Last updated: May 2026. Based on US federal and state employment law as of 2026, and placement data from Morgan & Mallet.
Hiring someone to live in your home and work for you is not the same as hiring a contractor or a part-time cleaner. Most families we work with at Morgan & Mallet understand pay. Far fewer understand the rest of the picture. This guide walks through it.
What counts as a “live-in” household employee in the US?
A live-in domestic employee is someone you hire to work in your home who also lives there as part of the job. That can mean a room in the main house, a staff apartment, or a separate cottage on the property.
“It’s a different relationship from a normal office job,” says Morgan Richez, co-founder of Morgan & Mallet. “If they come to my place and lives with me, she’s going to see me at dinner with my family. The relationship is completely different. It’s not quite roommate, because I am the employer, but it’s that close.”
The definition matters because it changes which rules apply. The Fair Labor Standards Act, the IRS, and most state labor agencies each have their own way of treating live-in staff, and they do not always agree.
The roles Morgan & Mallet places into live-in positions most often in the US are butlers, house managers, housekeepers, private chefs, nannies, governesses, domestic couples, and estate managers. The legal rules are the same for all of them.
Does federal labor law apply to live-in staff?
Yes. If you pay a household worker $2,800 or more in 2026, the Fair Labor Standards Act applies to you. You also become a household employer for IRS purposes (IRS Publication 926 covers the rules for household employers).
The FLSA does give live-in staff one thing, which is you don’t have to pay overtime to a domestic worker who permanently lives on the property. This is the most misunderstood rule in private staffing. “Permanently” has a specific meaning. If your employee keeps a separate home and just stays over some nights, they are not a permanent live-in under federal law, and full overtime rules will apply here.
Minimum wage is not waived. The federal floor is $7.25 an hour, but every state we operate in the bottom end wage is higher than this, and most cities go even higher.
There’s a second federal rule worth knowing about, which is – sleep time. You can exclude up to eight hours of sleep from a 24-hour live-in shift, but only if the room is decent enough to actually sleep in and your employee isn’t being woken up regularly.
If they get pulled out of bed more than twice a night on average, the whole shift becomes paid time. The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division publishes the full rules.
Why state law usually matters more than federal law
“In the US, the rules in New York are not the same as in Florida or California,” Morgan says. “In California, labor laws are very strict. They are pro-labor. In New York, they are more pro-company. We need legal advice for every jurisdiction where there’s a property.”
That isn’t theoretical. It changes daily compliance in ways most families don’t see until they get a wage complaint. It also makes finding the right legal help harder than it should be. “Even when clients find a lawyer,” Morgan adds, “the lawyer is usually not specialized in domestic workers. That specialism barely exists.”
New York
New York has some of the strongest protections for domestic workers in the country. The state’s Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights overrides the federal live-in overtime regulations. Live-in staff in New York are entitled to time-and-a-half after 44 hours a week.
A few other rules as well. At least one day off a week, paid at time-and-a-half if worked. Three paid sick days a year after one year of service. One week’s notice or one week’s pay if you let someone go without cause after a year. State minimum wage is $16.50 an hour as of 2026. New York City has its own sick leave rules on top of that.
California
California is the strictest state in the country for household staff. Overtime starts after nine hours in a day or 45 hours in a week for live-in workers. Personal attendants who mostly look after a child, an elderly person, or someone with a disability get overtime after 45 hours a week. State minimum wage is $16.50, with many cities higher.
Workers’ comp is needed from the first day. Meal and rest break rules apply differently to live-in roles, and the California Department of Industrial Relations publishes annual lodging and meal credit caps that change the math on accommodation deductions every year.
Florida, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts
Florida and Texas mainly follow federal rules. Neither has a domestic workers’ bill of rights. Florida has no state income tax, which changes the take-home calculation for staff.
Illinois needs a written contract for every domestic worker by law and overtime is compulsory after 40 hours a week no matter if live-in status or not.
Massachusetts covers domestic workers under the state Earned Sick Time law and applies the $15 state minimum wage with no live-in offset.
For families with homes in more than one state, state law follows the work, not the employer. If your housekeeper does ten weeks a year in California, California rules apply for those ten weeks.
What kind of accommodation do you have to provide?
No single federal rule sets out exact specs for staff housing, but several rules point to the same minimum, which is it has to be safe, private, and habitable. Courts and labor agencies have thrown out wage deductions for housing that fell below that. Some states are explicit about it.
