Guide · Gates
Senate Bill 164 (2026) imposed a moratorium on new Home Health Agency licenses — the skilled, Medicare-adjacent lane — effective June 29, 2026, with exception requests as the only route (the health department's guidance is AFL-26-28). If your plan was a Medicare-certified home health agency, the door is closed for now and 'exception' is a filing, not a loophole.
The moratorium is not a freeze on home care. California's Home Care Organization license — the non-medical lane, $5,603 state fee, $1M/$3M insurance requirement, $10,000 employee-dishonesty bond — continues to issue through the Department of Social Services. Founders who read 'California froze home care licenses' and stop reading have mixed up the two lanes this whole site exists to separate.
Gates attach to lanes, not to industries. The verdict checker applies California's moratorium only when skilled services are in your mix — the same fact pattern that produces 'cannot open yet' for a home health plan produces a normal license verdict for a non-medical one.
Dataset pages behind this guide: California state page · the full 50-state dataset (checked October 22, 2026).
Guides are general; verdicts are specific. The license checker applies your state's rules to your service mix, and the cost calculator prices your opening from the same dataset this guide cites.
The free checkers give you the verdict and the number. The Kit gives you the working papers: your state's application packet walked through in filing order, the policies-and-procedures binder spec (what your binder must contain — never a boilerplate binder), the administrator self-audit, the insurance & bond spec sheet, the Medicaid gate map, the franchise-vs-independent 10-year worksheets, and the payroll-runway planner.
$49 one-time payment
Included in the $49 HomeCareLicenseCheck Kit
