How to Start a Babysitting Business
The moment you are turning work down is the moment this stopped being casual.
There is a point where babysitting quietly changes. You have regular families. You are booked three weekends ahead. You have turned somebody down. Nothing official happened, but you are running a small business now and the people who do well from here are the ones who notice.
If you are not there yet and the problem is a thin schedule rather than a full one, start here instead.
1. Set a real rate and write it down
Casual sitters have a number in their head that drifts. A business has a rate, and the rate has a structure: a base for one child, what a second adds, what late nights and holidays and short notice add.
Writing it down is not bureaucracy. It is what lets you answer a pricing question in four seconds instead of guessing low under pressure.
The free calculator builds your rate from your area, your experience, the ages and how many children. Two minutes, no card.
Work out my rate2. Make a rate card
One page, your name at the top, your rates and your terms underneath. You send it when somebody asks what you charge.
What it changes is the nature of the conversation. Without one you are a person naming a price, which invites a negotiation. With one you are a service with published rates, which does not. Same number, completely different reception.
3. Put the boring things in writing
You do not need a lawyer and you do not need anything that sounds like one. You need a short written agreement that covers:
- Your hourly rate and what counts as an hour
- A minimum booking, usually three hours
- What happens when they run late
- Your cancellation policy
- How and when you get paid
Send it once, at the start, to every new family. Nobody has ever refused to book a sitter for having terms. Plenty of sitters have lost hundreds of dollars for not having them.
The cancellation policy that actually gets accepted
Twenty four hours notice, or half the booking is payable. Not the full booking, which reads as harsh and gets argued about. Half gets agreed to, and half of a five hour evening is still real money for a night you turned other work down to hold.
The late policy
Fifteen minutes free, then charged in half hours. Stated up front it is a policy. Raised at midnight it is a complaint, and it is the same sentence either way. Timing is the whole difference.
4. Keep a record from the first week
Date, family, hours, rate, amount, whether you have been paid. A note in your phone is enough to start.
Two reasons. You will want it at tax time, and you will want it the first time somebody says they already paid you.
5. Understand the tax side before it matters
This part is genuinely confusing because babysitters can fall into two completely different categories depending on how they work.
If you sit for several families on your own schedule, you are generally treated as self-employed, and self-employment income is reportable once it passes the IRS threshold, which has been $400 of net earnings for a long time.
If you work regularly for one family who controls your hours, you may be their household employee instead. For 2026 the household employment threshold is $3,000 in cash wages, at which point the family is expected to handle Social Security and Medicare. There is also an exemption where the employee is under 18, which is why most teenage sitters never encounter any of this.
2026 household employment threshold: GTM Payroll Services
This is a plain-English summary, not tax advice, and your situation may not match either description. If you are earning enough for it to matter, a half hour with an accountant costs less than getting it wrong.
6. Decide what you are not
The fastest way to lose money in this job is to let the role expand for free. Light tidying becomes cleaning. One child becomes their cousin too. A six o'clock start becomes half five.
None of that happens in a single conversation. It happens over months, one small yes at a time, and the only defense is having decided in advance what the job includes.
The Script is eighteen chapters of the exact words: quoting a new family, answering in the doorway, chasing what you are owed, and raising your rate on a family you have had for years.
See The Script · $197. Raise your rate every January
Pick a month and stick to it. January works because everybody expects prices to change then and nobody takes it personally.
A sitter who never raises their rate is taking a pay cut every year, quietly, for as long as they keep sitting.
One credential does move the number on its own. We ran the math on whether certification is worth it, and at a 5 percent uplift it pays for itself faster than most people expect.
Common questions
Do I need to register a babysitting business?
Most independent sitters in the United States operate as sole proprietors and do not register anything. Requirements vary by state and city, and running a childcare service out of your own home is a different matter with its own licensing rules.
Do babysitters have to pay taxes?
Self-employment income is generally reportable once net earnings pass the IRS threshold of $400. If you work for one family who sets your hours you may be a household employee instead, where the 2026 threshold is $3,000 in cash wages, with an exemption for employees under 18.
Should babysitters have a contract?
A short written agreement covering your rate, minimum booking, late policy, cancellation terms and payment method is enough. It does not need legal language and no reasonable family objects to one.
What is a fair babysitting cancellation policy?
Twenty four hours notice, or half the booking is payable. Charging the full amount tends to get argued with; half is widely accepted and still covers a night you turned other work down for.