Austin, TX Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Austin's Land Development Code treats a small in-home daycare as an accessory use that comes automatically with a residential zoning designation, not as a conditional use requiring Land Use Commission review. Sec. 25-2-893(C) lists child care services (limited) use among the uses a homeowner may run alongside a principal residential use without a separate zoning case, alongside home occupations, garage sales, and keeping household pets. The size cutoff that keeps a home daycare in this by-right category comes from the use definition at Sec. 25-2-6(B)(8): child care services (limited) means care for less than 24 hours a day for 12 or fewer children under 18, or others eligible for child care under federal or state law, and covers nursery schools, preschools, and similar day care operations while excluding accredited primary or secondary schools.

Cross a threshold of more than 12 children on-site and the operation becomes a child care services (general) use under Sec. 25-2-6(B)(7), which is not listed as a permitted residential accessory use and instead needs its own zoning review as a civic use. Because child care services (limited) is authorized directly under Sec. 25-2-893(C)(9), it is a distinct accessory use from a home occupation under Sec. 25-2-900, so the three-customer-vehicle-trip cap that applies to home occupations does not attach to a licensed limited child care use by its zoning text.

Operators still need the separate state child-care license the operation's size and hours trigger before opening; the zoning code only controls whether the use is allowed on the lot in the first place.