Find a Trusted Nanny in Boston

Why Boston Families Choose Beverly

Boston is the only market on this list where the institutions that create the demand for nannies also supply the caregivers. Mass General Brigham reported a workforce of 82,000 in a January 2026 press release; Beth Israel Lahey Health publishes more than 36,000 employees; Harvard and MIT together employ over 37,000 faculty and staff. Those households are the families hiring. At the same time, roughly a quarter of a million college students study within about ten miles of downtown, and the City's own housing report counts 65,823 Boston students — 40.5% — living off campus in private housing. That is the sitter pool, and it is why casual care in Boston is easier to find than a career nanny is.

The other thing that makes Boston hard is that "Boston" is not one place to hire in. Cambridge, Brookline, Newton, Somerville, Wellesley, and Weston are separate municipalities with their own schools, their own parent networks, and their own agencies. A caregiver's commute can cross three jurisdictions in four miles. Agencies draw a placement radius and stop, so a family in Concord and a family in the South End get shown genuinely different candidate pools by the same firm.

Beverly acts as your hiring coordinator across the whole metro at once. Your coordinator contacts Boston-area agencies, posts to the major platforms, and activates referral networks in the city and in MetroWest at the same time, then runs every candidate through the same screening: identity and Social Security trace, criminal and sex-offender records, global watchlist, motor vehicle records — which matter more here than in most cities, because suburban roles are driving roles — education verification, and reference calls. You get a shortlist, not a pile of resumes. Families tell us the coordinated search saves them 100+ hours. Beverly hires fewer than 1% of the coordinators who apply, and the one assigned to you runs the search end to end.

Boston Hires on Two Calendars

Most cities have one hiring peak. Boston has two, and the first one catches families by surprise. Match Day 2026 fell on Friday, March 20; incoming interns at Massachusetts General started June 15 and at Brigham and Women's June 16, two weeks ahead of the July 1 academic year that most guidance quotes. A first-year resident therefore learns which city she is moving to in late March and has to be working in Boston by mid-June — about twelve weeks, housing included. It is the tightest childcare timeline in the metro and it lands on the cohort most likely to have an infant.

The second peak is the familiar one, and it is sharper than it looks. University move-in runs from roughly August 18 to September 6, peaking in the last week of August. The City's own moving-truck permit data shows September 1 is the busiest permit day of every year by a factor of about three over the second busiest, which is August 31, and the twelve days from August 25 to September 5 carry roughly a quarter of the year's permits. Permits are optional, so this counts permitted moves rather than all moves — but the direction is unmistakable. Then Boston Public Schools opens on Tuesday, September 8, 2026 for grades 1 through 12 and on Thursday, September 10 for pre-K and kindergarten: a two-day gap that leaves a household with an older child and a kindergartener covered for one and uncovered for the other. The nannies are moving in that same fortnight. Start your search six to eight weeks before your target date, and earlier than that for September.

Massachusetts Employment Law for Nannies

Massachusetts has a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights — M.G.L. c.149 §190, in force since April 1, 2015 and enforced by the Attorney General's Fair Labor Division — and it imposes among the strictest recordkeeping requirements in the country on household employers. New York's Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which governs Beverly's largest market, has no equivalent of either of the two central ones. For federal obligations, see our nanny tax guide.

The 16-Hour Threshold

Three obligations switch on at 16 hours a week, which is below a part-time schedule and catches almost every real nanny role:

• A written agreement, signed by both of you before work begins. It must be in a language your nanny easily understands and kept for three years, and it has to cover the regular and overtime rate, raises for added duties, schedule and job duties, rest periods, sick leave, holidays, vacation and personal days, any other benefits, deductions, workers' compensation eligibility, how concerns get raised and resolved, and notice of termination by either party. Live-in roles add two more: when and why you will enter the worker's living space, and what counts as cause for termination.
• A timesheet at least every two weeks, showing hours worked each day and signed or acknowledged by both of you. A nanny who disagrees may record the hours she believes she worked. Signing a timesheet does not stop her from later claiming wages owed, and refusing to sign one does not let you delay or withhold pay.
• Workers' compensation insurance. Coverage is elective only for a domestic employee working fewer than 16 hours a week. At 16 or more it is mandatory. If you are uninsured and your nanny misses more than five days of work through a work-related injury, the Department of Industrial Accidents can compensate her and then come after you.

Two more obligations have no hours threshold at all, which the guidance you will read elsewhere frequently gets wrong: every domestic worker must receive the state's Notice of Rights, and payroll records and paystubs must be kept for three years. The Attorney General publishes a free sample employment agreement, a sample timesheet, a sample work evaluation, and the Notice of Rights in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Nepali, and Tagalog. There is no reason to draft these from scratch.

Minimum Wage

The Massachusetts minimum wage is $15.00 per hour under M.G.L. c.151 §1, in force since January 1, 2023 as the final step of the 2018 grand bargain, with no further increase scheduled. Massachusetts municipalities cannot set their own general minimum wage, and neither Boston nor Cambridge has a domestic-worker ordinance. Both cities do have living-wage ordinances, but those reach city contractors and recipients of substantial city assistance, not private households. The practical consequence is worth stating plainly: the rulebook is identical in Beacon Hill and in Weston. What changes across the town line is the market and the commute, not the law.

Overtime, and Why Live-In Is Not a Discount Here

Overtime is 1.5 times the regular rate for every hour over 40 in a week. The interesting part is who that reaches. The FLSA exempts live-in domestic service workers from federal overtime, so families arriving from other states often assume a live-in nanny is cheaper per hour. Massachusetts does not follow: c.151 §1A carries twenty enumerated exclusions and not one is domestic service or live-in status, and 940 CMR 32.03 affirmatively grants domestic workers overtime for all hours over 40 a week. For comparison, New York pays live-in domestic workers overtime only after 44 hours.

