- CaliforniaCACalifornia Department of Public Health (standards) — enforced by your local health officerCalifornia runs two separate screening regimes over camps, and most directors only know about one. The camp regulation itself accepts a free public sex-offender website search. A newer law, AB 506, separately requires fingerprint-based checks of staff and regular volunteers at youth service organisations — and its grace period expired on 1 January 2024.California requirements
- ColoradoCOColorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC), Division of Early Learning, Licensing, and AdministrationColorado licenses camps, requires CBI and FBI fingerprints plus a child abuse registry check, and mandates annual abuse-prevention training. But the single most consequential thing to get right here is not any threshold — it is classification. Day camps are not "camps" under Colorado law at all; they are child care centres, and they follow a different rule section with a broader set of background checks.Colorado requirements
- FloridaFLDepartment of Children and Families (screening) — Department of Health (overnight camp permit)Florida is the mirror image of Texas. It licenses no camps at all — the statute forbids it — and mandates no training and no staff ratios. But it requires fingerprint-based Level 2 FBI screening for camp owners, operators, employees and volunteers — excusing only a volunteer who helps intermittently for under 10 hours a month and is always in a screened person’s line of sight — which is a considerably more rigorous check than Texas asks for. A thin regulatory frame carrying a heavy screening duty.Florida requirements
- IllinoisILIllinois Department of Public HealthIllinois licenses youth camps for health and safety, but the Youth Camp Act and the Youth Camp Code are completely silent on criminal background checks. If you screen your staff in Illinois — and you should — the requirement is coming from your accreditation, your insurer, or your own policy. Not from state camp law. Two general Illinois laws still reach camps: it is a felony for a child sex offender to work or volunteer at a facility whose programs serve only people under 18 (720 ILCS 5/11-9.3(c)), and “recreation or athletic program or facility personnel” are mandated reporters of child abuse (325 ILCS 5/4(a)(5)).Illinois requirements
- MichiganMIMiLEAP — Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and PotentialMichigan licenses children’s camps and, unusually, gives them a lighter screening track than child care centres — name-based checks for line staff rather than fingerprints, and a Central Registry check only for those aged 21 and over. That age threshold is camp-specific and routinely flattened in summaries, so read it carefully before you build your onboarding around it.Michigan requirements
- New YorkNYNew York State Department of Health — permits issued by your local health departmentNew York requires state and national sex-offender registry checks on every employee and volunteer, before they start and annually after — and both are free. The trap is that the public DCJS website does not satisfy the state check, because it only surfaces Risk Level 2 and 3 offenders. A camp screening that way is out of compliance while believing it is compliant.New York requirements
- North CarolinaNCLocal health departments (sanitation permits) — DCDEE only if you are licensed child careNorth Carolina does not license youth camps, and a typical unlicensed camp faces no state-mandated background checks, no staff ratios and no general lifeguard requirement at its pools. What the state does give you is a statutory route to ask the SBI for voluntary checks, with the fee capped at $14 — if the SBI agrees your camp qualifies. The honest framing is that North Carolina hands you the tool and does not require you to pick it up.North Carolina requirements
- OhioOHTwo regulators: your local board of health (resident camps) and the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (day camps)Ohio has two unrelated camp regimes, and the agency that licenses your facility is not the one that requires your background checks. An overnight camp that fully satisfies its health permit has satisfied nothing about staff screening — that duty comes from a different title of the code entirely.Ohio requirements
- PennsylvaniaPAPA Department of Health (camp registration) — clearances run through DHS and the State PolicePennsylvania has the most detailed volunteer clearance regime in the country, and almost none of it lives in the camp rules. The camp regulation is pure sanitation. Your screening duty comes from the Child Protective Services Law, which names youth and recreational camps explicitly — and it applies four different rules depending on whether a person is paid or unpaid and whether they are over or under 18.Pennsylvania requirements
- TexasTXTexas Department of State Health Services (DSHS)Texas licenses youth camps and overhauled its camp rules effective 2 February 2026 — new overnight ratios, new emergency planning rules, and initial licence fees roughly three to twenty-eight times higher, with renewals up even more steeply. The screening rule itself (25 TAC § 265.12) was not changed. It is the most heavily regulated state on this list, so anything you read about fees or ratios that predates February 2026 is out of date.Texas requirements
Your state isn't listed?
Start with your state's camp licensing agency or health department, your insurer, and — if you are accredited — your ACA standards. The free camp director's screening guide walks through the questions to ask.
General educational information, not legal advice. Requirements change; confirm yours with the regulator and qualified counsel.