What permits do you need to open a childcare centre in New Orleans?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 10 records listed for a childcare centre in New Orleans, LA, 5 apply to every business of this type and 5 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 5 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $190.00. That is a floor, not a total. 5 of the 10 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 1 has no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Occupational Licence Tax — Retail Dealers in Merchandise, Services and Rentals: $50–$6,200 a year, by gross receipts bracket under Table 1

Commercial Building Permit: $60 base plus $5 per $1,000 of construction value. Plan review, where required, adds $1 per $1,000 (minimum $60); a re-review after a required resubmission is $0.50 per $1,000 (minimum $45). Demolition is $95 base plus $5 per $1,000 of demolition cost. Unpermitted work is penalised at 200% of all applicable fees. Work reviewed by the Vieux Carré Commission or the Historic District Landmarks Commission adds a flat 50% surcharge to the building permit, plan review, and demolition fees.

Fire Inspection and Plan Review: $50–$650 by building square footage, from $50 for up to 10,000 sq ft up to $650 for 1,150,000–1,200,000 sq ft, plus $25 for each additional 50,000 sq ft beyond that

Conditional Use Permit: $1,160–$4,640 by building size — $1,160 up to 4,999 sq ft, $2,320 for 5,000–24,999, $3,480 for 25,000–74,999, $4,640 for 75,000 and above; a multi-family or townhouse project is $500 to $700 instead

Child Care Licence: $25–$250 a year, banded by licensed capacity

Permits for a childcare centre in New Orleans, LA come from 6 separate offices: City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue, Department of Finance, City of New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits, New Orleans Fire Department, Fire Prevention Division, City of New Orleans City Planning Commission, Louisiana Secretary of State, Commercial Division, Louisiana Department of Education, Early Childhood Division. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue, Department of FinanceIssues 1 permit on this page: Occupational Licence Tax — Retail Dealers in Merchandise, Services and Rentals1300 Perdido Street, Room 1W15, New Orleans, LA 70112www.nola.gov
• City of New Orleans Department of Safety and PermitsIssues 2 permits on this page: Commercial Building Permit, Certificate of Use and Occupancynola.gov
• New Orleans Fire Department, Fire Prevention DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Fire Inspection and Plan Review317 Decatur Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 · (504) 658-4700nola.gov
• City of New Orleans City Planning CommissionIssues 1 permit on this page: Conditional Use Permitnola.gov/conditional-use-request
• Louisiana Secretary of State, Commercial DivisionIssues 4 permits on this page: General Business Licence (not required by Louisiana), Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Report8585 Archives Avenue, Baton Rouge, LA 70809 · (225) 925-4704www.sos.la.gov/business-services/forms-fee-schedule
• Louisiana Department of Education, Early Childhood DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Child Care Licence1201 North 3rd Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70802 · (225) 342-9905doe.louisiana.gov/early-childhood/child-care-facility-licensing

Restaurants, retail stores, and salons are directly named or clearly categorised under Table 1 in the ordinance's own text. Auto repair shops and childcare/day care are not individually named — they are placed here by elimination, since neither appears in the flat-rate professional class (Table 6) and both are plainly retail service businesses; confirm this classification with the Bureau of Revenue before relying on it. A zoning inspection by Safety and Permits, and in some cases a state health department inspection, are required before this licence issues.

A Neighborhood Conservation District application adds $250 (residential) or $500 (commercial) on top of these fees.

No separate fee could be found for a standard Certificate of Occupancy tied to newly completed construction — it may be bundled into the building permit fee, but this is not stated explicitly by the city.

This square-footage schedule is the Fire Prevention Code's general catch-all for any inspection or permit not separately priced, including plan review — it also appears to be where a sprinkler or alarm system permit is billed, though no line item names that permit specifically. One internal reference in the underlying document to '2006 Fire Prevention Code Amendments' raises a real possibility this schedule is dated; confirm with NOFD Fire Prevention (504-658-4700) before relying on it for a large project.

Only triggered where the zoning district does not already permit the intended use as of right. The zoning ordinance's own use table indicates a bar is Conditional Use in a Neighborhood Commercial (C-1) district but permitted outright in C-2/C-3; an animal hospital is permitted everywhere but a boarding kennel is Conditional Use; minor auto repair is Conditional Use in C-1 but permitted in C-2/C-3; and a large child care facility sited in a residential district can require this approval even where one in a commercial district would not. These district-by-district designations were extracted from the zoning ordinance's own published table rather than manually verified cell by cell — confirm for a specific address and use with the City Planning Commission before budgeting for it. The process also requires a public hearing before both the Planning Commission and the City Council, typically taking several months.

No fee, because Louisiana issues no general business licence — its geauxBIZ portal is a filing and registration hub, not a licence itself. It bundles entity formation with the Secretary of State, tax account registration with the revenue department and unemployment insurance registration with the workforce commission, and generates a checklist of whatever industry-specific licences a particular business needs, rather than issuing one licence that covers all of them.

A hundred dollars today, verified directly from the Secretary of State's own live fee page rather than an older archived figure. That figure has a firm expiry date: Act 921 of the 2026 legislative session raises the whole Commercial Division fee schedule on 1 October 2026, taking this to $125. A corporation costs less to form outright, at $75 rising to $95 on the same date — see the corporate registration record.

Seventy-five dollars today, cheaper than an LLC's $100, and rising to $95 on 1 October 2026 under the same statewide fee increase — still cheaper than the LLC's $125 after the change. Louisiana also unusually folds amendments, mergers, dissolutions and corrections into the same fee bracket as new formation rather than pricing them separately.

Thirty dollars a year for an LLC or a corporation alike, rising to $35 under the same 1 October 2026 fee increase that touches formation. It can only be filed within thirty days of the entity's own renewal date, which the Secretary of State notifies individually rather than fixing on one shared calendar date for everyone. A nonprofit's version is a flat $10 regardless of the increase touching the for-profit figures.

Licensing moved out of the family services department into the education department, and the fee scales in four clean steps by capacity: $25 for a centre caring for fifteen or fewer children, $100 for sixteen to fifty, $175 for fifty-one to a hundred, and $250 for anything larger. The threshold for needing a licence at all is precise — a facility caring for seven or more children who are not related to the caregiver needs one; fewer than that falls outside licensing entirely. Statute expressly forbids raising these fees without further legislative authorisation, so they cannot simply be adjusted by rule.