Regulations / WyomingReviewed September 2026

Wyoming

Wyoming still licenses 'boarding homes' by that name. A boarding home is a home that rents rooms and provides meals and personal daily living care, but not nursing or habilitative care, to people not related to the owner; lodging or apartments that provide only room and board are excluded. Assisted living facilities are a separate license that adds limited nursing care. The rules reviewed set no minimum number of residents. Licenses run from July 1 to June 30, starting with a provisional license and followed by a survey. The boarding home rules date from 1998, and HLS updated its licensure checklists in August 2025.

License categories

Boarding HomeAssisted Living Facility

Key laws

Wyo. Stat. § 35-2-901 et seq.

Health Care Facilities – Licensing and Operations (definitions of boarding home and assisted living facility) — official text

WDH HLS Rules Ch. 7 (Licensure) and Ch. 8 (Program Administration)

Boarding Homes — official text

WDH HLS Rules Ch. 4 (Licensure) and Ch. 12 (Program Administration)

Assisted Living Facilities — official text

Key requirements

A boarding home may not accept residents who cannot walk, need help transferring to or from a wheelchair, cannot take their own medications, wander, or behave destructively or aggressively (Ch. 8 §5(d)(ii))
The manager must be a responsible adult 21 or older, and the owner, manager and all employees need a Department of Family Services central registry check (Ch. 8 §5(a))
Staff may only help residents take their own medications, e.g., reminding, opening containers and observing (Ch. 8 §12)
Must meet NFPA 101 Life Safety Code Chapter 23 and hold monthly evacuation drills (Ch. 8 §14)
Licensing sequence: application and fee, engineering review, provisional license, survey once residents are served, then a permanent license, renewed every year

Wyoming

License categories

Key laws

Key requirements

Sources