How much should you pay a nanny who travels with your family?
Taking your nanny on vacation can make traveling with kids dramatically easier. But the trip is still work for your nanny — not their vacation.
Families generally need to think about regular wages, overtime, travel time, guaranteed hours, overnight responsibilities, expenses, and sometimes an additional travel fee.
The short answer
If your nanny travels with your family, a typical compensation arrangement may include:
- Normal hourly pay for hours worked
- Overtime when required
- Pay for compensable travel time
- Guaranteed hours, if applicable
- Work-related travel expenses
- Private lodging
- And, by agreement, a nightly or daily travel fee
Some of these are wage-and-hour requirements. Others are common nanny-industry practices that should be agreed on before the trip.
See federal domestic-worker guidancePay for the hours your nanny is actually working
Vacation doesn't turn childcare into free time. If your nanny is on duty — watching your kids, available if needed, responsible for their safety — that's working time, whether it happens at home or by the pool.
- Watching the kids
- Meals and snacks
- Getting children ready
- Pool or beach supervision
- Activities and excursions
- Driving
- Bedtime routine
- Required availability
The key question is whether your nanny is genuinely free to use the time for themselves.
Vacation doesn't reset the workweek
A family trip is still part of the same workweek. Most covered household employees are generally entitled under federal law to at least 1.5× their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek — subject to exemptions and state rules that can differ from the federal baseline. Nanny overtime doesn't pause just because everyone's somewhere new.
Do you pay a nanny for travel time?
Nanny travel time generally follows the hours it happens in and what your nanny is actually doing during it. Travel that falls within your nanny's normal working hours is typically counted as work. Travel outside those hours, purely as a passenger and completely relieved of childcare duty, can be treated differently under federal enforcement policy — but if your nanny is caring for the kids during the trip, that time is generally working time regardless of the hour. State law can add its own rules on top of this.
Normal schedule is 9 AM–5 PM, so the flight falls inside your nanny's normal working hours.
Your nanny is a passenger and completely relieved of childcare duties for the flight.
Your nanny is responsible for the kids throughout the flight — helping, watching, or on call.
Guaranteed hours don't disappear because the family travels
Guaranteed hours are a common nanny-industry arrangement: your nanny is paid for a set number of hours each week regardless of exactly how the schedule shakes out. A lighter travel-week schedule doesn't erase that commitment. If your nanny normally has 40 guaranteed hours and the family only schedules 32 during the trip, the guarantee generally still applies unless you've agreed otherwise — and any additional hours worked on top of the schedule should be tracked separately, with overtime applied where the actual hours call for it.
Scheduled hours and guaranteed paid hours are two different numbers — Sadie tracks both separately so neither gets lost in the shuffle of a travel week.
Should you pay a nightly travel fee?
A nightly or daily travel — sometimes called an "inconvenience" — fee is commonly negotiated in the nanny industry. It's not the same thing as hourly wages, and it doesn't replace the required pay for hours actually worked. Community discussions among nannies and families often mention ranges around $50–$200+ per night or day, with figures closer to $100–$150 coming up frequently. This is not a federally mandated rate — it's a norm worth agreeing on in advance.
An overnight travel fee is not the same as overnight childcare
Whether your nanny is genuinely off duty overnight — or actually on call for the kids — changes how that time should be treated. These are two different things worth separating clearly before the trip.
Private room, no baby monitor, no childcare responsibility until 8 AM. This may be treated as genuine off-duty time.
Nanny has the baby monitor and is expected to respond overnight, responsible for the kids. This can create compensable working time.
Sleep-time rules are fact-specific and have their own federal requirements — the DOL fact sheet below covers how sleep time is treated for domestic service employees, including nannies.
Read the DOL sleep-time guidanceGive your nanny real off-duty space
A private bedroom is a common professional expectation when a nanny travels with a family. Ideally, that means:
- A private bedroom
- A private bathroom where possible
- Defined off-duty time
- No expectation of childcare while off duty
Room-sharing with the kids can blur off-duty status — if your nanny can't fully step away, that time starts to look like working time again, regardless of what it's called.
The family should plan for work-related travel expenses
Keep reimbursements separate from wages when appropriate.
- Airfare
- Lodging
- Ground transportation
- Required checked baggage
- Meals
- Admission and activities
- Mileage
- Other work-related costs
For federal guidance on business travel expenses, see IRS Publication 463.
A work trip is not your nanny's vacation
If your nanny travels with the family to provide childcare, they generally shouldn't be treated as taking personal PTO simply because the family is on vacation. That's a common point of confusion in traveling with a nanny — the family gets a vacation; the nanny is still on the clock.
