Getting started
Requirements to become a babysitter in Australia: what each state asks for
No state licenses babysitters. What changes at each border is the check: its name, its price, and whether private babysitting needs one at all. Every state and territory in one table, and the three things families ask for everywhere.
Most of what is written about starting out as a babysitter treats Australia as one place. It is eight, and what changes at each border is the check: what it is called, what it costs, and whether babysitting a family arranges privately needs one at all. This page is the eight answers side by side. It is not legal advice, and every row links the government page it was read from.
What families ask for, wherever you are
Nobody can sell you a certificate that makes babysitting official, and no state asks you to hold one. What families ask for instead takes about a day.
Ready to be booked
- A current check for paid work from your own state, once you are old enough to hold one
- A first aid certificate, HLTAID012 if you have the choice, because it is the one childcare centres use
- Two people a parent can ring, even if they are a neighbour and an aunt whose children you have minded
- A profile that names the ages you have looked after and what a normal evening involved
Age is the other question, and the answer is mostly not a law. No state sets a minimum age for babysitting; what exists is the parents' duty of care, and most families hire from about 16. The checks have their own floors: NSW issues one from 18, the Northern Territory from 15. You can list here from 16, which is our floor rather than the law's. What is usual at 12, 13 and 14 is in how old do you have to be to babysit, and babysitting jobs for teens is the guide for the years before a check.
Does private babysitting need a check: state by state
This is the question most guides get wrong, usually by saying a check is mandatory everywhere. Whether a family's own arrangement needs one is decided state by state, and the NSW exemption does not travel.
Exempt when the family arranges it
Exempt, and most families still ask
- NSW: the Office of the Children's Guardian lists babysitting by private arrangement among the work that does not need a Check
- Victoria: a family's own booking is not child-related work; babysitting arranged by a commercial agency is
- South Australia: a friend or relative minding a child at the parent's request is exempt
- Northern Territory: exempt only as an arrangement between family or friends
Needed even when the family arranges it
No exemption to rely on
- Queensland: an unpaid babysitter is a private arrangement, a paid one needs a blue card
- Everywhere: babysitting through an agency
- Most states: a regular nanny role with a set of hours each week. In NSW the family is legally expected to verify it
For Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT we could not find a government page that answers it plainly, which is a reason to read your own state's page rather than assume you are exempt. The sources are NSW, our Victorian guide, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Exempt or not, parents cannot tell the difference between a babysitter the law exempts and one who has never thought about it, so most of them simply ask. A babysitter who answers with a number is easier to book.
The check in every state and territory
The row is the paid-work version; the volunteer one is below the table.
| Where | The check | Who runs it | Paid work |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | Office of the Children's Guardian, through Service NSW | $112, five years | |
| VIC | Working with Children Check | Service Victoria | $139.20, five years |
| QLD | Blue Card Services | $108.30, three years | |
| WA | Department of Communities | $87, three years | |
| SA | Department of Human Services Screening Unit | $145, five years | |
| TAS | Department of Justice, paid online or at Service Tasmania | $137.20, five years | |
| ACT | Access Canberra | $163, five years | |
| NT | SAFE NT | $89, two years |
The Northern Territory is the one to check before you apply: its own page says the scheme is being changed, with no start date published yet. In NSW the application is a form, a service centre visit and an email, and checking a number is a government form a parent fills in; in Victoria it is Service Victoria end to end.
Taking a check across a border
No state recognises another's check for ongoing work. Take a regular job across a border and you need that state's check, not the one you already hold, and the fee and the wait start again. A babysitter who moves from Sydney to Melbourne with a NSW card is, for Victorian purposes, someone with no card until Service Victoria issues one; Victoria's one concession is 30 days a year for a visitor, which covers a nanny travelling with a family and nothing else.
While you wait, the two things that carry the whole load are references and a short first booking, which is what a family reading find a babysitter in Melbourne is told to ask for. Say which state your check is from on your profile rather than letting a parent find out when they try to look it up.
After the check
The check is the part of this page that changes by state. The rest does not. How to become a babysitter in Sydney has the first aid course and why HLTAID012 is the one to do, what to charge, where the first jobs come from and the first booking, and almost all of it reads the same in Perth. Regular hours in one family's home is nanny work, and most states treat it as child-related work that needs a check even where casual babysitting is exempt. How to become a nanny covers the move, and the NSW rule in full.
Where these facts come from
Every row in the table was read off that government's own page in August 2026, and links it. Fees move: the NSW one has changed twice in two years, so check the application page before you pay. The exemptions are each state's published rule as of the same month, and where we could not find one we have said so rather than guessed. Which registers we can check ourselves is the state of our verification in September 2026, and the verification page is where that list is kept current. None of it is legal advice.
