Au Pair Cost Per Month in 2026: $2,185 All In, vs $4,135 for a Nanny

If a friend told you au pairs are cheap, here is the number he had in mind: $195.75 a week.

That is $848 a month for up to 45 hours of live-in childcare, which is less than the daycare center down the street. It is also not the bill.

The bill adds an agency fee of $10,895 to $11,660, the classes the program requires and 3 meals a day for a 20-something in your guest room.

We priced every line and set the total next to our daycare vs nanny cost numbers, as the au pair chapter of our guide to how to afford daycare.

Some agencies do post a monthly number. Cultural Care says $1,785. Go Au Pair says $1,797.83, to the penny, which is a precision we respect.

Neither prices the bedroom, the groceries or, in most families, the car. Add the $500 of classes and the groceries to Cultural Care's fee-plus-stipend number and its own bill is $2,194.

How much does an au pair cost per month?

About $2,185 a month, or $26,225 a year, whether the au pair covers 1 kid or 2. That is 4 lines, and each 1 traces to a rule or a posted price.

$1,818 of that leaves your account as cash. The other $367 shows up as a bigger grocery bill, which is still your money.

At 45 hours a week, that is $11.21 an hour of coverage.

What is the au pair stipend in 2026?

$195.75 a week, the State Department minimum, built from the federal minimum wage.

Start with $7.25 an hour, unchanged since Jul 24, 2009. 45 hours at $7.25 is $326.25. The formula then takes a 40% credit for the room and meals you provide, which is $130.50, and lands at $195.75.

5 of the 6 agencies we checked post that exact figure. The 6th, AuPairCare, spells out the same formula with the same 40% deduction for room and board.

Read that again. Your au pair's cash pay works out to $4.35 an hour. The other $2.90 is the room and board you are already providing, which is why the grocery line belongs in the bill.

How much are au pair agency fees?

$10,895 to $11,660 for the first year at 6 State Department designated sponsors, an average of $11,141, or $928 a month.

The spread between the cheapest and the priciest is $765 a year, or $64 a month. On a $2,185 bill, the agency moves the total by less than 3%.

What matters more than the logo is the timing. Most of the fee is due before the au pair arrives, so it lands as an upfront $11,000 unless the agency's payment plan spreads it out.

Year 2 is cheaper. Cultural Care's 12-month extension fee is $7,995, and its own fee-plus-stipend figure is about $1,515 a month. Add the classes and the food back and our year-2 bill is $1,923.

Year 2 also has a new step. Under a Homeland Security rule published Jul 17, 2026 and in effect since Sep 15, 2026, an au pair who extends has to apply to USCIS for an extension of stay, or leave and re-enter. Homeland Security acknowledged the added cost, and our $1,923 does not include it.

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Au pair vs nanny cost: which one is cheaper?

The au pair, by $1,950 a month. A full-time nanny for 1 infant runs about $4,135 a month at Care.com's posted rate once payroll taxes and sick-day backup are counted. The au pair is $2,185.

The gap gets wider at 45 hours, because a 40-hour nanny quote does not cover a 9-hour day. Our nanny math puts 45 hours at $4,896 a month, $2,711 above the au pair.

The difference is the wage. The nanny in that model earns $21.75 an hour. The au pair gets $4.35 an hour in cash plus a room and meals, at a rate the State Department sets, not the market.

The payroll tax line disappears too. The IRS says au pair wages "are usually not subject to social security and Medicare taxes" because au pairs are typically nonresident aliens on a J-1 visa, and most host families are exempt from federal unemployment tax. On a nanny those 2 federal taxes come to $292 a month.

The au pair still owes income tax on the stipend, on the au pair's own return.

Is an au pair cheaper than daycare?

Not for 1 kid. The au pair runs $600 a month more than the $1,585 daycare center, and $1,129 more than the $1,056 median infant center price in the Labor Department's 2022 data behind how much infant daycare costs by state.

For 2 kids, yes. Daycare bills per child, and 2 toddlers run $2,676 a month in the Care.com-based model. The au pair is still $2,185, which is $491 less.

With 1 kid, the au pair is the pricey middle option. With 2, it is the cheapest full-time care on the page.

A third kid only widens the gap, since the au pair line still does not move.

The hours are the other half. Daycare covers the hours the center is open. The au pair covers up to 45 hours wherever you put them, a 6:30am start or a Saturday night included, as long as no day passes 10 hours.

What are the hidden costs of an au pair?

The bedroom, the food and the car. We could put a price on 1 of them.

The bedroom. No spare room, no au pair. The federal rule bars placing an au pair with a family "who cannot provide the au pair with a suitable private bedroom." A spare room you already own does not send a bill, so it has no cash cost in our model.

The food. The USDA's August 2026 moderate-cost plan puts 1 adult at $336.10 a month for a woman aged 19 to 50 and $398.10 for a man. We used the average, $367.

On the low-cost plan the all-in bill is $2,114. On the liberal plan it is $2,276. No food plan takes the au pair under daycare for 1 kid.

The car. Cultural Care says host families "are required to provide au pairs with access to a car and car insurance if needed for childcare duties."

We found no primary source that prices adding a 20-year-old foreign driver to a family policy, so there is no insurance line in our total. It is real money, and it is the 1 line in this bill that your zip code and your car set, not the State Department.

How many hours can an au pair work?

