Daycare contract template: what a home daycare enrollment contract needs

Updated 2026-10-15

Clause by clause, what to write

1. Who is agreeing. Your business name and your name as provider, each parent or guardian by full name and contact details, and the child's first and last name. Do not add a birth date or health details; a contract does not need them.
2. Start date and schedule. The first day of care, the days and hours the child is expected, and what happens when the schedule changes (how much notice, and whether a change needs your agreement).
3. Tuition. The amount, whether it is weekly or monthly, the due date, how you accept payment, and whether you charge for days the child is absent, for vacations and for holidays you are closed. The most common source of arguments is tuition you thought was owed and a parent thought was not, so say it in numbers.
4. Fees. A registration fee if you charge one, the late payment fee and when it starts, and the late pickup fee with its grace period and how it is counted (per minute, per block of time).
5. Handbook reference. One sentence saying the parent has received your parent handbook for the policy year, and that its policies are part of the agreement. This ties the two documents together.
6. Ending the agreement. How much written notice each side gives, whether tuition is owed for the notice period, and the short list of reasons you may end care immediately (for example, unpaid tuition past a stated date).
7. Signatures and date. Both parents if both are named, and you. A typed name with a record of the date, time and document version works for an electronic signature; keep a copy that shows which version was signed.

Free contract templates exist, including a free one at daycareenrollmentforms.com, and state agencies publish samples in some states. Use any of them as a checklist. If you start from one, read every line and change what does not match how you actually run your program. A clause you do not follow is worse than no clause.

Why the contract and the handbook should match

Most disputes are a mismatch: the contract says one thing about late pickup and the handbook says another, or the handbook changed after the family signed. Keep one source for each policy, state the policy year on both documents, and when a policy changes, have every family acknowledge the new version. Your state's licensing rules may also require certain written policies to be given to parents at enrollment. Check your own rules or ask your licensing agency; we cannot tell you whether a particular document meets them.