Do I Have to Give My Nanny a Pay Stub?

The Short Answer

Federal law does not require any employer to provide pay stubs. Most states do require a written or electronic wage statement each time wages are paid, and those laws generally apply to household employers the same way they apply to businesses. Several states have gone further and passed domestic worker protections that spell out record-keeping duties specifically for families.

• No federal pay stub requirement exists under the Fair Labor Standards Act
• Most states require a wage statement each pay period, with no carve-out for households
• New York, California, Massachusetts, and Illinois are among the states with domestic worker protections that add record-keeping duties
• Check your state labor department, since the required fields and delivery method vary

First, Your Nanny Is Almost Certainly an Employee

The pay stub question sits downstream of a much bigger one. Families often try to treat a nanny as an independent contractor and issue a 1099, which is nearly always the wrong classification. The IRS looks at who controls the work. If you set the hours, decide what the job involves, and provide the home and equipment where the work happens, the person is your employee.

• You control what work is done and how it is done, which points to employment
• The work happens in your home using your things, not the worker's own business setup
• The nanny does not offer the same services to the general public as an independent business
• Issuing a 1099 instead of a W-2 shifts your share of employment tax onto the worker, which is why misclassification carries penalties

What Belongs on the Stub

A household pay stub is the same document any employer produces. There is no special household format, and using the standard fields is helpful because the same categories feed your Schedule H and the W-2 you issue in January.

• Your name and address as the employer, and the employee name and address
• Pay period start and end dates, and the pay date
• Hours worked and the hourly rate, including any overtime hours at the overtime rate
• Gross pay for the period
• Social Security and Medicare withheld, the employee share
• Federal income tax withheld, if you agreed to withhold it
• State income tax withheld, where applicable
• Net pay, with year-to-date totals for each line

Why It Protects You as Well

Wage disputes between families and household employees are common, and the family usually carries the burden of proving what was paid. A contemporaneous stub for every pay period is the cleanest evidence there is. It also keeps your own numbers straight for the filings that come later.

• It documents hours and rate, which matters if an overtime question comes up
• It gives you the year-to-date figures your Schedule H and W-2 have to match
• It shows the employee exactly what was withheld, which reduces misunderstandings
• It supports your position if the employee later files for unemployment and the state reviews the wage record

Paying in Cash Does Not Remove the Obligation

Paying a nanny in cash is legal. Paying in cash without withholding, reporting, and issuing a W-2 is not. The obligations attach to the employment relationship, not to the payment method, and the stub is simply the record that the correct amounts were calculated and withheld.