The short version

Licensing rules don’t change on their own — a bill changes them. As of August 26, 2026, the
current legislative sessions of all 50 states contain 190,735 bills, and our
screening — keyword and scoring filters tuned to the ten licensed trades we cover, from
daycares to salons to tree services — flags 719 of them as touching those
businesses’ licensing, insurance, bonds, fees, or qualifications.

Where they are, and what they’re about:

The fifteen busiest statehouses for small-business licensing

Two different stories hide in the same table. Illinois leads on volume — 100 bills, more
than the bottom twenty states combined. But Kentucky’s short 2026 session is the most
concentrated: 1 of every 60 bills filed in Frankfort touches a licensed small trade,
nearly ten times New York’s rate. A high-volume legislature is not necessarily the one paying
the most attention to these businesses.

What the bills are about: child care dominates

Classifying the 719 bills by the trade they touch (a bill can touch more than one):

More than half the docket is child care. That matches what has actually been
passing: the last two years produced home-daycare zoning preemptions in three states
(our report) and New
Hampshire’s newly permanent statutory staffing ratios and waiver
(our
report). Cosmetology is the second-most legislated trade — licensure compacts,
hour-requirement changes, and board reorganizations account for much of it.

How to read this honestly

• “Touching” is our screen, not a legal category. A bill counts when its
  title, description, or latest action matches our keyword and scoring filters for the trades we
  cover, above a noise threshold. The filters are broader for some trades than others — part
  of child care’s lead reflects how much child care legislation announces itself in bill titles.
• Sessions differ. Some legislatures are in long two-year sessions (New York’s
  25,313 bills); eight states’ current sessions hold fewer than 900 bills (Arkansas’s is 279, Wyoming’s
  335) — which is why the per-1,000 column exists. Washington, D.C. is not included in this
  sweep.
• A bill existing is not a law. For a WC employee-threshold tracker (distinct from this licensing index), see workers’ comp threshold bills by state. A bill existing is not a law. Most of these 719 will die. The point of the
  index is where legislative attention is concentrated, not what has passed — when something
  does pass that changes a fact we publish, it becomes a story like the two linked above.

Methodology

Bill data from LegiScan‘s master lists for each state’s
current session, retrieved August 26, 2026 (LegiScan data is licensed
CC BY 4.0). Screening: our own
keyword-classification and scoring pass matching bill titles, descriptions, and latest actions
against the ten licensed trades covered by our state guides, plus general licensing, insurance,
and bonding terms; bills scoring below a noise floor are excluded. Counts are of bills in the
current session as of the retrieval date, not bills passed. We plan to update this index
quarterly. For curated sales tax on services and contractor/trade license threshold or scope bills (not a volume reprint), see sales tax on services & contractor license bills by state (as of September 16, 2026).

The post The Statehouse Licensing Index: 719 Bills Touching Small Service Businesses, Led by Illinois — and Kentucky’s Outsized Docket appeared first on StartBusinessByState.com.

The short version

If you run a licensed child care program in New Hampshire — or you are opening one —
the staffing numbers you must meet for children under three are set by the legislature, not the
Department of Health and Human Services. That arrangement began in 2024 and was temporary by design:
the statute carried its own repeal date of December 31, 2026, after which staffing standards would
have returned to department rulemaking.

House Bill 1771 removed that repeal date. Governor Ayotte signed it on May 28, 2026, as Chapter 98;
it took effect July 27, 2026. Three things are now permanent that were about to disappear:

• The statutory group sizes and staffing levels for children from 6 weeks to
  35 months (the table below);
• The waiver — any licensed provider may apply, there is no fee, no limit on
  the number of waivers statewide, and the department “shall not deny a waiver unless there is a
  documented cause”;
• Annual accountability — the department must now report waiver counts to
  legislative leadership every year, not just once.

And one thing is new: the department must send licensed providers an annual notice that the waiver
option exists — a provision that only makes sense if lawmakers concluded providers did not know.

The staffing numbers now permanently in statute

RSA 170-E:11, I(c) sets both a maximum group size and tiered minimum staffing for each age band:

For children three and older, staffing standards remain where they have always been — in the
department’s licensing rules, not the statute.

