10 Things Every Nanny Contract Should Cover

Quick version: a nanny contract should cover the schedule, guaranteed hours, the pay rate, overtime, the duty list, what is not part of the job, paid time off and sick days, driving, house rules and privacy, and how either side gives notice. Write it down before the first day, not after the first problem.

I have been placing nannies and household staff for twelve years, and nearly every call I get about a placement going sideways comes back to the same thing. Nobody wrote it down. A nanny contract is not a legal document you sign and file away. It is the page you and your nanny both go back to in month seven when neither of you can remember what you agreed about snow days.

Here are the ten things I ask every family to put in writing before their nanny starts, and what tends to go wrong when one gets left out.

1. The schedule, written as real start and end times
2. Guaranteed hours, so she is paid when your plans change
3. The pay rate, in gross dollars, with a named payday
4. Overtime, and how you count it
5. The duty list, spelled out task by task
6. What is not part of the job
7. Paid time off, holidays and sick days
8. Driving, mileage and whose car she uses
9. House rules, cameras, photos and privacy
10. Review dates, raises, and notice on both sides

1. The schedule, in real start and end times

Write the schedule as times, not as a shape. Monday to Thursday, 8:00 to 5:30, is a schedule. Roughly full time is not. If your hours move week to week, say how much notice you will give when they change.

2. Guaranteed hours

Guaranteed hours are the clause families skip most often. It means you pay for the hours you booked whether you use them or not. You come home early on a Friday, she is still paid to 5:30. You take the kids to your mother's for a week, she is still paid that week. Nannies plan their rent around this, and a job without it is worth less to them than the hourly rate makes it look. A part time nanny needs it in writing just as much as a full time one, because a 25 hour week that turns into 15 some weeks is a pay cut she never agreed to.

3. The pay rate and the payday

Put the rate in gross terms, per hour, and name the payday. Gross means before taxes come out. If you agree on a take-home number instead, you are both guessing at her tax situation and the number will move on you later.

4. Overtime, and how you count it

Overtime is federal law for a live-out nanny. Anything over 40 hours in a week is paid at one and a half times her regular rate. You cannot average two weeks together to get under it, and you cannot set a flat weekly salary that quietly covers 50 hours.

Minimum wage and paid leave rules follow the place where the nanny works, not where you work. That matters here more than in most metros. If your search has been nanny arlington va, the wage floor and the leave rules that apply to you are Virginia's, not the District's, even though you are ten minutes from downtown. Maryland is a third set again. Look up the current rule for that address before you set the rate.

5. The duty list, task by task

Write the duties as a list of tasks, not as a job title. Children's laundry, kids' meals and the cleanup after them, bottle washing, the school run, tidying the play areas, restocking the diaper bag. Those are all normal nanny duties, and none of them are assumed just because the word nanny is on the offer.

Duties tend to creep. A nanny who does not want to seem difficult will usually take on the extra work quietly and then start looking for another job instead of raising it with you. When you add a duty, add it to the list and revisit the rate at the same time.

6. What is not part of the job

Then write the second list, the one families forget. What is not part of the job. Adult laundry, cooking for the parents, cleaning bathrooms, walking the dog, errands that have nothing to do with the children. If you want those covered, that is a different role and usually a different person. A household staffing placement covers house managers, estate managers and personal assistants who run the household side, and pairing one of those with a nanny works better than stretching one job description across both.

7. Paid time off, holidays and sick days

Time off is where a verbal agreement falls apart fastest, because it only comes up when somebody already has plans. Write down how many paid days she gets, who picks them, and how much notice each of you gives.

Type of day	What I usually see in this area	Who picks the dates
Paid vacation	Two weeks a year for a full time nanny	One week the family, one week the nanny
Federal holidays	Paid, and not counted against vacation	Set by the calendar
Sick days	Five to eight paid days a year	The nanny, same morning
Snow days and school closures	Paid, because it is your closure and not hers	Nobody, it just happens
Family travel without her	Paid at her guaranteed hours	The family

Sick days need one extra line. Say what happens when she is sick and you have to work anyway, and say what happens when your child is sick and she would rather not be in the house. Both come up in the first winter.

8. Driving, mileage and whose car she uses

If she drives your children, the contract says whose car she uses, who pays for the gas, and what you pay per mile when she uses her own. The IRS publishes a standard mileage rate every year and most families just use that number.

Take a copy of her license, and call your auto insurer to ask whether your policy covers a driver who is not in your household. Ask the question directly, because the answer is different from policy to policy and you do not want to find out after a fender bender.

Travel gets its own paragraph. If you take her on a family trip, she is working long days in a house she does not know, often with no break. Write down the daily rate for travel days, who pays for her room and her food, and what her off hours actually look like. Trips without that written down are where most of the arguments I get called about start.

9. House rules, cameras and privacy

House rules should be short and specific. Screen time limits, food rules, who is allowed in the house, whether she can have visitors, whether her own children come along, and what the phone rule is during work hours.

Cameras need naming. If you have indoor cameras, say so in the contract before she starts. Recording audio is treated differently from recording video in Maryland, so check the current rule before you turn anything on. A nanny who discovers a camera nobody told her about almost always resigns, and she is right to.

Photos and social media take one line. Most families say no pictures of the children posted anywhere, and most nannies are completely fine with that when you say it up front rather than after they have posted something.

Add a line saying she keeps what she sees in your house private. Most nannies expect that clause and sign it without a second thought.

10. Review dates, raises and notice on both sides

Set a review date at three months and then once a year, and put it in the contract. That way neither of you has to invent a reason to bring up pay.

Say what happens at the review, whether that is a raise tied to the year or a conversation with no promise attached. Either is fine as long as it is written down and she knows which one it is.

Notice should be equal. Two weeks from her, two weeks from you, in writing. If you want four weeks, give four weeks.

Write down what happens if you end it early. Two to four weeks of severance is common for a nanny who has been with you more than a year. Decide that number now rather than during the week you are letting her go.

Name the situations where notice does not apply, which is a short list: a safety issue, or a serious breach of the house rules. Everything else gets the full notice period.

Get it signed before the first day

Write the contract, send it to her a few days before she starts, and give her time to come back with questions. Questions at that stage are a good sign. It means she reads what she signs and plans to be there a while.

If you would rather not build the document from scratch, that is a normal reason to work with an agency. We put the terms in front of both sides before a placement starts, so the schedule, the rate and the duty list are agreed before anyone shows up on a Monday morning.

Call 202-415-7033 or send a note through the contact form on our site and tell us what the job actually is. We will tell you what it should pay and what belongs in the contract.