Sauk County, WI Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Sauk County's use table in Sec. 7.026 splits child care by headcount rather than licensing status. A child care center for eight or fewer children is a permitted use, subject to a Zoning Administrator land use permit, in the single-family (SFR), multiple-family (MFR), rural community (RUC), exclusive agriculture (EA), agriculture (AG) and resource conservancy (RC) districts, and it must satisfy Sec. 7.051's secondary standards. A center for nine or more children steps up to a conditional use, and only in the commercial (COM) and recreation commercial (RCOM) districts, which requires approval by the Conservation, Planning, and Zoning Committee acting as the county's zoning agency before a permit issues.

The definitional hook that keeps a small home daycare out of the commercial-use track sits in Sec. 7.011(28): a child care center is defined broadly as a place or home caring for four or more children under age seven for less than 24 hours a day, licensed or exempt from licensing, but an eight-or-fewer operation must independently meet the ordinance's definition of an accessory use, meaning it stays subordinate and incidental to the residential use of the lot. Sec. 7.051 then adds two concrete conditions: any outdoor play area must have its boundaries defined by a fence, and a daycare of eight or fewer must remain incidental to the residential use of the property rather than becoming the primary use of the lot.