45 hours a week and 10 a day, and a bigger stipend does not get you more. Cultural Care's page says a higher stipend "cannot be in exchange for the au pair exceeding the regulatory limits."

• Time off: 1.5 days every week, plus 1 complete weekend a month, Friday evening to Monday morning.
• 2 weeks of paid vacation a year. 2 weeks of backup sitter adds $146 a month in our nanny math, for a total of $2,331.
• Classes: 6 semester hours, with the family paying up to $500. The EduCare option is 30 hours a week at 75% of the stipend and $1,000 of classes, and a family with preschoolers needs other full-time care in place for them.
• Babies: a kid under 2 means an au pair with at least 200 hours of documented infant care. With a baby under 3 months, a parent or another responsible adult has to be home.
• Term: 1 year, with 1 extension of 6, 9 or 12 months.

The fixed hours cut both ways. At 50 hours a week, the au pair cannot cover it alone. At 20, the bill is still $2,185, because neither the agency fee nor the stipend scales down.

Why does an au pair cost more in Massachusetts?

Because the state's $15 minimum wage applies, not the $7.25 federal one. That lifts the all-in bill to about $4,425 a month.

In Capron v. Office of the Attorney General, decided Dec 2, 2019, the First Circuit held that the federal au pair rules do not preempt the Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of Rights or its wage law. The Supreme Court declined the case on Jun 22, 2020.

Mass.gov now lists au pairs as domestic workers covered by the state's minimum wage and overtime laws. The $15 rate dates to Jan 1, 2023.

At 45 hours a week that is 40 hours at $15 plus 5 at $22.50, or $712.50 a week. That is $3,088 a month, $2,240 above the federal-floor stipend.

The state lets a family deduct meals, up to $1.50 for breakfast and $2.25 for lunch or dinner, but only with the worker's written agreement and only if the law's conditions are met. With the full meal deductions the bill is $4,243.

The room is a different story. Mass.gov bars a lodging deduction when the employer requires the worker to live in, and the au pair program is a live-in arrangement.

Both Massachusetts totals land within $290 of the $4,135 nanny figure, which is a national rate, not a Massachusetts one.

Will the au pair stipend go up?

Not under any rule in force on Oct 16, 2026. The stipend moves only when the federal minimum wage does, and that has been $7.25 since 2009.

The State Department tried to change that. Its Oct 30, 2023 proposed rule, 88 FR 74071, would have paid au pairs an hourly wage from a 4-tier chart starting at $8, with meal and lodging credits capped at $10.88 a day and $54.38 a week. It also proposed cutting the full-time cap from 45 hours to 40 and raising the class money from $500 to $1,200.

The State Department's own estimate, at 40 hours and after the full $6,790 a year of room and board credits, was $9,850 a year at the $8 tier. That is about $821 a month, a little under today's $848, for 5 fewer hours. At the $18 tier it was $30,650 a year, about $2,554 a month.

None of it is law. Comments closed Jan 28, 2024, after a 30-day extension, and no final rule followed. The Department's entry in the 2026 Unified Agenda, published in Aug 2026, lists it as a long-term action and says that "taking into consideration the over 10,000 comments" it "plans to publish a new NPRM," with a target date of July 2027.

The 1 rule that did take effect this year, the Homeland Security extension-of-stay step from Sep 15, 2026, changes year-2 paperwork, not the stipend.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an au pair cost per month?

About $2,185 a month all in for 2026. That is $848 of stipend, $928 of agency fee, $42 toward classes and $367 of food, and $1,818 of it is cash.

How much does an au pair cost a year?

About $26,225 a year on our model. Agency fees alone run $10,895 to $11,660 across the 6 sponsors we checked on Oct 16, 2026.

Is an au pair cheaper than a nanny?

Yes, by about $1,950 a month for 1 kid: $2,185 for the au pair against $4,135 for a full-time nanny with payroll taxes and backup care counted. At 45 hours a week the gap is $2,711.

Is an au pair cheaper than daycare?

Not for 1 kid: $2,185 against $1,585 for a daycare center. For 2 toddlers it flips. Daycare is $2,676 and the au pair is $491 cheaper.

What is the au pair stipend for 2026?

$195.75 a week, the State Department minimum: the $7.25 federal minimum wage times 45 hours, less a 40% credit for room and board. Some agencies require $215 or $225, and Massachusetts requires its $15 state minimum wage.

Do au pairs need a car?

The federal rule does not require one, but Cultural Care requires host families to provide "access to a car and car insurance if needed for childcare duties." Our total has no insurance line, because we found no primary source that prices it.

How many hours a week can an au pair work?

Up to 45 hours a week and 10 a day under 22 CFR 62.31, with 1.5 days off a week, 1 full weekend off a month and 2 weeks of paid vacation a year. The EduCare option caps it at 30.

Do I pay nanny taxes on an au pair?

Usually not. The IRS says au pair wages are usually not subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes because au pairs are typically nonresident aliens on a J-1 visa. The au pair still owes income tax and files the return.

Rules current as of Oct 2026: au pair stipend minimum $195.75 a week, federal minimum wage $7.25, hours cap 45 a week and 10 a day, education payment up to $500, Massachusetts minimum wage $15, 2023 State Department pay proposal not finalized, Homeland Security fixed-admission rule for J-1 visitors in effect since Sep 15, 2026. Agency fees are 2026 posted prices and food costs are USDA August 2026. Rates and limits move, so check the date on this line before you lean on it.