Jackson County, MS Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Article 2 of the Zoning Ordinance defines a Family Child Care Home as an occupied residence that regularly provides shelter and personal care to five or fewer children under thirteen who are not related to the provider within the third degree of civil law, for any part of a 24-hour day; these homes may voluntarily register with the Mississippi State Department of Health. A Group Child Care Home is the same setup scaled to six to fifteen children, with related children counted toward space and staffing but excluded from the licensed total.

Table 5-2, Allowed Uses and Permitted Requirements for Low and Medium Density Residential Zones, lists 'Child care facility' (which covers both home types) as 'R', Permitted on Review, in the A-1, A-2, A-3, R-1, R-1A, R-1B, R-2 and R-3 districts and in Planned Unit Developments. 12, not a by-right home occupation. The table carries no entry for the use in R-4 High-Density Residential or R-5 Residential Estates, so a child care facility is not an available use in those two districts at all. A facility limited to a kindergarten, nursery school or Head Start operated by a school system is exempted from the child-care definition and instead follows Mississippi State Board of Health space standards and the current building code, not the Special Exception process.

In the county's commercial and industrial district table, 'Child Care Facility' carries no permitted-use mark in any of the C-1 through I-3 districts, so a stand-alone commercial child care center outside a residential district needs its own zoning review.