How the ratios got into statute: the 2024 law

Until 2024, New Hampshire’s staffing ratios lived entirely in DHHS licensing rules. House Bill 1407
— Chapter 197 of 2024, titled simply “relative to child care staffing ratios” —
moved the infant and toddler numbers into RSA 170-E:11 itself and attached the waiver system.
Section 197:3 of that law scheduled the whole subparagraph to be repealed on December 31, 2026,
which made the statutory ratios a two-year experiment with an expiration date.

The New Hampshire statutes website still displays both versions side by side: the current
subparagraph with the group sizes and waiver, and the post-repeal version that would have reduced the
provision to a single line — “The number of individuals or staff required to insure
adequate supervision and care of the children received” — handing the numbers back to
department rulemaking. Chapter 98 means the second version never takes over.

The waiver: approval is the default

The waiver provision is the unusual part of New Hampshire’s design, and it is worth reading in the
statute’s own words:

“Any licensed child care provider may apply for a one year waiver under this
paragraph. The department shall not deny a waiver unless there is a documented cause for such denial.
The definition of documented cause shall be established in rules adopted by the department. There
shall be no limit on the number of waivers, and there shall be no fee for the application for or
renewal of a waiver. Waivers may be renewed annually.”

Most licensing waivers put the burden on the provider to justify relief. New Hampshire inverts
that: the default is approval, and it is the denial that requires documentation. There is no
application fee, no statewide cap, and a granted waiver can be renewed every year.

Chapter 98 adds a notice obligation on top:

“The department shall provide an annual notice to licensed child care providers of
the option to request a waiver of the child care staffing requirements established under this
subparagraph.”

What the waiver has actually been used for — the numbers exist, but not publicly

The 2024 law required DHHS to report the number of waivers applied for, granted, and denied to the
speaker of the house and the senate president by November 1, 2025, with what was originally a final
report due November 1, 2026. Chapter 98 struck the word “final” and made the report
annual. We could not locate a published copy of the interim report; the counts go to legislative
leadership rather than into a public docket. Anyone weighing what the waiver means in practice
— including how “documented cause” is being applied — currently has to
request those numbers from the department.

What this means if you are opening a daycare in New Hampshire

The numbers you staff to are stable now. Anyone budgeting a New Hampshire infant
room in 2025 had to plan around the possibility that the statutory scheme — and the waiver
— would vanish on December 31, 2026, putting staffing standards back into department
rulemaking with an unknown outcome. That uncertainty is gone: the group sizes in the table above are
the law until the legislature changes them.

The waiver is part of your planning math, whether or not you use it. A provider
who cannot hire a third staffer for an infant room has a statutory relief valve with no fee, a
presumption of approval, and annual renewal. Whether relying on it is good practice for your program
is a separate question from whether it is available — but it is available, permanently, and
starting this year the department is required to tell you so.

Staffing is one requirement among many. Licensing in New Hampshire still covers
premises, background checks, teacher qualifications (the statute sets the associate-teacher minimum
at 1,000 supervised hours plus 30 hours of training in child growth and development), and the rest of
the department’s rules. Our New
Hampshire daycare guide walks through the full licensing path, and the
state-by-state daycare index covers the other
50 jurisdictions. New Hampshire’s child care rules have been moving in one direction across several
sessions — the state also made home daycares a by-right residential use in 2026, covered in our
report on home daycare
zoning laws.

Sources

• HB1771 (2026), version adopted by both bodies, enrolled amendment 2026-1795EBA —
  text at the NH General Court
• HB1771 bill status and docket — Chapter 98, signed by Governor Ayotte May 28, 2026, effective July 27, 2026 —
  NH General Court bill status
• RSA 170-E:11 (current text, showing both the current and formerly scheduled versions of paragraph I(c)) —
  NH statutes online
• HB1407 (2024), “relative to child care staffing ratios,” Chapter 197 of 2024 —
  NH General Court bill status
• Bill discovery via LegiScan. LegiScan data is licensed
  CC BY 4.0; statutory and bill text above
  was read from the state’s own published text, not from LegiScan.

The post New Hampshire Makes Its Child Care Staffing Ratios — and the Waiver Around Them — Permanent appeared first on StartBusinessByState.com.

The short version

If you want to open a daycare in your own home, meeting the state licensing requirements has
never been the whole fight. You can satisfy every ratio, inspection and background check the state
asks for and still be stopped by your city’s zoning office — or by your HOA — after
you have already spent the money.

