Nanny salary

What It Means

Nanny salary is the pay a family gives a nanny who looks after their children in the family's home. Even when people call it a salary, rates are usually quoted by the hour or the week, the way Care.com's annual survey reports them. The figure is gross payGross incomeThe full amount you earn before taxes and other deductions come out. For federal taxes, it's all income you receive unless a law exempts it. See more, before the nanny's share of social security and Medicare is withheld. It also leaves out the employer taxes a family owes on top once the year's cash wages pass the IRS threshold.

How People Say It at Work

• "What are nannies charging around here now?"
• "We pay her a flat weekly rate."
• "Is that per hour or per week?"

The Breakdown

The numbers, with their sources

The BLS figure describes childcare workers employed by businesses such as child care centers. Its wage survey leaves out household workers and the self-employed, so nannies hired directly by families aren't in it.

Worked example. A family hires a nanny for 40 hours a week at $21.75 an hour and pays all 52 weeks. Weekly gross pay is $870, the year comes to $45,240, and an average month is $3,770. Because $45,240 is far past the IRS's $3,000 line for 2026, the family also withholds the nanny's 7.65% share of social security and Medicare and pays its own 7.65% on top.

What moves the number

• Where you live. Care.com's city averages differ by more than $1010,000 stepsA popular daily step goal that began as the name of a 1960s Japanese pedometer; later studies find health benefits begin well below it. See more an hour.
• What the job covers. Care.com names the nanny's duties as one of the variables.
• Experience. How much experience a nanny brings is another variable Care.com lists.
• Live-in or live-out. Federal overtime rules treat the two differently, which changes the cost of long weeks.

Good to Know

Federal law sets a floor. DOL Fact Sheet #79B says a live-in nanny must get at least the $7.25 federal minimum wageMinimum wageThe lowest hourly pay the law allows an employer to pay; the federal minimum is $7.25 an hour, and a higher state or local rate wins where one applies. See more for all hours worked, even though live-in domestic workers are exempt from federal overtime pay, and your state may require more. Paying a nanny usually makes you a household employer too, and IRS Publication 926 (2026) says social security and Medicare tax apply once you pay one household employeeHousehold employeeA worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it. See more $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026. Averages are a starting point, so compare them with what nannies in your own area are asking.

Related Terms and Categories

• Nanny tax

  The federal employment taxes a family owes when it pays a nanny or other household employee enough cash wages in a year, reported on Schedule H.

• Household employee

  A worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it.

• Nanny share cost

  What each family pays when two families share one nanny, which Care.com puts at about two-thirds of the cost of a nanny of your own.

• Babysitter rates

  What families pay a babysitter, usually by the hour. Care.com's 2026 Cost of Care Report puts the average posted rate at $19.81 an hour nationally.

• Daycare cost

  What families pay a child care center or home daycare, which Care.com's 2026 Cost of Care Report puts at $332 a week on average.

Pay, rates and costs