Grays Harbor County, WA Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

The county code defines a home day care at § 17.08.010 as a facility in the family dwelling of the childcare licensee providing regularly scheduled care for twelve or fewer children, ages birth through eleven, for less than twenty-four hours at a time; the licensed capacity counts any children who already live at the dwelling. That definition ties the zoning-level cap to the same twelve-child ceiling Washington uses to license a family child care home, so a provider licensed for more than twelve kids no longer fits the county's home day care category and instead becomes a child day care center, which the code separates out and does not list as a by-right use anywhere in Title 17.

Because home day care is written into the permitted-uses section of Chapter 17.28 (R-1), 17.32 (R-2), 17.36 (R-3), 17.40 (RR), 17.42 (LQ) and the two agricultural chapters, 17.12 (A-1) and 17.16 (A-2), a family running one inside a single-family dwelling in unincorporated Grays Harbor County does not need a conditional use permit, a variance, or a board of adjustment hearing before opening. Planning and Building still requires whatever building permit applies to any interior alteration, and state DSHS licensing runs on its own separate track, but the zoning code itself imposes no additional setback, parking, or hours-of-operation condition on a home day care the way it does on conditional home uses like veterinary clinics or auto repair.