“My advice is regarding the accommodation,” Morgan says. “Sometimes we still get cases where the accommodation is completely bad. Without windows, in the basement. You need to offer decent, furnished, modern accommodation.”
There’s a business reason and a legal reason. Substandard rooms put you at risk of wage claims. They also make it impossible to attract anyone good. From Morgan & Mallet’s placement data, the live-in roles we struggle most to fill in the US aren’t the ones with the lowest salaries. They’re the ones with the worst rooms.
Accommodation also depends on the candidate’s situation. Before a live-in placement, our recruiters ask the candidate enough about their personal life to understand whether the room on offer actually fits, including whether they have a partner or children. In the US, employers can’t ask those questions directly. The agency can.
In practice, what families need to provide:
- A private room with a door that locks from the inside
- Enough space (rooms under 70 square feet usually fail local housing codes)
- Heating in winter and cooling in summer in most US jurisdictions
- A bathroom the employee doesn’t have to share with the family
- Natural light and ventilation (basement rooms with no windows fail habitability in most US cities)
- Furniture, bedding, and basic utilities
The contract should also cover what the employee can and can’t do in their space. “Can I paint the property inside the accommodation? Can I invite guests or my family during my holidays?” Morgan says. “This kind of question needs to be answered up front.”
Can you take rent out of someone’s salary?
You can credit the value of housing against minimum wage obligations, but only under specific conditions. The employee has to accept the accommodation voluntarily, and the housing has to be mainly for their benefit. If the role needs them to live on-site (which is almost always the case for live-in household staff), the credit shrinks or goes away.
The deduction also cannot push effective pay below the applicable state minimum wage. If you pay a live-in housekeeper a weekly salary and take $200 off for housing, and that drops her hourly rate below state minimum, the deduction is unlawful.
California caps the room-and-board credit at set percentages of minimum wage and publishes new figures every year. Other states have their own caps. Always confirm with an employment attorney in the state where the property is.
What needs to be in a live-in employment contract?
Morgan asks the question this section answers regularly. “What should I include when it comes to a live-in position? And if I’m hiring a traveling nanny who spends six months in the US, three months in the UK, three months in Dubai, what nationality of contract do I use?” Family offices ask him this every week.
A verbal agreement is not enough. Illinois requires a written contract by law for every domestic worker. New York’s wage notice rules effectively say you must have one too. Even in states that don’t, going without one is a serious liability.
“When you say everything to the candidate at the beginning, the good and the bad, you can make sure when he gets the job, he’s going to stay for a long time,” Morgan says. “He knew everything. He can’t say, ‘I didn’t know about this.’ If you try to hide something, after a month the candidate doesn’t appreciate it and resigns.”
The contract should cover:
Full names and the property address. All of them, if the role covers multiple homes (Manhattan, the Hamptons, Aspen, Palm Beach).
Job title and duties. Specific. “Helps around the house” could be a future dispute. List primary duties, secondary duties, and what’s excluded.
Start date and trial period. A trial of 30 to 90 days is standard. If the notice period differs during the trial, write that down.
Working hours. This is where most contracts fall short. Include normal hours, days off, and any on-call expectations. Under New York law, on-call time that restricts an employee’s activities is paid time. Also cover sleep time, if relevant, and the conditions under which a live-in shift becomes fully compensable.
Compensation. Base pay, overtime rate where it applies, pay frequency (New York states it must be weekly or bi-weekly for domestic workers, not monthly), payment method, and any agreed deductions in writing.
“Disputes are traced back to unclear pay terms more often than personality conflict,” says Eric Rios, recruiter at Morgan & Mallet. “Written wage structures reduce tension before it starts.”
Accommodation terms. A standalone section covering the room itself, what’s included (furniture, utilities, internet, parking), any credit applied to wages, the employer’s right of access, and what happens to the accommodation when the job ends. Most contracts give the employee 24 to 72 hours to vacate. A longer window of two to four weeks is common and makes the separation cleaner.
Meals and benefits. Health insurance, PTO, sick days, paid holidays, and travel pay if the role moves between properties.
A separate NDA. Standard for HNW and UHNW households. It should cover personal information, finances, schedules, guests, and social media. Have it drafted or reviewed by an employment attorney. Courts have thrown out NDAs that try to ban an employee from ever discussing their job.
