About CareLookup

Why this exists

When we were looking for our first childcare spot, I assumed inspection history would be a quick search away. It wasn't. Every state runs its own portal — some behind reCAPTCHA, some buried in PDFs, some that only let you search one county at a time, some that quietly forget the last three years of records. Searching ten facilities in a single afternoon meant learning ten different interfaces. CareLookup is the tool I wanted to exist: one search box, one format, across every state we can reach.

How the data works

We aggregate public records from the official state agencies that license childcare facilities — Socrata/SODA feeds where they exist, ArcGIS and CKAN endpoints where they don't, and HTML scrapers where a state still only publishes records through a web form. Each source is updated on its own cadence (weekly for most, daily for a few, quarterly for others), and we re-ingest automatically. Every facility page links back to the original state record so you can verify what you see.

Today we cover 49 states and DC — about 242,536 licensed childcare facilities in total — with full inspection and violation histories for 24 of them. See the Data Sources page for a state-by-state breakdown.

What's included

• Licensed facility names, addresses, phone numbers, and capacity
• Current licensing status and license numbers where published
• Inspection dates and results for covered states
• Violation codes, descriptions, and severity ratings where published
• Quality rating scores (Keystone STARS, YoungStar, SUTQ, Colorado Shines)

What's not included

• Tuition, waitlists, enrollment openings, and other private business data
• Unlicensed or license-exempt providers (some states exempt certain religious, in-home, or school-based programs)
• Inspection narratives for states that only publish counts or dates
• Complaint details where the state redacts them by law (e.g. Indiana home addresses)
• NYC daycare centers — those are regulated by DOHMH, not OCFS

Accuracy and limitations

CareLookup is a mirror, not a primary source. If a state publishes incorrect or outdated information, we'll reflect it until the state corrects it. The lag between a real-world inspection and when it appears here ranges from a few days (Texas, Connecticut) to several weeks (states with manual uploads). States occasionally change schemas, move portals, or take them offline entirely — when that happens, coverage for that state may pause.

If you believe a record is wrong, please verify against the source agency linked on each facility page. We aren't affiliated with any state agency, childcare provider, or licensing body, and we have no ability to change the underlying records.