Michigan · Checked October 22, 2026
Non-medical home care is not state-licensed in Michigan — but the lanes around it are regulated, and the skilled door is a different license.
Checked in part. ABSENCE VERIFIED AS FAR AS AN ABSENCE CAN BE: (1) no home care or home health license appears in Michigan's licensing scheme — LARA licenses facilities such as adult foster care and homes for the aged, not in-home agencies; (2) the skilled lane demonstrably runs on federal Medicare certification with LARA as survey agent only; (3) the non-medical Medicaid lane runs on MDHHS Home Help enrollment, not licensure. Michigan publishes no single 'we do not license home care' sentence on michigan.gov that could be found in this pass, so this is marked partial with the reasoning stated here rather than dressed up as a direct quote. Recheck each session: home care licensure bills are introduced in the Michigan Legislature regularly and none had been enacted as of this check. Anything the state does not publish is printed as "Not published" below — never filled from blogs or consultancy tables. Confirm on the agency page before you budget.
| Item | Michigan |
|---|---|
| License / registration | No state license — Michigan does not license non-medical home care agencies (and has no state home health agency license either) |
| Issued by | None for non-medical home care. Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), Bureau of Survey and Certification, acts only as the federal survey agency for Medicare-certified home health; Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) runs the Medicaid Home Help program — official page |
| Application / initial fee | Not published — No license exists, so there is no state license fee. Any site quoting a Michigan 'home care agency license fee' is inventing it. |
| Renewal | No license, so no renewal fee. |
| Surety bond | No state bond minimum found in the published rules |
| Liability insurance | State sets no minimum |
| Timeline | No state license application or processing time exists for a non-medical agency; a private-pay agency opens with ordinary business formation. Medicaid Home Help agency enrollment through MDHHS/CHAMPS has its own enrollment timeline, which MDHHS does not publish as a fixed number in the sources checked |
| Administrator | No state administrator/owner qualification applies to a private-pay non-medical agency. Oversight enters through payer enrollment instead: Medicaid Home Help providers must enroll and be screened through CHAMPS and meet MDHHS program and background-check requirements. |
| State extras | Ordinary business formation, caregiver background checks (required for Medicaid enrollment; market-standard for private pay), and CHAMPS enrollment compliance. Home Help individual caregiver and agency rates are set by MDHHS, not by a licensing fee schedule. |
| Service | Under this license |
|---|---|
| Companionship & supervision | Covered |
| Homemaker help | Covered |
| Hands-on personal care | Covered |
| Live-in / 24-hour care | Not covered by this license |
| Transportation | Covered |
| Skilled nursing or therapy | Home health license required |
With no license there is also no licensed scope: a non-medical agency must not hold itself out as providing skilled/medical care. Skilled home health in Michigan runs on FEDERAL Medicare certification under 42 CFR Part 484 (CMS-855A enrollment, civil rights clearance, CMS-1561 agreement, and a LARA survey) — Michigan issues no state home health license to attach conditions to.
Not a state license at all: the skilled lane is Medicare certification only, surveyed by LARA's Bureau of Survey and Certification on behalf of CMS. Note the trap in MCL 333.20141: it says a 'health facility or agency' needs a state license — but home care / home health agencies are not among the health facilities and agencies Michigan actually licenses under that article, which is why no license is available or required for them.
MDHHS Home Help program (Medicaid personal care: ADL and IADL help) — providers enroll through CHAMPS, the MDHHS provider enrollment system; agency providers are paid at the MDHHS agency rate. MI Choice waiver is the other Medicaid long-term care route
EVV applies to Medicaid Home Help personal care services in Michigan. Verify the current MDHHS EVV requirements before billing.
The state fee above is one line of the real total. Run the true-cost calculator with Michigan selected — it adds the bond premium, insurance class, screening and the payroll runway your first hires create.
This page is information, not legal advice. Confirm before you file: the agency — not this page — decides your application.
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
