Babysitter vs nanny: what NSW law actually requires
A privately arranged babysitter in your own home doesn't legally need a Working With Children Check. A nanny does, and you're the one expected to verify it. Where the line sits, and why.
Ask around and you will hear both of these, often from the same person: "everyone who works with kids needs a Working With Children Check", and "babysitters don't need anything". Neither is right, and the actual rule is more interesting than either.
The short version
Under NSW rules, a privately arranged babysitter working in your own home is not required to hold a Working With Children Check. A nanny, au pair, or tutor is — and because there is no employer or agency in the arrangement, you are the person expected to verify it.
The law is deliberately two-tier. It draws a line between someone you occasionally ask over for an evening and someone in an ongoing, regular caring role in your household.
Where the line actually falls
There is no hour count that flips a babysitter into a nanny. The distinction is about the shape of the arrangement, not its size:
- Babysitter. Occasional, ad hoc care, usually in your home, usually while you are out for a few hours. You call them when you need them. Friday night, a wedding, a late meeting.
- Nanny. Regular, ongoing care as an arrangement rather than a favour. Same days each week, a routine, responsibility for the child's day. Whether they live in makes no difference.
- Au pair. Live-in care in exchange for board and pocket money, typically alongside study or travel. Ongoing by definition.
- Tutor. One-to-one teaching on a recurring basis, in your home or theirs.
The last three sit in child-related work as NSW defines it. The first does not.
If you are honestly unsure which side you are on, the useful question is not "how many hours?" but "is this a standing arrangement?" A sitter you book most Wednesdays for the school run has drifted across the line, whatever you call them.
Why the split exists
It is easy to read this as an oversight. It isn't.
The Working With Children Check regime is built around organisations. Employers and agencies that engage child-related workers must register with the Office of the Children's Guardian and verify their workers through an employer portal. That machinery works when there is an organisation to carry the obligation.
Private families are not organisations, and the state made a judgement about where to place the obligation. Casual, occasional babysitting — historically the teenager from three doors down — was left outside the scheme. Ongoing, employment-shaped care was left inside it, with the verification duty landing on the parent because there is nobody else to hand it to.
The practical consequence catches people out: if you engage a nanny, the responsibility to check their Check is yours. Nobody sends you a reminder.
What this means in practice
If you are hiring a nanny, au pair, or tutor. Ask for their WWC number, family name, and date of birth, and verify it before the first day. It is free and takes about two minutes. We have written the step-by-step in how to check a babysitter's WWCC. Do it even if they are a friend of a friend, and especially if they are.
If you are booking a casual babysitter. There is no legal requirement, so it becomes a judgement call. Ours: ask anyway. It costs you two minutes and costs them nothing if they hold one. If they don't hold one, that is not disqualifying — a seventeen-year-old doing their first sitting job will not have one, and that is completely normal. It just means the rest of your diligence has to carry more weight.
If you are a sitter. Getting a Check is $107 and it makes you materially easier to hire. It is also the thing that separates you from an unverified profile in a parent's shortlist. If you are sitting regularly enough that it is a real income, it will pay for itself quickly.
What we ask for
We do not require a WWCC to list on AusBabysitters, because the law does not require one for casual babysitting and pretending otherwise would shut out exactly the sitters the law deliberately left room for.
What we do is make the difference visible. Sitters can opt in to verification: we check a government ID and a matching selfie, and we check their WWCC status directly with the Office of the Children's Guardian. Those profiles carry a badge with the month we checked. Profiles without one say "not yet verified" in the same plain words, in the same place a badge would sit, and tell you to ask to sight their Check.
Nobody on this site can tick a box and appear verified. There is no self-declared badge, because a claim we display is a claim we checked.
Sitters who present themselves as nannies — regular, ongoing care — get pushed hard toward verification, because a parent hiring them is legally expected to verify a Check anyway. Better that it is already done.
The things the law does not cover at all
Neither tier says anything about competence. A Working With Children Check is a screening against records; it is not an assessment of whether someone can look after your child.
Whichever side of the line you are on, the same non-legal steps do most of the work: meet before the first booking, ask for two referees and ring them, run a short trial while you are still in the house, and write down what you have agreed about rates, hours, and what happens if plans change.
The legal requirement is a floor, and it is a low one on purpose. What you build on top of it is up to you.