Termination. Notice period (two to four weeks is standard), what counts as cause, severance where required, and the timeline for vacating the staff accommodation.
Governing law. Which state’s law applies. For multi-property households, you could need separate provisions or addenda for each state.
What taxes do you owe as a household employer?
If you pay a household employee $2,800 or more in 2026, you have tax obligations. The IRS treats you as a household employer, and the colloquial “nanny tax” applies to every household role, not just nannies.
The federal part:
- FICA (Social Security and Medicare): 7.65% from the employer plus 7.65% withheld from the employee. If the employee earns over $200,000, an extra 0.9% Medicare surtax comes from their pay.
- FUTA (federal unemployment): 6% on the first $7,000 of wages, but state unemployment credits usually bring the effective rate down to 0.6%.
- Federal income tax withholding: Not legally required for household employees, but standard practice. Without it, your employee gets a big bill at year-end, which causes friction.
Everything gets reported on Schedule H, filed with your personal Form 1040. You issue a W-2 by January 31 the following year and file the W-3 with the Social Security Administration. Not doing any of this attracts penalties, back taxes, and interest, and has derailed more than one political nomination.
The state part:
- State unemployment insurance: A requirement in most states. Rates vary.
- State disability insurance: California, New York, and New Jersey require it.
- Workers’ comp: Required in most states from day one. California, New York, and Illinois have to have it. Florida and Texas make it optional for private households, but carrying it is a far smaller cost than one uninsured injury claim.
If childcare is a real part of the role, a Dependent Care FSA can offset up to $5,000 a year pre-tax, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit can offset some of the cost. These do not apply to butlers, chefs, or housekeepers unless the role is genuinely focused on childcare.
Morgan & Mallet runs US household payroll for clients who would rather not deal with this in-house, alongside services in the UK and France. The candidate is employed through Morgan & Mallet, the client receives one monthly invoice covering salary, taxes, insurance, and admin, and the legal employer responsibility is with us. Setup takes around two days once a candidate is chosen.
What does live-in staff actually cost in the US?
Based on Morgan & Mallet’s 2025/26 Household Staff Salaries Annual Report, gross salary ranges in the US are:
- Butler: $90,000–$180,000+
- Housekeeper: $90,000–$160,000+
- Private chef: $100,000–$300,000+
- Estate manager: $150,000–$250,000+
- Chief of staff: $150,000–$300,000+
- Personal assistant: $80,000–$250,000+
- Nanny: $60,000–$120,000+
- Governess: $70,000–$130,000+
- Domestic couple: at least $150,000 combined, per Morgan’s experience placing in the US market
The full cost is higher. For a live-in housekeeper at $100,000 in New York, the all-in cost to the household (FICA, FUTA, state unemployment, workers’ comp, basic health insurance) is roughly $115,000 a year before accommodation. For a live-in estate manager at $200,000, it’s around $230,000.
Some of those salary ranges reflect specific patterns we see in US placements. From Morgan & Mallet’s data, 89% of housekeepers we place have managed a primary home and a second residence. 84% of Los Angeles candidates have worked for families worth $30 million or more. Privacy agreements add 15 to 20 percent to base pay across roles, and 77% of our LA personal assistant placements come with an NDA.
The US accounts for 60.7% of the highest-paying household roles globally. It is also the most legally demanding market in which to hire.
What if your live-in staff travel between properties?
Most of our live-in placements in the US travel with the family. Nine months in Manhattan, three months in East Hampton. A winter month in Aspen or Palm Beach. The compliance picture follows the work.
In the Hamptons specifically, the rhythm is quite clear. “Year-round, you usually need security and basic housekeeping,” Laurine Mallet, co-founder of Morgan & Mallet, says of US summer-home staffing. “Then in July, suddenly you need drivers, a chef, more housekeepers, often nannies. Thanksgiving and Christmas spike again.”
Short summer-only contracts are also genuinely hard to fill. Most candidates want permanent roles, and the Hamptons are remote enough that commuting in isn’t realistic. “It’s like an island at the end of an island,” Laurine says. “You’re often offering accommodation just so the role is doable.”
True traveling staff are also rare. From the same report, only 2.36% of nannies in our database can do rotational work, and only 4.82% travel regularly. If you need someone genuinely mobile across multiple US homes plus international travel, expect a longer search and a salary premium.