Three states have now taken some of that power away from local government. Each did it
differently, and the differences matter a great deal depending on where you live.

Tennessee: home daycare is residential property, full stop

Tennessee’s law has been in force the longest — since July 1, 2025, now thirteen months.
Public Chapter 276 tells local government it has no separate category to put you in:

“a local governing authority shall treat a child care family home as residential
property in the application of local regulations, including: (A) Zoning; (B) Land use
development; and (C) Sanitation.”

And it closes the obvious loophole of a city agreeing you are residential but insisting you are
not single-family residential:

“For zoning purposes, ‘residential property use’ includes
single-family residential zoning.”

The statute also bars a local authority from imposing “any additional regulations that do
not apply to other residential properties,” or fire requirements stricter than the state
division of fire prevention’s.

It applies to a “child care family home,” which the act defines as a family child
care home “operated in an occupied residential dwelling” — you have to actually
live there.

For everything else a Tennessee provider needs — DHS licensing steps, ratios, background checks, fees and timelines — see our full guide to starting a daycare in Tennessee.

New Mexico: the broadest of the three, and the only one that reaches HOAs

New Mexico’s SB96 passed the Senate 25–13 and the House 41–23, was signed March 10,
2026 as Chapter 62, and took effect July 1, 2026. It is the most far-reaching child care zoning
law of the three, and by some distance.

“a child care home shall be considered a residential use of property for purposes
of zoning and shall be permitted by right.”

“Permitted by right” is defined in the act itself, which matters — it means a
use that “does not require conditional use approval, special exceptions or permits, variances
or any other discretionary approval.” In plain terms: no going before a board and asking.

New Mexico then does three things the other two do not:

• It bans the fee. A local authority shall not “assess or collect a fee
  or tax for the privilege of operating a child care home.” The act separately amends the
  municipal business licensing statute so that business registration and license fees apply to any
  business “except for a child care facility.”
• It reaches homeowners associations. An association “shall not adopt or
  enforce a restriction, covenant, condition, bylaw, rule, regulation, provision of a governing
  document or master deed provision or take any other action that effectively prohibits,
  unreasonably restricts or limits, directly or indirectly, the use of a lot as a child care
  home.”
• It covers centers too, in commercial zones. A licensed child care center is
  permitted by right in any district zoned commercial, mixed-use or multifamily residential. If a
  city requires drop-off stacking spaces, it may require no more than one space per ten children of
  licensed capacity.

New Mexico also runs the country’s first universal child care program, which changes the demand picture for a new provider. Our guide to starting a daycare in New Mexico covers ECECD licensing, FOCUS TQRIS and the zoning rules above in full.

New Hampshire: by right, but watch the 30-child line

New Hampshire’s HB1195 became Chapter 217. The act sets its own effective date of July 1, 2026;
the governor signed it July 2.

It works on two tracks. Home-based programs — family day care homes and group family day
care homes as defined in RSA 170-E:2 — are allowed by right under RSA 674:16, so long as the
Department of Health and Human Services’ rules (He-C 4002) are met. Separately, RSA 674:81 requires
municipalities to allow a child care center by right on commercially zoned land.

The limit to know: if a center’s licensed capacity exceeds 30 children, local
site plan review is still on the table. New Hampshire also left industrial and manufacturing zones
alone — a municipality may still restrict a center there, unless the center is for the
exclusive use of employees.

Our guide to starting a daycare in New Hampshire walks through DHHS licensing under He-C 4002, including the zoning documentation the application still asks for.

What none of these laws do

This is the part worth reading twice before you sign a lease, because “by right”
does not mean unregulated.

• Building and fire codes still apply everywhere. Tennessee explicitly keeps
  the state fire marshal’s standards. New Hampshire explicitly preserves fire, building, water and
  sewage enforcement.
• Traffic and parking survive. Tennessee’s act says outright that it “does
  not restrict a local governing authority from managing the flow of traffic and parking adjacent to
  a child care family home.” New Mexico caps parking requirements at what a single-family
  residence faces rather than eliminating them.
• New Mexico’s HOA protection is not absolute. An association may still enforce
  rules on parking and traffic, noise and nuisance, safety and security, architectural appearance,
  and use of common elements — provided they apply uniformly to every lot owner and are not
  aimed at child care. The act also states plainly that meeting state licensing
  “shall not exempt a licensed child care home from compliance with association rules that do
  not conflict with those requirements.”
• Tennessee and New Hampshire do not touch HOAs or deed covenants at all. If
  you are in a Tennessee or New Hampshire subdivision with a restrictive covenant, this legislation
  does not help you. Tennessee considered a bill that would have voided such covenants —
  HB1069 — and it died in subcommittee in March 2025, its Senate companion having failed for
  want of a second.

