How to Open a Daycare Centre in Manitoba

The short answer

A daycare centre in Manitoba is a licensed facility, not a home business: you attend an information session run by the Early Learning and Child Care Division, file a Manitoba child care licence application, staff the centre with workers who hold a Manitoba ECE classification, and run the rooms to the ratios and group sizes in the regulations. All licensed child care in Manitoba follows The Community Child Care Standards Act and its regulations, which set minimum standards for supervision, staff qualifications, space, equipment, health and safety, nutrition, programming, and behaviour management. This guide covers centres only. The home model — family and group child care homes run from the provider's own home — is a different licence with different rules, and it is covered in our How to Start a Home Daycare in Manitoba guide.

1. Start with the information session

To apply to licence an early learning and child care centre in Manitoba, all interested applicants must register and attend an information session provided by the Early Learning and Child Care Division, and then complete and submit a Manitoba child care licence application. The session explains licensed child care in Manitoba and what applicants need to know to prepare their application. To sign up, call Child Care Information Services at 204-945-0776 or toll-free at 1-888-213-4754, or email cdcinfo@gov.mb.ca.

Before you apply, the Division also encourages applicants to visit existing early learning and child care centres and talk with operators, conduct a community feasibility study, get informed about legislation requirements including staffing, zoning, fire, and public health requirements, assess financial viability, select a site and work on a design plan, establish budgeting and accounting practices, and write policies and procedures. Do this groundwork before you commit to a lease: a site that cannot pass zoning, fire, or public health requirements cannot be licensed, and the licence application goes in after the session, not before it.

2. File the licence application

Submit a Manitoba child care licence application to the Early Learning and Child Care Program. There are two types of licences for child care facilities in Manitoba: a regular licence and a provisional licence, and a licence may also carry exemptions. A regular licence is issued for up to one year and states that the facility meets minimum government standards for supervision, environments, health, safety, and behaviour management; it shows the maximum number and ages of children that may be cared for at one time, and it must be posted in the facility where parents and visitors can easily see it.

A provisional licence means at least one area does not meet the required minimum standards, and those areas are written directly on the licence for parents and visitors to see. It gives the provider a chance to work towards meeting all the standards while staying open, and once the standards are met the facility may become eligible for a regular licence. An exemption means the centre does not meet a licensing requirement but has a plan in place to meet it — for example, a temporary exemption may be granted if the centre does not have the required number of trained staff but has an approved plan for current staff in training.

Licensed facilities are inspected by provincial government staff on an ongoing basis to make sure child care standards are met. If a serious violation needs action immediately, the program issues a licensing order, and if it is not corrected the licence may be suspended or cancelled and the facility may close.

3. Staff the centre to the classification rules

In Manitoba, all early learning and child care staff are classified based on their education before working in licensed child care facilities. Anyone seeking paid employment or a volunteer position in a licensed early learning and child care centre or group child care home must hold a Manitoba classification level before beginning work. There are three levels:

• Child Care Assistant (CCA). Entry-level credentials for residents of Canada; no post-secondary education specific to early childhood education is needed. Within the first year of employment, child care assistants must complete a 40-hour post-secondary training course related to early childhood education.
• Early Childhood Educator (ECE) II. Needs a degree or diploma specific to early childhood education with a minimum of 1,800 to 2,000 study hours, including 520 hours of practicum, through a recognized early childhood education program at a Manitoba post-secondary institution. ECE II classification can also be obtained through the ECE II Assessment Program.
• Early Childhood Educator (ECE) III. Needs a current ECE II classification and an additional credential above the diploma level, such as a recognized post-diploma program approved by the Child Care Qualifications and Training Committee.

There is no charge for classification. Staff apply through the Child Care Worker Classification Application — online for a CCA, or by fillable PDF form for ECE II or III, educational review, upgrade, or re-issue — and submit it by email to cdccertificate@gov.mb.ca, by mail to Early Learning and Child Care Division, Attention: Qualifications Services, 210-114 Garry Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 4V4, or in person at 1st floor reception, 114 Garry Street, Winnipeg. Applicants with certification from another province can apply under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement route. Upon employment in a Manitoba child care facility, all child care workers must confirm their status in Canada and complete a criminal record check and a child abuse registry check.

The proportion of trained staff is set by the regulations, not by the centre. For infant and preschool early learning and child care centres, at least two-thirds of the staff must be classified at the ECE II or III level, and directors must be classified at the ECE III level at the time of licensing. For school-age centres, at least half of the staff must be classified at the ECE II or III level, and directors must be classified at the ECE II or III level at the time of licensing. For nursery schools operating four or more part days per week, at least half of the staff must be ECE II or ECE III, and the director must be ECE II or III; operating three or fewer part days per week, one staff person for every 30 licensed spaces must be an ECE II or III, and that person is not required to be the director.

4. Run the rooms to the ratios and group sizes

The regulations state the maximum number of children that one staff person at a child care centre may be responsible for, and the maximum number of children in one group. For a full-time centre where children are cared for in mixed age groupings during most of the operating hours:

Trained staff in that table means ECE II or ECE III. The 1:10 nursery-school ratio also applies to kindergarten children. Where children are cared for in separate age groupings rather than mixed ones, the regulations set finer ratios by narrower age bands, so check the regulation table for the grouping your centre will actually run. Centres that provide care for infants must meet extra licensing requirements for the health, safety, and well-being of very young children, and centres providing evening or weekend care must meet extra licensing requirements for those hours.

