Illinois Day Care License Search (IL DCFS)

Search the official Illinois Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS) licensed day care provider database — the state's licensing source of truth for day care centers, home day cares, and group day care homes, covering all ~8,500 licensed providers statewide.

Every record comes straight from the DCFS Sunshine licensing system, including license status, day & night capacity, ages served, languages spoken, full address, county, and phone number.

What you get

• ✅ License verification — current status (License issued, Pending renewal, Refuse to Renew, Pending revocation, etc.)
• 🏠 Provider profile — DBA name, DCFS provider ID, facility type, full address, county, ZIP, phone
• 👶 Care details — day/night licensed capacity, day/night age ranges, languages spoken
• 🗂️ Statewide coverage — filter by city, county, ZIP prefix, name, type, or status; or pull the entire state database in one run
• 🎯 Direct lookup — fetch a single provider by exact DCFS provider ID

Use cases

• Childcare marketplaces & SaaS — license verification and enrichment for Illinois day care providers
• Lead generation — licensed provider lists by city/county with phone numbers and capacity
• Insurance underwriting & compliance — screen providers for license status before quoting
• Franchise & site-selection research — provider density and capacity by county or ZIP
• Parent-facing apps — surface licensed-only providers with ages served and languages spoken

Input

Field	Description
facilityType	all, center (DCC), home (DCH), or group-home (GDC)
providerName	Full or partial provider / DBA name
city / county	Location filters (case-insensitive)
zipCode	ZIP filter — prefix match, so "606" covers most of Chicago
status	License status substring, e.g. "License issued", "Pending renewal"
providerId	Exact DCFS provider ID → returns that single provider
maxResults	Cap on returned records (default 100, 0 = no cap / full state)

Example: day care centers in Chicago

{
    "facilityType": "center",
    "city": "Chicago",
    "maxResults": 100
}

Example: all licensed providers in DuPage County

{
    "county": "DuPage",
    "status": "License issued",
    "maxResults": 0
}

Example: verify one provider by ID

{
    "providerId": "001887"
}

Output

One record per provider:

{
    "providerId": "003665",
    "name": "CALVARY CHILDREN'S CENTER",
    "facilityTypeCode": "DCC",
    "facilityType": "Day Care Center",
    "status": "License issued (IL)",
    "street": "9S200 ROUTE 59",
    "city": "NAPERVILLE",
    "county": "DUPAGE",
    "zipCode": "60564",
    "phone": "6303758700",
    "dayAgeRange": "6W TO 5Y",
    "nightAgeRange": null,
    "dayCapacity": 68,
    "nightCapacity": 0,
    "languages": ["ENGLISH"],
    "state": "IL",
    "source": "Illinois DCFS Sunshine Day Care Provider Lookup",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-08-17T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Why this Actor

• Official state source — data comes directly from the DCFS licensing system, not a third-party aggregator
• Complete — every run pulls the full current statewide export, so results are never truncated by site pagination
• Fast — a full statewide pull completes in seconds
• No login, no API key — just run it

Notes

• Data is refreshed by DCFS continuously; each run fetches the live export.
• Provider names, cities, and counties are stored UPPERCASE in the state system; filters here are case-insensitive.
• This Actor covers licensed providers only — license-exempt providers are not in the DCFS lookup.