How Michigan licenses assisted living, adult foster care, and memory care
By Homeward Senior Placement · Local senior placement advisors in Southeast Michigan · Updated October 14, 2026
Michigan does not license something called “assisted living.” The buildings families tour in Metro Detroit are usually licensed as Homes for the Aged or adult foster care homes, or they are marketing a level of help that may not match a license at all. Memory care is almost always a program inside one of those licenses—not a separate state category. Knowing that changes which questions you ask.
Assisted living is a marketing term here
The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) licenses Adult Foster Care (AFC) homes and Homes for the Aged (HFA). LARA is explicit: the state does not license “assisted living” or “independent living” as their own categories. A community can still use those words on a website. You should ask which license, if any, it holds, and what that license actually allows.
An Adult Foster Care home provides room, board, personal care, supervision, and protection to 20 or fewer adults. A Home for the Aged provides room, board, and supervised personal care to 21 or more older adults—or to fewer residents when it is a distinct part of a licensed nursing home. Those are the buckets most “assisted living” tours fall into in Oakland, Wayne, Macomb, Washtenaw, and Livingston counties.
Memory care is a program, not a separate license
Michigan does not issue a standalone memory care license. A secured dementia neighborhood is typically a program inside an HFA or AFC: extra training, different staffing, a locked or wander-managed environment, and a more structured day. That can be excellent. It can also be a converted hallway with a keypad.
Ask what the license is, then ask how the memory program is staffed at night, how exit-seeking is handled, and whether the community will keep someone as dementia progresses. A locked door is not the same as a program. If you want the tour questions, use our memory care question list alongside this licensing picture.
What a LARA survey is useful for
LARA inspects and investigates. Families can look up licensed AFC homes and Homes for the Aged through LARA’s public lookup tools. A survey or complaint investigation is a snapshot: the date, what was cited, whether it was a paperwork miss or a harm issue, and whether the same problem keeps coming back.
A clean survey is not a personality test, and a citation is not always a reason to walk away. Repeat issues around medication, supervision, or unexplained injuries should slow you down. A missing form from two years ago should not. We help families read that difference instead of treating a Google review or a survey PDF as the whole story.
Unlicensed and “exempt” settings
Some buildings that look like assisted living are not licensed as HFA or AFC. Independent living with à-la-carte home care is one example. Michigan law also allows certain Homes for the Aged to operate under an exemption if they meet specific requirements. The practical question for a family is not the slogan on the awning. It is: who is awake overnight, who can help with medications, and what happens if needs increase.
This is general information, not legal advice. License rules and lookup tools change. For a specific building, confirm the current license on LARA’s site and ask the community to show it. Our job is to compare care settings in Southeast Michigan so you are not mixing an HFA, a small AFC home, and an unlicensed apartment as if they were the same product.
Confirm a current license on the state site: LARA Bureau of Community and Health Systems, including adult foster care lookup.