The regulations also set standards for space, equipment, health, safety, and nutrition. Facility staff must have current first-aid training that includes CPR for children, and every licensed facility has an enhanced safety plan and a code of conduct covering how to keep children safe, deal with emergencies, respond to threatening behaviours, control and monitor who enters the facility, and care for children with additional support needs.

5. Funding: the operating grant, the fees, and the subsidy

The Manitoba government does not operate child care services directly. Instead, it provides operating grants to eligible child care facilities and sets maximum fee limits for those facilities. The main grant provided to early learning and child care centres is the annual operating grant. Centres that are eligible for operating grant funding must be incorporated as non-profit organizations or cooperatives, and must meet criteria of governance, board composition, and financial accountability. Other grants that may be available include start-up grants to purchase equipment, one-time funding, and funding related to in-training, capital projects, children with additional support needs, and staffing needs related to their care. Licensed centres are run by a board of directors or an owner-operator, and the board carries the financial management of the facility, including budget planning.

A facility that receives a provincial operating grant is called a funded facility, and funded facilities must follow the regulation that sets out the maximum fees that can be charged to families. The maximum daily fees, effective September 13, 2026, are:

Parents of children enrolled in infant, nursery, and preschool programs pay $10 a day per child for regular hours of care (4 to 10 hours) at licensed facilities that receive operating grants, and the same $10 a day applies to school-age children attending for three periods per day and to school-age care on non-school days, including in-service days and school holidays. Families do not need to apply for these rates — families with children enrolled at licensed and funded facilities are eligible for the affordable rates without applying. A facility that chooses not to receive a provincial operating grant is called an unfunded facility and can set its own fees, but an unfunded facility cannot charge a subsidized family more than the maximum daily fees in the Child Care Regulation (M.R. 62/86).

The government also provides subsidies for eligible families to help pay for child care fees, through the Child Care Subsidy Program, which continues alongside the $10-a-day rates so that cost is not a barrier to quality early learning and child care.

Since September 13, 2026, eligible families under the Child Care Subsidy Program pay nothing: both the family contribution and the non-subsidized daily fee were eliminated for all eligible families, so child care is free for them at a licensed facility. Eligibility is still based on the reason for care and the calculations in the Child Care Regulation (M.R. 62/86), including annual household income, allowable family deductions, and the number and ages of children. An approval lasts from six months up to one year, and families must reapply before it expires — late applications can only be backdated in limited circumstances. Applications take up to 6 to 8 weeks to assess, and families can check whether they may be eligible with the province's Subsidy Eligibility Estimator before applying. As an operator, expect subsidized families to arrive with an approval letter stating their approval period and their allowable absent days: subsidy covers absent days up to 15 per cent of the days in the approval period, and families are billed for absent days beyond that. When you open, decide up front whether the centre will be funded or unfunded: funded status sets your fees and opens the operating grant, while unfunded status leaves fees to you but still caps what subsidized families can be charged.

What the opened pages do not state

The opened Manitoba pages do not state a fee for the centre licence application, a processing time for the application, or the space figure in square metres per child, so this guide states none of those — the space requirements sit in the Best Practices Licensing Manual for Early Learning and Child Care Centres and the regulation, and the opened pages give no number to quote. The opened pages do not state the subsidy program's income thresholds or the amounts of the start-up and capital grants, so this guide states neither — check the current subsidy and grant pages before you budget. The opened pages also do not state how long the information session runs or how often sessions are held, so this guide gives no session schedule. This guide gives no advice on whether a centre will be viable in a given community — that is what the feasibility study in step 1 is for.

Related guides

• How to Start a Daycare in Canada — the national daycare guide, with the shared ground for opening a daycare anywhere in Canada.
• How to Start a Home Daycare in Manitoba — the Manitoba home model: family and group child care homes run from the provider's own home.
• How to Open a Daycare Centre in Ontario — the same business under Ontario's licensing system.
• How to Open a Daycare Centre in British Columbia — the same business under British Columbia's licensing system.
• How to Register a Business in Manitoba: Companies Office Name Reservation and the $105 Total — registering the business behind the centre with the Manitoba Companies Office.

Sources

• Government of Manitoba, Centre-Based Child Care — the information session as a requirement for all applicants, the licence application, the Community Child Care Standards Act, the Best Practices Licensing Manual, the annual operating grant and non-profit or cooperative eligibility, and the board's financial management role.
• Government of Manitoba, A Guide to Child Care in Manitoba — the two licence types and their terms, the staff-to-child ratios and group sizes, the trained-staff proportions, the family and group home limits used for the comparison, first-aid training including CPR for children, and the safety plan and code of conduct.
• Government of Manitoba, Information on the Classification of Early Childhood Educators and Child Care Assistants — the CCA, ECE II, and ECE III levels, the 1,800-to-2,000 study hours including 520 practicum hours, the 40-hour CCA course in the first year, no charge for classification, the Canadian Free Trade Agreement route, the criminal record and child abuse registry checks on employment, and the director classification rules.
• Government of Manitoba, Child Care Fees — funded and unfunded facilities, the maximum daily fee schedule effective September 13, 2026, and the rule that an unfunded facility cannot charge a subsidized family more than the maximum daily fees.
• Government of Manitoba, $10 a Day Child Care — the $10-a-day rates for infant, nursery, preschool, and school-age care, the funded-facility requirement, no application needed for families, and the Child Care Subsidy Program continuing alongside the reduced fees.
• Government of Manitoba, Child Care Subsidy FAQ — free child care for eligible families from September 13, 2026, eligibility based on the Child Care Regulation, approval periods of six months to one year, 6-to-8-week processing, the Subsidy Eligibility Estimator, and the 15 per cent allowable absent days rule.