaint investigations, 32,937 other visits, at 25,568 daycares (10,830 centers and 14,738 home daycares).
- Records on each listing go back to: 2021.
On the tour
What to ask when you visit
Start with the basics every inspection covers: ask how many adults and children are in your child's room, how staff watch children at nap time and pick-up, and who may collect your child.
Then ask about health and safety: how medicine is stored and logged, where babies sleep, and when the last fire drill was. If the state's reports show a complaint investigation, ask the director what happened and what changed after it.
The full daycare tour checklist puts these questions on one printable page.
On each listing
How to read a daycare's record
A California listing on DaycarePal shows the state's visits to that daycare since 2021, with the date and type of each one: a routine inspection, a complaint investigation or another kind of visit. Open the state's report for a visit to see what the inspector found.
Look at the kind of visit and the date. A complaint investigation tells you someone raised a concern; the report says whether the state found the complaint supported. A recent visit says more about the daycare today than one from a few years ago.
More detail: how to read a daycare inspection report. Find a daycare's record on its listing from daycares in California, or search the state's records.
Questions
Questions about California daycare inspections
How often are California daycares inspected?
California reported inspecting licensed centers at least once every 3 years, without notice, in a 2017 national survey of state licensing agencies. Since October 2023, the state recorded 77,252 visits at 25,568 daycares, including complaint investigations and other visits.
How do I look up a California daycare's inspection reports?
Open the daycare's listing on DaycarePal, or search the Community Care Licensing records by name, city or ZIP code and open its reports.
Why does this page not list the rules California cites most?
We carry California's visit records but not the cited rules inside each report, so we cannot count them fairly. Each report on the state's site shows what the inspector found.
What is a complaint investigation?
A visit the state makes after someone reports a concern about a daycare. California made 3,497 of them since October 2023; read the report to see whether the concern was supported.
Can I compare California's numbers with another state's?
No. Each state writes its own rules and keeps its records in its own way, so visit counts mean different things from one state to the next. Compare daycares within California instead.
These figures describe California's own inspection records since October 2023. States write and cite their rules in different ways, so a figure here cannot be compared with another state's. A cited rule is one finding at one visit, not a rating of a daycare.
Source: California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division, inspection records October 2023 to September 2026, for the daycares listed on DaycarePal. Inspection schedule: National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations (ACF), from a 2017 survey of state licensing agencies.