This is employment-practice guidance, not a blanket legal rule for every situation — the specifics of your agreement and state law both matter here.
What nannies and household employers discuss online
Reputable nanny-industry communities and forums return to the same themes when families travel with a nanny:
These are community-reported norms, not legal requirements — helpful for calibrating expectations, but not a substitute for your state's wage-and-hour rules or your own employment agreement.
Traveling With Your Nanny (It's Your Vacation, Not Theirs)Nanny Counsel — industry perspective on travel pay normsWhat could a five-day nanny trip cost?
Plus employer payroll taxes and eligible reimbursed travel expenses.
Illustrative example only. Actual requirements vary by hours worked, state law, overnight responsibilities, guaranteed hours, and the employment agreement.
Calculate your nanny's payAgree on these details before the trip
- Work schedule for each travel day
- Off-duty periods, clearly defined
- Travel time — paid or not, and when
- Regular hourly rate
- Overtime, if hours go over 40
- Guaranteed hours during the trip
- Overnight responsibility, if any
- Travel or inconvenience fee
- Accommodations (private room?)
- Meals and other travel expenses
- Reimbursement process
Set the normal once. Record what changes.
If your nanny normally works Monday–Friday, 10 AM–3 PM, Sadie keeps that as the baseline. When travel changes the week, you document only the exceptions.
Updated automatically from the approved records you keep — Sadie calculates the payroll, tracks the schedule, and organizes the reimbursements. You still send the pay and file the taxes.
Travel nanny pay FAQs
Do you have to pay a nanny for travel time?
Often, yes. Travel that falls inside your nanny's normal working hours is generally paid time. Travel outside normal hours is more fact-specific — if they're a passenger and completely relieved of childcare duties, that portion may be treated differently than if they're watching the kids throughout the trip. State rules can add to this, so when in doubt, agree on it in advance and pay for the hours actually worked.
Do nannies get overtime on vacation?
A family trip doesn't reset the workweek. Most covered household employees are generally entitled to at least 1.5× their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, subject to exemptions and state rules — the same math applies whether the extra hours happen at home or on a trip.
What is a typical nanny travel fee?
A nightly or daily travel (or "inconvenience") fee is common in the nanny industry, though it isn't a legally mandated rate. Nanny-industry sources and online discussions commonly mention a range of roughly $50–$200+ per day, with many nannies charging around $100/day — but this is a norm to negotiate, not a wage-and-hour requirement, and it doesn't replace regular pay or overtime for hours actually worked.
Should the family pay for the nanny's hotel?
Lodging while traveling for work is generally considered a work-related expense the family covers, separate from wages. Most families also provide a private room rather than having the nanny share a room with the children, since room-sharing can blur when the nanny is actually off duty.
Does a nanny get paid while sleeping?
It depends on whether they're genuinely off duty. If your nanny has a private room, no baby monitor, and no expectation of responding overnight, that time may be treated as off-duty. If they're expected to listen for the kids or respond overnight, that can be compensable working time. Federal sleep-time rules are fact-specific — see the DOL source below for the details.
Should my nanny use PTO while traveling with us?
If your nanny is traveling to work — caring for your children — that's generally not their personal time off just because the family happens to be on vacation. PTO is typically for when your nanny isn't working. This is an employment-practice question as much as a legal one, so it's worth being explicit about before the trip.
Do guaranteed hours apply when the family travels?
If your nanny has a guaranteed-hours arrangement, a lighter travel-week schedule doesn't erase that guarantee — it's a separate commitment from the hours actually scheduled. If the family only schedules 32 hours during a trip but your nanny is normally guaranteed 40, the guarantee generally still applies unless you've agreed otherwise. Track scheduled hours and guaranteed hours as two different numbers.
Should travel expenses be reimbursed separately from wages?
Generally, yes. Airfare, lodging, ground transportation, meals, and other work-related travel costs are usually reimbursed as expenses, not folded into wages — keeping them separate makes your payroll records clearer and makes it easier to see what was actually paid for hours worked versus what was reimbursed.
Wage, overtime, travel-time, sleep-time, reimbursement, and household-employment rules can vary by state and by the facts of the employment relationship.
This guide provides general educational information and is not legal, tax, or accounting advice.
For federal wage-and-hour rules, consult the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. For federal household-employment tax guidance, see IRS Publication 926.
Travel week or normal week, know what to pay.
Sadie keeps schedules, changes, payroll calculations, reimbursements, and records together so payday doesn't become a reconstruction project.