FLSA Casual Babysitting Exemption: Limits, Taxes, and Risks

The FLSA casual babysitting exemption removes federal minimum wage and overtime obligations for babysitting that is irregular or intermittent and not performed as the sitter’s vocation. That is the whole rule in one line, and every dispute about it turns on whether a particular arrangement actually fits. Section 13(a)(15) of the Fair Labor Standards Act creates the carve-out, and the Department of Labor’s regulations at 29 CFR Part 552 fill in the details.¹²

What Counts as Casual

Two requirements must both be met: the work is irregular or intermittent, and the person does not treat babysitting as a vocation.² A teenager watching the kids on a Saturday night fits. A retired neighbor who sits once in a while fits. A standing arrangement with predictable weekly hours where babysitting income is the person’s primary livelihood does not.

The regulation offers a rough benchmark. Babysitting is “usually” considered casual if the person works no more than 20 hours per week in the aggregate across all families they sit for.³ Going over that number doesn’t automatically destroy the exemption, but the extra hours need to be irregular rather than part of a recurring pattern. Twenty-five hours every week for the same family starts to look vocational no matter what the parties call it.

Age is not part of the test. The regulation mentions teenagers and older people with other income as typical examples, but they are examples only.³ A thirty-year-old with a full-time office job who picks up weekend sitting can still qualify. The question is always the pattern of the work.

What the Exemption Actually Removes

When babysitting qualifies as casual, the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime rules do not apply. There is no federal requirement to pay $7.25 per hour, and no requirement to pay time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a workweek.⁴ The rate is whatever the parties agree on.

An agreed rate is still enforceable, though. Promising $20 an hour and paying $12 is a breach-of-contract problem, and the FLSA exemption does nothing to help with that. The exemption removes the federal floor. It does not erase the deal you made. Confirming the rate in a text message before the first shift avoids the argument entirely.

The 20 Percent Household Chore Ceiling

Casual babysitters can do light housework while on the job, but the regulation draws a firm line. If more than 20 percent of the sitter’s time during a particular assignment goes to general household work, the exemption disappears for that assignment, and the parent owes at least the federal minimum wage and any overtime for those hours.⁵

The measurement is per assignment, not per week. A four-hour Friday shift that includes an hour of family laundry and vacuuming is 25 percent household work, so the exemption does not apply to that shift. A clean three-hour Saturday shift with no chores is unaffected.⁵ Each assignment stands on its own.

Not every chore counts. Warming up a meal for the child, cleaning up after a craft, or wiping down the high chair are treated as part of caregiving. What triggers the limit is work that benefits the household generally: mopping the kitchen, doing the family’s dishes, folding the parents’ laundry, cooking dinner for the adults. If you want the sitter handling any of that, keep a rough time estimate in mind.

When the Exemption Drops Out

Agency or Third-Party Placement

A babysitter placed by a staffing agency or nanny service is never casual, even if the specific work is sporadic. The regulation treats any third-party employer as vocational by definition, and the agency must pay at least federal minimum wage and overtime.⁶ Booking through an app or service that acts as employer of record takes the exemption off the table.

Babysitting as a Career

A full-time nanny or professional sitter who works regular hours across multiple families does not qualify, even if one particular family uses them only occasionally.² The exemption is for people who sit on the side, not people who do it for a living.

Fixed Weekly Schedules

Even without an agency and even without a career sitter, a relationship that settles into a fixed weekly pattern erodes the “irregular or intermittent” requirement. Every Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m. through the school year is closer to employment than casual sitting. The Department of Labor looks at the overall pattern, so an arrangement that starts out casual can gradually lose its exempt status as it becomes routine.

State Laws Sit on Top

The FLSA sets a federal floor. State labor laws can go further, and in more than a dozen states plus several cities they do. Domestic worker protection statutes vary widely: some require minimum wage for all household workers regardless of how casual the arrangement, others add rest breaks, written agreements, or anti-discrimination coverage. A higher state minimum wage or a state law without a casual carve-out controls over the federal exemption. Check your state’s labor department before assuming the federal rule is the whole picture.

Taxes Are a Separate System

The wage exemption and federal tax law do not talk to each other. You can owe your sitter nothing under the FLSA and still owe employment taxes on what you pay.

Social Security and Medicare

For 2026, paying a household employee $3,000 or more in cash wages during the calendar year triggers Social Security and Medicare withholding on those wages.⁷ Below the threshold, neither side owes FICA. The $3,000 applies per employee, not to all your household workers combined.

Wages paid to a household worker under 18 at any time during the year do not count toward the $3,000 threshold, as long as household work is not the worker’s principal occupation. Students automatically clear that condition.⁷ The high school junior you pay $2,500 over the summer creates no FICA obligation.

Federal Unemployment

FUTA kicks in when you pay $1,000 or more in cash wages to household employees in any calendar quarter. The tax is 6.0 percent on the first $7,000 per employee, usually reduced to an effective 0.6 percent after state unemployment tax credits. FUTA comes out of your pocket, never the sitter’s.⁷

How You Report It

Any of these obligations gets reported on Schedule H, attached to your personal income tax return.⁸ No separate employer return is needed. Most families using a sitter a handful of times a year stay well below both triggers. Families relying on a regular sitter can cross them faster than they expect.

Cost of Getting It Wrong

Treating a worker as an exempt casual sitter when they actually qualify as a domestic service employee is expensive. The FLSA lets the worker sue for all unpaid minimum wages and overtime plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, effectively doubling the bill, along with attorney’s fees and court costs.⁹ A court can reduce or eliminate the liquidated damages if the employer proves both good faith and a reasonable belief that the arrangement was lawful.¹⁰

The statute of limitations is two years from the violation, three years if the violation was willful.¹¹ Repeated or willful violators also face civil penalties of up to $1,100 per violation.⁹ Back wages, doubled damages, legal fees, and penalties combine quickly on a two-year underpayment.

Records Worth Keeping

If the sitter is not exempt, you are a household employer subject to federal recordkeeping rules. No particular format is required, but for each employee you must track full name, address, Social Security number, total hours worked each week, total cash wages paid each week, and any amounts claimed for board or lodging, and keep the records for at least three years.¹²

When the exemption does apply, federal law imposes no recordkeeping duty. A simple log of dates, hours, and amounts paid is still worth keeping. If someone later challenges whether the arrangement was truly casual, contemporaneous records in a spreadsheet or a running text thread are far better evidence than memory.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
2
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 552 – Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to Domestic Service – Section 552.5
3
eCFR. 29 CFR 552.104 – Babysitting Services Performed on a Casual Basis
4
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 552 – Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to Domestic Service – Section 552.104(a)
5
eCFR. 29 CFR 552.104 – Babysitting Services Performed on a Casual Basis – Section 552.104(c)
6
eCFR. 29 CFR 552.109 – Third Party Employment
7
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 926 (2026), Household Employer’s Tax Guide
8
Internal Revenue Service. About Schedule H (Form 1040), Household Employment Taxes
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 260 – Liquidated Damages
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Back Pay
12
eCFR. 29 CFR 552.110 – Recordkeeping Requirements