Abbie here. When I first found out about au pairs, I thought that it would be really expensive. After all, the whole reason I had put my three pre-school boys in daycare in the first place was because I had a friend who was a nanny, and I knew how much she charged. But how much do au pairs really cost?

In this article, we’ll start with the general overall cost per year and month (the exact amount will depend on your agency, where you live, etc.), and then go into detail of all these sub-costs:

• Agency fees
• Au pair wages (stipend)
• Additional fees such as education
• Cost of doing business (insurance, phone plan, etc.)

This article contains affiliate links. If you use choose Cultural Care (Abbie) or Eur Au Pair (Maddie) as your agency and use the referral links, they will receive an agency credit at no cost to you. Please read our disclaimer page for details.

HOW MUCH DOES AN AU PAIR COST PER YEAR? PER MONTH?

The short answer is “it depends.” The cost of an au pair can vary widely. This variance is based on factors such as the agency and program you choose and the cost of goods and services in your area. It also varies depending on how generous you choose to be.

The break down of our sample agency costs are later in this post.

Depending on which part of the country you live in, how many children you have, and what ages they are, this may or may not make financial sense for your family. We are a firm believer in doing what makes sense for you.

Abbie says: When my boys were in daycare, the cost for all three boys AFTER the family discount was over $2,800 per month. That was more than our house mortgage payment! And that wasn’t even infant rates.

Now that my boys are older, before and after school care would run about $1,500 per month. BUT I wouldn’t have someone at home who helps me get the kids up, dressed, fed, to school, into bath, and into bed. Not to mention the added help with their laundry and bedroom, and another driver to take them to activities. The extra $200 or so per month is so worth it for my general sanity (well, what’s left of it anyway).

WHAT ARE THE AU PAIR AGENCY FEES?

There are 15 au pair agencies licensed by the department of state. We have a free PDF download listing all the contact information and a small summary of each of them.

bbAu Pair agency fees run the range from just under $7,000 to about $9,000.

Most agencies require an application or registration fee (though that often gets discounted or waved) and possibly your initial interview with your local area coordinator before you can begin looking for au pairs. Generally, the fees are spread out. For example, you might have to pay an initial deposit once you match with an au pair, then another deposit, and then the final balance once she arrives.

Are Their Special Fees Should I Look For?

Absolutely! The US Department of State requires au pair sponsors agencies to be transparent about fees and other potential costs. However, they do not limit the types or amounts.

In addition to the agency fee, you are responsible for $500 towards the completion of the educational component of the au pair program (more about that later).

You should also look for additional transportation fees, visa or “SEVIS” (US Homeland Security student database system) fees, background check fees, application or registration fees, etc.

Agency Discounts

The application fee can be often waived. You can look for online codes, ask for a referral from a current family, get a code from an area director, or belong to a discount category.

The good news is that most agencies also have lots of other discounts they offer families:

• New family
• Military family
• Military veteran family
• Repeat family
• Early match discount (for repeat families)
• Switching family
• Multiples (twins, triplets, or more)

We’ve put in the time and research to create a spreadsheet comparing all the costs and fees of all the agencies. You can download our spreadsheet for free! Once you choose an agency, visit their website to see if they’re running any seasonal specials or discounts.

Agency Affiliate Credit

Many agencies offer a credit anywhere from $250 to $500 or even $1,000 if you recommend them to other host families.

For example, if you were to sign up for Cultural Care through Abbie’s affiliate link (read Abbie’s story) or sign up for Eur Au Pair using Maddie Clark as your referral (read Maddie’s story), then Abbie or Maddie would receive a credit on their agency fees at no cost to you.

What Do Agency Fees Pay For?

The agency fees may seem spendy, but they cover a lot of things:

• Coordinate the J-type visa for the au pair between multiple governments.
• Interview the au pair, run a background check, and verify her experience.
• Interview and background check you as the host family to make sure you’ll provide a safe place for the au pair to live. (After all, au pairs are someone else’s grown child.)
• Provide training such as first aid, CPR, etc. for the au pair before she arrives at your home. For most agencies, this is one week of training at a center but can be online.
• Pay a local and regional area coordinators, who are your first line of help if you or your au pair have any questions or issues, and coordinates monthly check-ins.
• Visa assistance
• “SEVIS” (US Homeland Security student database system) fees. This is variable between agencies
• Medical, travel, accidental death, and personal liability insurance for your au pair
• Airfare from the au pairs home airport to training and return airfare from your home airport to your au pairs home airport
• Provide transportation from the training center to your house. This is variable between agencies
• All the other infrastructure that goes into helping you and the au pair make a match, facilitating paperwork, building and maintaining the database of au pairs, etc.

Very few parts of the fees are refundable once you’ve made a match, so make sure you match carefully. Check out our blog Let’s Talk About Rematch for the financial details of Maddie’s rematch.