Maryland came within two days

Maryland’s HB1259 would have been the plainest of the lot. Its synopsis: prohibiting a local
jurisdiction “from denying or restricting the operation of certain family child care
homes” that meet state licensing, and requiring localities to designate them “as a
residential activity and as a permitted use.”

It passed the House 91–32 and the Senate 34–12. The two chambers could not reconcile
their amendments, a conference committee was appointed on April 11, 2026, and the session adjourned
two days later. The bill died there. It is not law, and would have to start over.

California is doing something narrower this month

California already requires localities to treat family child care homes as a residential use
under Health & Safety Code §1597.30 et seq., and has for years. Moving through the
legislature now is SB299, which would exempt day care projects on residentially zoned parcels from
California Environmental Quality Act review.

Worth being precise about what that is and isn’t: it removes an environmental review step. It
does not stop a city from denying a permit. As of this writing it has not passed.

California’s existing protections are covered in our guide to starting a daycare in California.

This is not a new idea — it is a spreading one

None of this started in 2025. The Early Learning Policy Group documented eight states with
statutes preempting local zoning barriers for family child care homes as of November 2024 —
California, Connecticut, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington —
several of them decades old. New Jersey’s, for instance, already makes a deed restriction against a
family day care home unenforceable unless the party defending it can prove it is necessary for
health and safety.

What Tennessee, New Mexico and New Hampshire did was join that group, and in New Mexico’s case
go past most of it. If you operate in one of the three, the rules changed underneath you — in
Tennessee, over a year ago.

Zoning is only one of the variables that decides where a home daycare is viable. We rank all 51 jurisdictions on licensing cost, ratios, timelines and demand in the best states to open a daycare.

Frequently asked questions

Can my city still make me get a special use permit for a home daycare?

In New Mexico, no — the act defines “permitted by right” to exclude conditional
use approval, special exceptions, permits and variances. In Tennessee, a local authority may not
impose any regulation that doesn’t apply to other residential properties. In New Hampshire, home-based
care is by right where DHHS rules are met.

Can my HOA stop me from running a daycare out of my house?

In New Mexico, an association may not adopt or enforce anything that effectively prohibits or
unreasonably restricts it — though uniformly applied rules on noise, parking, appearance and
common areas still stand. In Tennessee and New Hampshire, these laws do not address HOAs, so your
declaration and covenants still govern.

Do I still need fire and building inspections?

Yes, in all three states. None of these laws waive building codes, fire safety or sanitation.

Does this apply to a child care center, or only a home?

Tennessee’s provision covers a family child care home operated in an occupied residential
dwelling. New Mexico covers homes in residential zones and centers by right in commercial, mixed-use
and multifamily zones. New Hampshire covers home-based care by right and centers by right on
commercially zoned land, with site plan review still available above 30 children.

When did these take effect?

Tennessee July 1, 2025. New Mexico July 1, 2026. New Hampshire July 1, 2026.

Sources

• Tennessee Public Chapter 276 (2025) —
  enrolled text, TN Secretary of State
• Tennessee HB1069 (114th General Assembly) —
  bill history
• New Mexico SB96, Chapter 62 (2026) —
  enrolled text ·
  action history
• New Hampshire HB1195, Chapter 217 (2026) —
  bill text, NH General Court
• Maryland HB1259 (2026 Regular Session) —
  bill details and vote record
• California SB299 (2025–2026) —
  bill status
• Early Learning Policy Group, “States with Zoning Laws to Reduce Barriers for Family Child
  Care Homes,” November 3, 2024 —
  PDF
• Bill discovery via LegiScan. LegiScan data is licensed
  CC BY 4.0; statutory text above was read
  from each state’s own published enrolled or chaptered text, not from LegiScan.

The post Three States Now Bar Your City From Zoning Out a Home Daycare appeared first on StartBusinessByState.com.