Fountain Valley, CA Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Fountain Valley Municipal Code § 21.30.020 sets the standards for day care facilities in the City of Fountain Valley and says they apply in addition to the rest of Title 21 and to the requirements imposed by the California Department of Social Services. The code splits home-based care into two tiers. A small family day care home provides care, protection, and supervision for eight or fewer children, counting children under ten who live in the home. A large family day care home covers nine to fourteen children, again counting resident children under ten.

Both tiers must sit in a residential zoning district, and the code states for both that no city land use permits or clearances are required. That means a provider in a Fountain Valley R-1, R-2 or R-3 neighborhood does not file a use permit, planning review or zoning clearance with the Planning and Building Department to open at either size.\n\nThe umbrella definition, 'family daycare home', reaches fourteen or fewer children in the provider's own home for periods of less than twenty-four hours per day while parents or guardians are away.

It covers a detached single-family dwelling, a townhouse, a dwelling unit within a dwelling, or a dwelling unit within a covered multi-family dwelling where the underlying zoning allows residential uses. It also covers rented, leased, and owned homes, so a tenant provider is treated the same as an owner. Subsection (b) says permit processing for both sizes follows state law, citing Health and Safety Code Sections 1597.455 and 1597.46, so the state licensing track through the Department of Social Services is the real gate rather than a City permit.

Programs above fourteen children are a different use: the same section treats 'child day care centers' of fifteen or more children as a conditional use permit matter.