Infant Specialization

If you have a child 3 months to 2 years old, your au pair must be infant specialized. To have an infant specialization, au pairs need to have 200 hours watching infants and some agencies require them to spend one more day in training than the other au pairs. The good news is that even though you have a higher agency fee, the infant specialization does not affect the weekly stipend.

Payment Plans

Since it’s pretty hard for most people to just come up with all the fees up front, most of the agencies offer payment plans over 4-6 months. Even though the payment plan will add another $200-$400 onto your total agency fee, it does make the payments more easy to manage.

Abbie’s Payments with Au Pair Care

I have three children, a singleton and twins, that were in preschool and are now in elementary school. Here is a sample payment for agency fees for a new au pair coming in from out of country:

$50               Application fee (lots of ways to waive this)
-$50              Application fee waived as a twin mom
$1,000          Deposit fee
-$200            Multiples Discount (in subsequent years, I got a -$500 repeat family and -$250 early match fee but not the multiples discount)
$2,870          Down payment
$35               SEVIS Fee
$475             Airfare from Academy in NY to Seattle (This depends on where you live)
$1,170          1st Installment
$1,170          2nd Installment
$1,170          3rd Installment
$1,170          4th Installment
$8,860          Total

Here are my payments extending our au pair for a second year…so much less expensive!.

$367             DOS extension fee
$2,290          Down payment
$1,050          1st Extension installment
$1,050          2nd Extension installment
$1,050          3rd Extension installment
$1,050          4th Extension installment
$6,857        Total

Maddie’s Payments with Eur Au Pair

I have two children. The second one was born during the time of my third au pair. Here are a sample set of my payments for an au pair from out of country.

$350       Application fee
-$350      Application fee discount
$7,845    Program fee
$500       Domestic flight fee
-$600     Repeat host family discount
$7,720  Total

Our au pair extended for 6 months and then we had a new au pair from out of country.

$367        SEVIS fee
-$367      SEVIS fee discount
$3,475    Extension fee – 6 months
$8,325   Program fee
-$600     Repeat family discount
$500       Flight fee
$60          Payment handling fee (for paying in five installments instead of a lump sum)
$11,760          Total (18 months, which works out to $7,840 for the first 12 months)

HOW MUCH DO I PAY MY AU PAIR? (AU PAIR STIPEND)

What makes au pairs so reasonable in out-of-pocket costs is that most of their compensation is in room and board, and the money you pay them is considered a stipend.

They shouldn’t have to pay for any regular meals or utilities, though of course they’ll buy their own snacks, go out with friends, and buy some clothes in the first few months they arrive. (No one that I know can fit a full year’s closet into a suitcase or two.)

The Standard Au Pair Stipend

The standard au pair minimum stipend is determined by the US Department of State in accordance to the Fair Labor Standards Act as interpreted and implemented by the U.S. Department of Labor. As of January 1, 2019 the au pair weekly stipend is a minimum of $195.75 per week. You can choose to pay them more, but since they are not allowed to work overtime, and you’re not allowed to pay them less even if they don’t work a full 45 hours, it can’t be tied to hourly work.  We both pay our au pairs $200 per week because it makes the math easier (especially the first few weeks paying cash before their bank accounts are set up).

It’s important to pay your au pair weekly as stipulated by contract, not bi-monthly or monthly.

$200 per week x 51 weeks = $10,200 yearly*

*Note: You only pay an au pair for 51 weeks because the first week they are in training.

One of the things you’ll do when your au pair first arrives is sit down and work out a mechanism and good day of the week to transfer pay.

Abbie says: I pay my au pair $200 per week in cash until I can just transfer money electronically to her bank account, and my au pairs have usually chosen Friday as their day of choice to be paid.

Maddie says: I pay my au pair $200 per week on a rotating schedule. On week one, my au pair gets paid the Friday after the work is complete. On week two, my au pair gets paid early on the Friday before the work is completed. This allows for direct deposit right into my au pair’s bank account.

Pro Au Pair Stipend

While all agencies have standard au pairs, some agencies have various names for pro au pairs: premier au pair, au pair par experience, au pair extraordinaire, au pair pro, au pair plus, etc. These au pairs often have daycare or teaching experience, or some other extra training that sets them apart. The minimum stipend for a pro au pair ranges from $215 to $250

per week depending on the agency.

Educare Stipend

For families with older children, you can have an au pair that only works a maximum of 30 hours per week. Educare au pairs are also required to take 12 credits (as oppose

d to the regular 6 credits) to complete the education component of the program and host families pay $1,000 towards their education (as opposed to the regular $500). The Educare minimum stipend is $146.81 per week.

