How to Start a Domiciliary Care Company: The Complete Guide 2026
Starting a domiciliary care company? Every step from business setup and CQC registration to your first client, including costs, the policies you need, and the February 2026 registration changes.
By HeroDocs Team
Most people who start a domiciliary care company arrive the same way: years working in care, a clear idea of what good looks like, and a wish to do it properly.
That is a good place to start. Getting from there to a registered business is a process. It takes time, it runs in a strict order, and the documents have to be right first time.
CQC wants a complete application. If something is missing, it can be sent back, and you may have to start again. Every step is below, in the order you will meet them.
Step 1: What You Need to Start a Domiciliary Care Service
Domiciliary care in England is a regulated activity. If your service includes personal care, you must register with CQC before you take on a single client.
Personal care means washing, dressing, helping someone take medication, or helping them move safely. Companionship, cleaning and shopping do not need registration, but the moment you cross into personal care the rules apply in full.
Most new providers start with personal care, so that is the route described here.
Step 2: Set Up Your Business
CQC registration is not your first step. It comes near the end, once the business already exists.
Legal Structure
Most domiciliary care businesses set up as a private limited company through Companies House. It separates your money from the business, and it reads better to councils and commissioners.
Business Plan
Your application needs a business plan. Cover who you will care for, where you will work, how many staff you need, and the first twelve months of finances. An accountant also signs a financial viability form. Bring your accountant in early. This is a common cause of delay.
Bank Account and Office Address
Open a business bank account before you apply. You also need a real office address where you can hold meetings and store records safely, which does not have to be big, though it does have to meet basic health and safety standards.
Step 3: Appoint Your Registered Manager
Every registered service needs a Registered Manager. That person runs the service day to day, and registers with CQC personally, alongside the provider.
Running it yourself? Then you apply as both provider and manager. If someone else takes the role, they apply for personal registration at the same time as your provider application.
Qualifications
The manager must hold the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Adult Care, or be working towards it. Experience in a care management role is needed too.
The Fit Person Interview
Before registration is confirmed, CQC interviews the manager. It is a structured conversation about the regulations and about leading a safe service.
Inspectors are listening for real understanding of safeguarding, medicines, governance, and how you would handle a live scenario. Memorised answers do not survive it. Our guide to CQC registration for managers covers the interview in detail.
Step 4: Sort Your DBS Checks
Everyone working with service users needs an enhanced DBS check, including the adults' barred list. For the application, the checks for the provider and the manager must be less than twelve months old on the day you submit. There are no exceptions.
DBS checks usually take two to four weeks, though delays are common and some providers have waited eight to ten. Build in at least six weeks, and start the checks before you begin writing policies.
Step 5: Build Your Policy Library
This part takes the longest, and it is where most applications fall short.
CQC wants policies your team understands and uses, so documents that merely say the right things are not enough. Inspectors ask staff about policies, and if nobody can explain one or find it, that is an evidence gap.
These must go in with your application, or be ready at short notice:
Safeguarding Adults Policy: how abuse is spotted, reported and referred, including whistleblowing and safer recruitment
Medicines Management Policy: administration, storage, recording, and handling controlled drugs
Infection Prevention and Control Policy: hygiene, PPE, hand hygiene, outbreaks
Consent and Mental Capacity Policy: how consent is recorded and reviewed, and how best interest decisions are made
Equality and Diversity Policy: how you meet the needs of people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010
Governance and Quality Assurance Policy: how the service is monitored, how incidents are reviewed, how learning sticks
Recruitment Policy: safer recruitment, references, induction standards, and how you know staff are suitable
Statement of Purpose: a formal CQC document describing what your service does, who it serves and how it is run
Duty of Candour Policy: how you stay open and honest with people when something goes wrong
Lone Worker Policy: specific to home care, covering staff safety with no supervisor in the room
Risk Assessment Policy: environmental risk, moving and handling, falls, medication, and the assessment for each person
Two of those have their own guides: duty of candour and the statement of purpose. The full set is in our domiciliary care policies list.
Your application also needs a training plan. Cover induction for new staff, ongoing training, and how you support staff whose first language is not English. The Care Certificate is the induction standard in England, so name it.
Step 6: Get the Right Insurance
Standard business insurance will not cover personal care for vulnerable adults, so you need specialist cover from the first day you trade.
The minimum is employers' liability, required by law once you have staff, plus public liability and professional indemnity. Care insurers often bundle the three together, so use a broker who knows home care and compare two or three quotes.
Step 7: Submit Your CQC Application
Since November 2024, CQC no longer takes online applications. New provider applications go by email to [email protected].
Your submission needs:
The provider registration application
The Registered Manager registration application
Your Statement of Purpose
All required policies
Your training plan
Your business plan and signed financial viability form
Evidence of legal occupancy for your office
Countersigned enhanced DBS certificates for the provider and the manager
There is no fee to submit. Once registered, you pay an annual fee. For domiciliary care that is £239 plus £54.31 for each person you support, invoiced on your registration anniversary.
CQC aims to process a complete application in twelve weeks, though twelve to sixteen is more realistic. Allow six to nine months in total, from the decision to start to holding your registration.
Step 8: Understand the Single Assessment Framework
Once registered, you are assessed under the Single Assessment Framework. The five key questions stay: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive, Well-led.
What changed is the evidence. Inspectors now gather it continuously, from service users, staff, care records and complaints. Since December 2024 they score each quality statement from 1 to 4 using professional judgement.
Policies alone cannot earn a good rating. The evidence has to show the team follows them. In domiciliary care, Safe and Well-led carry the most quality statements, with eight each. Medication, safeguarding, risk assessment and staff competence get the hardest look. Our guide to how CQC reaches a rating explains the scoring.
Step 9: Getting Your First Clients
Registration is the starting line rather than the finish.
Local authority contracts. You join a preferred provider framework and receive referrals when a council-funded package needs a provider. Getting on a framework means a formal application, and a look at your policies and training.
NHS Continuing Healthcare. These packages are commissioned by Integrated Care Boards. Some areas run an Any Qualified Provider model that opens to new providers from time to time. Check Contracts Finder for your area.
Self-funding clients. Usually the most reachable route early on. Private home care rates run roughly £26 to £38 an hour, depending on region and complexity. Referral relationships with social workers, hospital discharge teams and GPs matter most. A proper website, a Google Business profile and listings on care comparison sites all help.
Whichever route you take, your policies and records must be in order from day one. There is no grace period.
Before You Accept Your First Client
The gap between registration and your first client is one of the most valuable stages. Use it.
Make sure every team member has read and signed your policies, then walk the care planning process through with a practice scenario. Check that your recording system is set up and your lone worker system is live.
CQC can contact you, or visit, within weeks of registering. Your records, your team's knowledge and your governance all need to work from the first day.
Keeping a policy library current is one of the most time-consuming parts of running a care business. Policies need reviewing when the rules change, and every update needs signing off with evidence. HeroDocs keeps its library aligned to CQC requirements, and tracks who has read what, so you can show an inspector the record.
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