Do you have to count homeschool days or hours?

Some US states set a number: a count of days, a count of hours, or both. By most published counts roughly half do, and the rest ask for nothing to be counted at all. Which one applies to you depends on your own state, and states rewrite these numbers without much warning.

This is for a parent homeschooling in the United States who wants to know whether a count applies to them before building a record around one. It cannot tell you your own state's current number, because that has to come from your state, not from a guide.

What one state's actual rule looks like

Take Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Education's own guide, updated May 2026, sets a home education program at a minimum of 180 days of instruction, or 900 hours for an elementary-age student, or 990 hours for a secondary-age student, each year. You meet the day count or the hour count, not both, and the number sits alongside a notarized affidavit due to the district superintendent by August 1.

Texas takes the opposite approach. The Texas Education Agency says plainly that it does not regulate, index, monitor, approve, register or accredit home school programs, and it sets no day or hour minimum. Texas still expects a bona fide course of study that includes good citizenship, but there is no number of hours to clear.

Those are two real, current rules from two state agencies. Neither one is yours unless you live there. They show the shape a rule can take: a specific count tied to a filing, or no count at all tied to none.

Two real states, side by side

An example of each pattern, not a ranking of which is easier.

How to find your own state's answer

Ten minutes, done once, is enough for most states.

1. Go to your own state's department of education website and search for "home school" or "home education", not a third-party ranking of states.
2. Read the section on instructional time specifically. Some states call it attendance, some call it hours, and some never use either word because they do not set one.
3. If a state homeschool association's page states a different number than the state agency's own page, trust the state agency's page and note the mismatch with a date.
4. Write down what you found, with the date you checked it, in the same place you keep the rest of your homeschool paperwork.
5. If a search turns up nothing about days or hours at all, treat that as your answer for a state that sets no count, not as a sign you searched wrong.

What goes wrong when you skip this

The most common mistake is not checking at all, and assuming a state with no notice requirement also has no count, or the reverse. Those are two separate questions, and a state can answer them differently.

The second mistake is trusting a number you read once and never checking it again. States rewrite these rules, sometimes removing a count that used to exist, sometimes adding one. A page from a few years ago, even a good one, can be stale in a way that only the state's own current page will catch.

The third is trying to reconstruct a count after the fact. If your state does ask for a number, marking a day as you go, on the day, takes seconds and is more accurate than any total you rebuild from memory in June.

Questions people ask

What the Companion does with a count, if you have one

Homeschooling Companion does not hold a day or hour number for any state, and it does not do that math for you. Where you have saved a state on the Kids tab and that state has a structured page, the printed state page shows a line for a log or record of instruction, and that line counts the distinct days you recorded something, not hours and not an attendance tally kept separately.

It states what is recorded, never whether that is enough, and every state page repeats the same line: laws change, confirm with your state before relying on this.