The Massachusetts Au Pair Stipened

If you live in the state of Massachusetts than your au pair is considered a domestic worker. This means that you have to follow the federal au pair laws and the local laws. See our blog about the Massachusetts Legal Decision for more details.

OTHER REQUIRED FEES

The education costs are a little weird as it’s not really an agency fee.  It is required by the federal government through the agency, and usually paid on behalf of the au pair.

The $500 goes towards tuition and books for your au pair’s required 6 credits of education.

Some au pair agencies have programs where the au pair can earn all 6 credits in one long four-day weekend retreat. Our au pair did two 3-credit community classes, one in fall quarter and one in spring quarter.

We paid the full tuition and books for the first class, which was about $290, then the remainder of the $500 for the second class ($210). Our au pair paid the rest of all the costs for the second class.

Another required fee is the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) fee. This expense is separate from the visa fee, and goes towards the program office and automated system that keeps track of people on a number of different types of visas.

WHAT ELSE WILL I HAVE TO PAY FOR?

If you require the au pair to have something to watch your children, you need to provide it!

Here is the summary of Abbie’s increased expenses:

$2,880 per year       Car payment for new-to-us car ($240/mo)

$1,200 per year       Car insurance increase (for the added car and driver)

$200 once                Cell phone

$240 per year          Cell phone plan ($20/mo to add her to our plan)

$4,520                      Total

Transportation

Abbie here: Because we live in the suburbs without the best public transportation, we needed a third vehicle. My husband has his truck, I had my van, so we got a used Prius. I use the Prius to commute to work while the au pair drives the van so she can take the kids to school, pick them up, and take them to activities. Then on the evenings and weekends, the au pair and I switch: she drives the small car and I drive the kid-carrier.

And then because she drives my kids to and from school and activities, I also put her on our auto insurance as our “nanny.” The insurance company said that was pretty common.

You also need to consider the cost of gas for your au pair when she is working. Because of the fuel savings we gained by purchasing the Prius this was not a consideration in our budget. Another note here is that our au pair covers the cost of the gas she uses when she is on her own time.

Cell Phone

Because your au pair needs to call you or 911 in case of an emergency, you need to provide her a cell phone and added her to your plan. Do you require your au pair to drive? If so, you will also need to pay for some amount of data for GPS navigation if it is not available in the au pair’s vehicle. You may also want your au pair to be able to take pictures and send them to you at work.

Cell phones can be expensive. The cost of the phone, the accessories, and the usage plan really add up. But there are a few ways to keep these costs in check. Our blog, 3 Tips for Controlling Au Pair Cell Phone Expenses, covers the details on cell phone costs for your au pair. Above everything, good communication is key! You need to talk to your au pair about cell phones before they arrive.

When my first au pair arrived, I took the opportunity to get myself a new phone and reset my old phone to factory settings for the au pair. You can also get a decent phone on amazon.com, gazelle.com, or other sites for $150 to $200. If she breaks or loses it, she should replace it. When our first au pair left, she gave back the phone for the second au pair. We have unlimited data, so I just paid the extra $20/month for an extra line.

Food and Utilities

We both agree, the increase to our electricity, water, gas, food, etc. has been minimal. In fact, our food budget has decreased because we’re eating out less and taking lunches to work instead of buying.

Vacations

There are two different types of vacations you need to consider: the au pair’s 2 weeks of paid vacation time (her time away from you) and a family vacation where the au pair may or may not be on the clock.

Au pairs are entitled to a minimum of two weeks of paid vacation during their program year. Typically the family chooses the timing of one week and the au pair chooses the timing of the other week so long as it works for the host family. Also, this vacation time does not have to be taken a week at a time, your au pair can choose to break the time up if desired.

For family vacations, if you choose to bring your au pair along and she will be on duty at some point on the trip (dinner out while she watches the kids in the hotel pool!) you will need to provide room, board, and transportation.

GRAND TOTAL

Combining all the fees together, this is how we get our estimate at the beginning of the article of $1,580 per month of just au pair expenses, and our budget of $1,700 – $1,900 per month.

$6,800 – $8,800          Initial agency fees

$500             Education fees

$10,200        Au pair salary

$800 – $4,520 Extras and incidentals (phone, auto insurance, car payment)

$18,300 – $24,020 Total

$1,578 per month averaged out on a second year au pair without counting a car payment

$1,984 per month averaged out, INCLUDING a car payment.

How does this compare to the cost of your current child care situation? If you have one child, it may or may not be worth it. (Remember, if you have an infant you’ll have to add to the budget.)

If you have two children, the cost may be similar but it might be worth it to have an extra driver and more flexible schedule.

If you have three children (multiples make that happen real fast!), then this is probably a great cost savings and sanity saver.

What works best for you? If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment below or jump on over to our My Au Pair and Me Facebook Community. We’d love to chat.