Does the au pair concept suit you and your family?
Do you and your family in Sweden feel that it is a challenge to get career, housework and family together? Are you interested in other cultures and have a room left over? Then maybe an au pair could suit your family.
How to know if an au pair convenient for your family
Prerequisites for being able to host an au pair:
- Accommodation and board must be included in addition to the salary. This means that you need an extra room in your home where the au pair can live.
- You and your family can appreciate a new person in the household
- Your finances cover the costs of an au pair
Due to the fact that board and lodging are included, an au pair’s salary is lower than a domestic babysitter’s salary.
You can read more about salary for an au pair here »
Depending on what needs and resources you have, it may be better to hire a nanny who already lives in Sweden. Read more » (Swedish)
Advantages of the au pair concept:
- Cultural exchange for the whole family, not just for the au pair
- Opportunity for children to practice another language. Read article about Matilda and Marco, (Swedish)
- Babysitter for low cost
- Flexible scheduling
- Opportunity to help with babysitting at night
- Opportunity to help with simpler household services
Disadvantages of the au pair concept
- Your family’s privacy can be affected: With a new person living with the family, everyday life and privacy are affected. It can take a while to adjust to a new person in the home.
- Cultural differences: It can take a while for the au pair to adapt to a new place and culture. Your children must also adapt to a new person.
- The au pair is usually not a trained babysitter: The main purpose of the au pair is cultural exchange.
If you come to the conclusion that the au pair concept suits you, keep in mind that there are different rules for au pairs depending on whether they come from the EU or outside the EU. It is much easier and cheaper to hire an au pair from the EU. Read more » (Swedish)
If you do not have the opportunity to offer accommodation to an au pair, you can still hire a babysitter as a private person. You can reduce your salary costs with the help of the rut deduction. Read more » (Swedish)
Use Diretto for salary, tax and “rut” or “rot” deduction
As a private individual and employer, you can handle the administration manually. But for from SEK 69 per payment, you can easily handle everything in Diretto’s service, you can handle the salary, tax and any “rut” or “rot” deduction. The employee automatically receives a salary specification. On our page Diretto.se, you can calculate what the cost will be.
