Au pairs in Ireland: you are an employee, with the minimum wage

"Au pair" describes an arrangement, not a legal status. Irish law has never created one: there is no au pair visa, no au pair rate and no exemption from the employment Acts for a person who lives with a family and minds its children in exchange for money and a room. When the WRC was asked to decide the question in 2016, in a case supported by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, it found that an au pair paid €100 a week for long hours was an employee and awarded her arrears of wages and other sums, and the decisions since have followed the same line. If you are an au pair in Ireland, you are an employee of the host family, and this guide sets out what that means.

Why you are an employee

Whether someone is an employee turns on the whole relationship, not the label. The Supreme Court's test in Karshan (2023) asks whether there is an exchange of work for pay, whether you must do the work personally, whether the other side has sufficient control over what you do and when, and whether the terms as a whole are consistent with employment. An au pair arrangement meets all four: you do the childcare and the housework the family sets, you cannot send a friend instead, the family decides the hours and the tasks, and you get money and accommodation in return. The fact that the arrangement was described as a cultural exchange, that you came through an agency, or that you are also attending an English course does not change the analysis. The employee or self-employed guide explains the test.

Once you are an employee, every Act on this site applies to you. The family is your employer, with the duties of one, even though it has never thought of itself that way.

The minimum wage and the board-and-lodging allowance

The National Minimum Wage Act 2000 applies to every hour you work. The 2026 rates are:

An employer who provides board (meals) or lodging (a room) may count a fixed allowance for them towards the minimum wage. The allowance is set by the Minister in the minimum wage order as a weekly or hourly amount for board and lodging together, for lodging only and for board only; the figures are in the current order and on the WRC's minimum wage page, and this site does not quote them. That allowance is the only thing the family may count. Not the English course, not flights, not "pocket money" rolled up with "living costs", not use of a car.

The arithmetic is done over a pay reference period of up to one month: total pay for the period plus the allowance, divided by the hours worked, must reach the rate for your age. For a 20-year-old doing 30 hours a week, the gross figure before the allowance is €424.50 a week; at 40 hours it is €566. Pocket money of €100 or €150 a week, which is common in au pair advertisements, is far below either. The minimum wage checker works out the shortfall from your hours and pay.

You can ask the family in writing for a statement of your average hourly rate for any pay reference period in the last twelve months, and it must be given within four weeks. Asking for that statement is often the first step, because it forces the hours to be counted.

Hours, breaks and rest

The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 applies: a 48-hour average week over four months, 11 consecutive hours' rest in every 24, a 24-hour rest period in every seven days, a 15-minute break after 4.5 hours and 30 minutes after 6. Living in the house does not make you available around the clock. Hours when you are required to be in the house and responsible for the children, including evenings when the parents are out and you are "babysitting", are working time. Hours when you are free to leave and do as you please are not. Being woken at night to settle a child is working time for the period you are up.

Keep a daily note of start and finish times and of every evening and weekend you were on duty. The family is required to keep records of your hours and almost never does; where there are no records, the WRC can expect the employer to disprove your account, and a contemporaneous diary is strong evidence. The working hours guide covers the Act.

Sunday work must be recognised by a premium, time off or a higher rate. The ten public holidays in 2026 are 1 January, 2 February, 17 March, 6 April, 4 May, 1 June, 3 August, 26 October, 25 December and 26 December; if you work one you are owed a paid day off, an extra day's leave or an extra day's pay, and if you are not rostered you are owed one fifth of a week's pay.

Leave, sick pay and a written statement

Annual leave is the greatest of four weeks for 1,365 hours in the leave year, one third of a week for each month of at least 117 hours, or 8% of hours worked, up to four weeks. If you leave before taking it, it must be paid in your final pay. The annual leave calculator works it out. Statutory sick pay is 5 days a year at 70% of pay capped at €110 a day, after 13 weeks with the family, with a medical certificate from day one.

The family must give you written terms: the core terms (names, the family's address, start date, pay and the pay reference period, hours, place of work, your duties, any probation) within 5 days, and the rest, including the notice each side must give and your leave, within 1 month. A missing statement can bring up to four weeks' pay at the WRC. You must also get a payslip each time you are paid, showing gross pay and every deduction, including the board and lodging allowance. The contract checker lists what must be in writing; ask the family for it in your first week, when it is a request rather than a complaint.

Deductions beyond the allowance are allowed only where required by law, provided for in your contract and fair and reasonable, or agreed by you in writing in advance. A deduction for a broken item, a lost key or a phone bill needs a week's written notice and cannot exceed the loss.

Ending the arrangement

After 13 weeks the family owes you one week's notice to end the arrangement, and you owe one week; the written terms can lengthen either. If you are told to leave the house the same day, you are owed pay for the notice period unless the dismissal is for gross misconduct, and you are owed your accrued leave. Being asked to leave the house is also a practical emergency: the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland and your embassy can help with the immediate question of where to stay.

After 12 months you could claim unfair dismissal; with less service, a dismissal for pregnancy, for asserting your rights (asking for the minimum wage or a payslip) or on a discriminatory ground can still go to the WRC. In practice most au pair complaints are about pay rather than dismissal, and the Payment of Wages and Minimum Wage complaints do not depend on service at all.

Immigration and the agency

If you are an EU or EEA citizen you need no permission to work. If you are from outside the EU, there is no au pair permission: people come on a student permission or a visitor permission, and a visitor permission does not allow work. That does not stop the Acts applying to work you have done, and it does not stop a WRC complaint, but it may affect your position with immigration, so get advice from the MRCI before deciding how to proceed. The employment side is the same whatever your status; the work permit rights guide explains why.

Agencies that place au pairs are not your employer: the family is. An agency in Ireland that finds you work cannot charge you a fee for the placement. An agency's "guidelines" on pocket money or hours have no legal force; the Acts do.

How to complain

1. Count the hours from your diary and work out the shortfall, allowing the board and lodging allowance.
2. Write to the family, calmly, setting out the hours, the pay, the allowance and the difference, and asking for it within a stated time. Keep a copy.
3. If it is not paid, make a WRC complaint online, with no fee, under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 and the Payment of Wages Act 1991, and for any missing written statement under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994. The complaint must be made within six months of each pay day, extendable to twelve for reasonable cause. The deadline checker gives you the date.
4. The WRC offers free mediation first; if that fails, an adjudicator hears the case and issues a written decision that is enforceable through the District Court. You can represent yourself, and the MRCI has supported au pairs at hearings.

A complaint can be made after you have left the family and after you have left Ireland; the hearing can be attended remotely. Decisions in au pair cases have awarded arrears of wages, compensation for breaches of the working time rules, and compensation for a missing statement; the awards register explains what the WRC's figures mean. Au pairs who go on to work in registered childcare services are covered by the childcare order.

Where this leaves you

You are an employee of the host family, and the family owes you the minimum wage for your age for every hour you work, less only the board and lodging allowance set in the minimum wage order. The minimum wage checker takes your hours and your pay and gives you the shortfall over the period you enter, with the WRC route and its six-month clock. Keep the diary, ask for the statement of your average hourly rate, and write before you complain. The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland will help with both the employment and the immigration side.