Au pair duties and hours: what's normal (and what's out of bounds)

What an au pair actually does

The job is simple to define: help with the children, and do the light housework that comes from the children being there. Getting the children up and dressed, school runs, meals and snacks, homework help, playtime, bath and bedtime routines, tidy-up after the kids.

Child-related housework means the children's laundry, their rooms, their toys, and cooking for them. It does not mean the whole household's laundry, cooking dinner for the parents, or cleaning the family bathrooms. If a family's expectations drift toward general housekeeping, that's no longer an au pair placement — it's unpaid domestic work, and it's the single most common reason placements break down.

How many hours per week

Visa and employment rules cap the week, and the caps matter even when nobody's checking — they're the difference between cultural exchange and exploitation:

• Germany: 30 hours/week, capped at 6 hours a day
• France: 30 hours/week
• Netherlands: 30 hours/week
• Spain: 30 hours/week
• UK: 25–30 hours/week plus up to 2 evenings of babysitting
• Ireland: no formal visa route, but 30–35 hours is the accepted norm
• USA (J-1 au pair programme): 45 hours/week, max 10 hours a day
• Australia: no dedicated au pair visa; where employment law applies ordinary hours should not exceed 38 a week, and around 30 is common

Time off that isn't negotiable

Every major programme guarantees at least one fully free day per week, and that day should fall on a Sunday at least once a month. In practice, healthy placements give two free days a week and one full free weekend a month.

Evenings: babysitting counts inside the weekly cap, not on top of it — a common misunderstanding that quietly pushes au pairs over their hours. Language course time is also part of the deal: most countries expect the family to give the au pair real time (and often help with the cost) to attend classes.

Holiday and sick days vary by country — in Germany it's 4 weeks of paid holiday for a 12-month stay, and the US programme includes 1.5 days off per month plus a completed education component.

What's out of bounds

Families sometimes ask for 'just a little extra' — and each small extra reshapes the placement. These are the requests to decline, or to renegotiate formally:

• Sole charge of a newborn (under 12 months) — most programmes prohibit it entirely
• Deep cleaning, cooking for adults, or cleaning up after guests
• Caring for pets as a standing duty (feeding the cat occasionally is fine)
• Regular work past the weekly cap, even if it 'seems like not much'
• Any job that turns into full-time childcare for a baby — that's a nanny's role

Put the week in writing

The best defence against drift is a schedule both sides signed before arrival. Write out a typical week — start and finish times each day, which evenings are babysitting, which days are free, when the language course happens — and attach it to the au pair agreement.

When something changes (a school term shifts, a parent starts travelling), update the schedule together rather than absorbing it quietly. Our free hours and duty schedule template gives you the structure, and the interview questions guide covers how to test whether a family's real week matches the one they describe.