The lodging offset is capped at $35 a week for a room occupied by one person, and meals at $1.50 for breakfast plus $2.25 for lunch and $2.25 for dinner, which is $6.00 a day or $42 a week — $77 a week in total. Both require your nanny's voluntary written consent given before any deduction. And if you require the worker to live in, no lodging deduction is permitted at all.

Rest, Meals, and Sick Time

At 40 or more hours a week, your nanny is entitled to at least 24 consecutive hours of rest each calendar week and at least 48 consecutive hours each calendar month. The 24 may run inside the 48 in one week. A rest period can be given up only by written agreement made before it is missed, and the day must then be paid at the overtime rate.

Massachusetts requires a 30-minute meal interval after six hours of work. Whether it is paid is the part household employers get wrong: for a domestic worker on duty less than 24 consecutive hours, all meal, rest, and sleeping periods are working time unless she has no duties and is free to leave. A nanny in sole charge of a child essentially never meets that test, so her break is paid. On duty for 24 consecutive hours or more, you may agree in writing to exclude a regularly scheduled sleeping period of up to eight hours.

Earned sick time accrues at one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours a calendar year, usable from the 90th calendar day of employment. Whether it is paid turns on headcount: paid earned sick time applies to employers with 11 or more employees, and a household with one nanny has one, so what state law guarantees is 40 hours of unpaid, job-protected sick time. Most competitive Boston offers include paid sick days anyway, and a PTO policy generous enough to meet the accrual requirement satisfies the statute on its own.

Final Pay, Privacy, and Evaluations

However the employment ends, and whatever the reason, you must pay all wages owed including all earned, unused paid vacation, on the last day of work. There is no grace period and no next-payroll-cycle option. Section 190 also gives your nanny a right to privacy — no monitoring of private living or sleeping spaces, bathrooms, or private communications, and no holding of passports or documents — a right to request a written performance evaluation after three months and annually after that, and protection from retaliation that applies regardless of immigration status. Live-in terminations carry their own notice rules: absent cause, written notice plus either 30 days of housing or two weeks' severance.

Taxes, PFML, and What Massachusetts Does Not Ask

Once you pay a household employee $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026, you owe the 7.65% employer share of Social Security and Medicare. Federal unemployment tax is triggered at $1,000 in cash wages in any calendar quarter. Massachusetts unemployment insurance uses the same $1,000 quarterly trigger — a lower threshold than the general $1,500 rule — and new employers registered less than three years pay 2.42% in 2026, with quarterly filings due April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31.

Paid Family and Medical Leave costs 0.46% of eligible wages for 2026. Every household employer sits in the under-25 tier, which means you withhold the employee contribution and owe no employer share — on a $58,000 salary that is about $270 a year. Rates are reset each October, and new legislation shifts employer contributions from medical to family leave from January 1, 2027, so treat 0.46% as a figure to re-check each autumn.

Two things Massachusetts does not require, both of which surprise people: household employers are not required to withhold state income tax, and federal income tax withholding is optional too — you withhold it only if your nanny asks and you agree. Many families elect to withhold anyway, purely to spare their nanny quarterly estimated payments. Beverly membership includes 1 free year of Poppins Payroll for new Poppins customers, one seat, which handles the DUA registration, the quarterly filings, the PFML withholding, and the W-2.

Babysitter Services in Boston

Looking for a babysitter in Boston instead of a full-time nanny? Beverly helps with that too. Whether you need occasional date-night coverage or a regular part-time sitter, our screening and coordination services ensure you find trustworthy care.

Babysitters in Boston typically charge $22-$35 per hour in 2026, rising to $26-$40 in premium neighborhoods such as Back Bay and Brookline. Experienced student sitters from the city's universities often charge $20-$25 per hour, which is why Boston's casual-care market is gentler than its nanny market. For comparison, a full-time nanny in Boston costs $25-$42 per hour — the higher commitment reflecting the consistent schedule and expanded duties.

Massachusetts draws a line here that other states do not, and it is worth understanding before you decide between a sitter and a part-time nanny. The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights excludes a person "whose vocation is not childcare and whose services for the employer primarily consist of childcare on a casual, intermittent and irregular basis." That is a two-part test and both halves have to hold. The college student who sits on Saturday nights is outside the Act. A professional sitter whose vocation is childcare stays inside it even on an irregular schedule, and a regular part-time nanny is inside it on both counts. If your genuine need is under 15 hours a week, a sitter is usually the better arrangement — the 16-hour threshold sits right at that line.

Even for occasional babysitting, Beverly recommends running a background check. Our platform makes it easy to screen sitters with the same rigor you'd apply to a full-time nanny. Learn more about the key differences between nannies and babysitters to decide which arrangement fits your family.

Boston Neighborhoods and Towns We Serve

Greater Boston is a patchwork of separate municipalities, and getting this wrong is the fastest way to lose a candidate's confidence. Cambridge, Newton, and Somerville are cities in their own right; Brookline, Wellesley, Weston, Lexington, Winchester, and Concord are towns. None of them are Boston neighborhoods. Brookline is the clearest case: it borders only two municipalities, Boston and Newton, sits in Norfolk County while touching only Suffolk and Middlesex, and is surrounded by the City of Boston on three sides. Below are the areas where Beverly is most active. Rates are for one child and match our Boston nanny cost guide.

Boston Neighborhoods

Separate Cities and Towns in the Metro

Helpful Resources for Boston Parents