How to check whether a California care home is licensed
Every legal assisted-living or board-and-care home in California holds a residential-care (RCFE) license from the Department of Social Services, and its record — status, capacity, inspections, complaints — is public. You can verify a home in about a minute: search our free copy of the state roster, then confirm anything consequential against the state’s own lookup. The records behind this page were last refreshed July 17, 2026 (CDSS public records).
Check a home now — free · search by facility name or license number. No sign-up, nothing gated. Or browse the full directory.
How do I look up a care home’s license?
Search by the home’s name — or better, its license number, which appears on its admission paperwork. Our search covers the full state roster: 8,384 currently licensed homes plus closed and pending records, 8,989 in all (July 17, 2026). Each facility page shows license status, licensed capacity, care clearances, and dated inspection history. For anything consequential, confirm against the primary source: the state’s own CCLD Care Facility Search.
- Search Covelight Care by facility name or license number — free, no sign-up.
- Open the home’s facility page: status, capacity, dementia/hospice/non-ambulatory clearances, and inspection reports, each with its date and source.
- Confirm at the state’s Care Facility Search — the CDSS system our records are built from.
- If the home doesn’t appear under any spelling, ask the operator for their license number. Every legal RCFE has one.
What do the license statuses mean?
California’s roster uses a short vocabulary. On our copy of the state record (July 17, 2026): 8,333 homes are Licensed, 41 are Licensed/Pending Increase (adding capacity), 10 hold a Probationary License, and 605 records are Closed for various reasons. The table gives each status in the state’s own wording, with a plain-language meaning (source: CDSS roster).
| Status (state’s wording) | Records | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed | 8,333 | Holds a current license to operate. |
| Closed, Change Of Ownership | 334 | Closed under this license number; the home may continue under a new owner’s new license number. |
| Closed, Licensee Initiated | 218 | The operator closed the facility or surrendered the license. |
| Licensed/Pending Increase | 41 | Licensed and operating; an application to increase licensed capacity is pending. |
| Closed, Change Of Location | 28 | Closed because the facility moved; look for a new license at the new address. |
| Closed, Agency Initiated | 24 | The state closed the license. |
| Probationary License | 10 | The state has placed conditions on the license; the home may operate while it meets them. Read its inspection history before deciding. |
| Closed, Non-payment | 1 | License closed for non-payment of licensing fees. |
What’s in a state inspection report?
Three kinds of documents, all public. Our roster carries 74,208 state reports across 7,938 facilities (July 17, 2026): 29,034 inspection reports from routine and follow-up visits, 21,952 complaint reports, and 23,222 other administrative documents. Complaint reports state the allegation and the state’s own finding — substantiated, unsubstantiated, or unfounded — and serious violations are cited as Type A (immediate health-and-safety risk) or Type B (less serious). We publish these verbatim, attributed to the state.
Which statuses deserve a closer look?
Read closely, not fearfully — the record tells you what happened and when. Two statuses warrant extra attention on the roster of July 17, 2026: Probationary License (10 homes statewide) means the state has imposed conditions on the license, and Closed, Agency Initiated (24 records) means the state itself closed the license. On any facility page, substantiated complaints and Type A citations are the items to read in full — we show the state’s narrative word for word so you can judge the facts yourself.
Where does this data come from?
Every record comes from the California Department of Social Services’ Community Care Licensing Division — the agency that licenses and inspects RCFEs — via its public roster and facility systems. We refresh on a weekly cycle; the records behind this page were refreshed July 17, 2026. We add nothing and hide nothing: no scores, no pay-to-list, and unknowns display as “not on file.” Full method on our methodology page; spotted an error? Use corrections.