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For nannies & childcare workers

Before you sign that nanny agreement, check these three things.

A nanny agreement with a family sets a rate and a schedule. It can leave open how extra hours are paid, what happens when the family travels or cancels a day, and which duties beyond childcare are expected.

Nanny Agreement.pdfPage 1 of 3
Example
Low risk— mostly standard terms — low concern

This nanny agreement is short and mostly clear, but extra hours have no rate and cancelled days are unpaid.

Lower riskHigher risk
Against youMedium · Payment

Extra hours have no rate

The schedule is clear, but hours beyond it are open-ended and have no stated rate.

Ask for

Check how hours are counted and ask for a rate for time beyond the schedule.

  • Cancelled days are unpaidLow · Payment
  • “Light housekeeping” is not definedLow · Scope
See the full sample analysis →

The numbers

In May 2025, there were 518,910 wage and salary jobs for childcare workers in the U.S., with a median annual wage of $34,980.

Median hourly wage, U.S., May 2025: childcare workers ($16.82) and 28 other occupations these pages cover. Each dot is one occupation's median.

These figures count jobs, not people, and do not include self-employed work — so they say little about how many childcare workers work freelance or run their own business. The survey behind these figures does not cover private households, so nannies and cleaners hired directly by a family are not counted.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, national estimates for SOC 39-9011. Public domain.

Hours, cancelled days and duties

  1. Hours and overtime — Check how hours are counted and how time beyond the schedule is paid.
  2. Cancelled days — Look for whether you are paid when the family cancels a day or goes away.
  3. Duties — “Light housekeeping” can grow. A list of duties keeps the job what you agreed to.

Check the agreement before the first day

A nanny agreement is a job contract, even when it is informal. Free: one analysis every 30 days, no card. Each analysis gives a risk read of the key clauses, quotes the contract's own words for its findings, and turns each flagged clause into a specific ask.

Analyze my contract — free
  • Encrypted in transit & at rest
  • Files auto-deleted after 30 days
  • Never used to train models
  • Informational — not legal advice

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