Hiring a Daycare Assistant: Pay, Payroll Taxes and Background Checks

When an assistant makes sense

Most providers hire for one of three reasons: ratios (your license allows more children with a second adult), coverage (someone cleared to be with the children when you step out, take a vacation, or get sick), or capacity (a helper turns 'full' into a bigger, more profitable program). If you regularly turn families away, an assistant can pay for herself — run the numbers with the Income Projection Calculator using the higher capacity before you commit.

Start part-time if you can. School-hours help, or a substitute who covers two or three days a week, is the gentlest way to learn payroll before you depend on a full-time employee.

What assistants earn

Pay follows your local labor market. In much of the country, home daycare and child care assistants earn roughly $13 to $18 an hour in 2025–26, with higher rates in high-cost metro areas and for assistants who bring experience, a CDA credential, or the ability to open and close alone. Check postings from centers near you — you are competing with them for the same people.

Reliability is worth a premium. A slightly higher wage for someone who shows up every day, on time, is cheaper than a revolving door of no-shows in a job where you legally cannot be out of ratio.

The true cost of an hour of help

Budget for more than the wage. As an employer you pay payroll taxes on top: Social Security and Medicare (FICA) at 7.65% of wages, plus federal and state unemployment insurance, and most states require workers' compensation insurance. A realistic planning figure is the wage plus 10–15%.

Worked example: you hire an assistant at $15 an hour for 20 hours a week. Wages are $300 a week. Add FICA at 7.65% — $22.95. Add a modest allowance for unemployment insurance and workers' comp, roughly $12–$20 a week at typical rates, and your true cost lands near $335–$345 a week, or about $16,700–$17,200 over a 50-week year. That is the number to weigh against the extra tuition the assistant makes possible — for example, two additional full-time children at $225 a week would bring in $22,500 over the same year.

Employee, not independent contractor

This is the trap: an assistant who works in your home, on your schedule, following your routines, with your equipment, is your employee under IRS rules — even if you both would prefer a simple contractor arrangement, and even if she also works elsewhere. Paying her as a contractor when she is really an employee can leave you owing back payroll taxes, penalties, and interest.

Being an employer is manageable: get an EIN if you do not have one, register with your state's unemployment and new-hire reporting systems, withhold income tax and the employee's share of FICA, pay your share, deposit taxes on schedule, and issue a W-2 in January. A payroll service for one employee typically costs $30–$60 a month and is worth it for most providers. Our guide to home daycare tax forms explains the forms you will meet.

• Get (or use) your EIN — never run payroll under your Social Security number if you can avoid it
• Have the assistant complete Form W-4 and Form I-9 on or before day one
• Report the new hire to your state, usually within 20 days
• Withhold, deposit, and file on schedule — set phone reminders, late deposits are penalized
• Keep payroll records with your other business records for at least four years

Background checks and licensing rules

Your state licensing rules treat your assistant almost like a second provider. In most states she will need the same fingerprint-based background check and child abuse registry clearance as you, health screening or TB test where required, CPR and first aid certification, and a set number of training hours each year. Many states also require assistants to be at least 18 and to complete orientation training before being left alone with children — and some do not allow an assistant to be alone with the group until checks are fully cleared.

Start the paperwork before her first day, not after. Background checks can take weeks, and a start date that slides is the most common hiring hiccup in family child care.

Common questions

Keep reading

Disclaimer: HomeDaycareTools.com provides free calculators and general information for planning purposes only. Nothing on this site is tax, legal or financial advice. Tax rules, CACFP rates and licensing rules change — confirm your figures with IRS Publication 587, your CACFP sponsoring organization, your state licensing agency, or a qualified tax professional before filing or signing anything.