State labor law applies wherever the work happens, not where the employer lives or where the contract was signed. Workers’ comp needs to cover every state the employee works in. Most policies cover travel, but extended stays in a second state can need a separate endorsement.
Unemployment insurance obligations can happen in more than one state at once. If your employee spends six weeks in California, California’s overtime and break rules apply for those six weeks.
This is a standard pattern for HNW families. It needs active management.
Where families most often get this wrong
Most compliance failures aren’t intentional. They come from treating a household employee like a contractor.
Classifying a live-in employee as an independent contractor. They’re almost never a contractor under IRS or state tests. You control the work, the schedule, and the location. The wrong could make you liable to back taxes, penalties, and state audits.
Skipping workers’ comp. One on-the-job injury without coverage costs many times the premium.
Not keeping hours and wage records. Federal and state law requires you to keep these for at least three years. If a live-in employee later claims unpaid overtime and you have no records, the burden shifts to their estimate.
No written contract. Accommodation, on-call obligations, NDA scope, termination terms, all of it becomes a disputed fact. In any state with a domestic workers’ protection law, the missing contract is itself a violation.
Not updating contracts when terms change. If the salary goes up, a second property gets added, or the duties shift, the contract needs an addendum in writing. Verbal changes don’t hold up.
Treating the legal risk like a UK or European one. In the US, the reputation cost can outweigh the legal cost. “If something happens with a domestic worker case in your property, your image is destroyed,” Morgan says of high-profile US clients. “Doesn’t matter if the claim is right or not, the media will run with it.” Clean contracts, payroll handled at arm’s length, and properly drafted NDAs protect against the reputational side as much as the legal one.
“Candidates read structure as a sign of seriousness,” says a Morgan & Mallet recruiter based in the US. “A clear contract, a defined reporting line, and transparent payroll reduce hesitation and speed decisions.”
What good looks like
Three pieces tend to be in place when a US household hire works long-term. An employment attorney for the state where the property is. A payroll provider that handles household employment (Morgan & Mallet does this). An agency that understands the legal side as well as the candidate search.
Morgan & Mallet places live-in household staff across New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and other US markets from a large database of vetted candidates, with a 96% placement success rate on butler and nanny roles. Every candidate goes through a 90-minute structured interview and a full background check.
We spend at least an hour on the phone with every new client up front. The questions that matter for a live-in role are often the ones the family hasn’t thought to ask yet. Who pays for internet and electricity in the staff quarters. How on-call hours are counted. What notice the employee gets to vacate. How the salary needs to look in a state with no income tax versus one with the highest in the country.
“We are not lawyers,” Morgan says, “but we know household. We partner with attorneys who handle the compliance side, and that combination works.”
To start a search for live-in household staff in the US, call us on +1 (646)965-2308 or get in touch online.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to pay overtime to a live-in household employee in the US?
Under federal law, no, as long as the employee permanently lives at the property. But some states override that. In New York, overtime starts after 44 hours a week. In California, after nine hours a day or 45 hours a week. Always check the state where the work happens.
Can I deduct accommodation from my employee’s salary?
Yes, under specific conditions. The employee has to accept the room voluntarily, and the deduction cannot drop their effective pay below state minimum wage. If you require them to live on-site, the credit is usually reduced or unavailable. California has the strictest caps in the country.
What taxes do I owe if I hire a live-in housekeeper?
The same as any household employee. FICA, FUTA, state unemployment, workers’ comp in most states, and W-2 issuance. All reported on Schedule H with your Form 1040.
Is a live-in nanny a household employee for tax purposes?
Yes. The IRS treats nannies as household employees. All nanny tax rules apply.
What happens if I don’t have a written contract?
In Illinois you’re already in breach of the law. In New York you’ve violated wage notice rules. Everywhere else, not having a contract makes accommodation, hours, NDA scope, and termination terms disputable based on what the employee says. We don’t recommend hiring without one.
What if my staff travel with me to another state?
The wage and hour rules of the state where work happens apply for that period. If your employee spends ten weeks in California, California’s overtime and break rules apply for those ten weeks. Workers’ comp should cover multi-state work or be supplemented with an endorsement.
Do I have to pay overtime to a live-in household employee in the US?
Under federal law, no, as long as the employee permanently lives at the property. But some states override that. In New York, overtime starts after 44 hours a week. In California, after nine hours a day or 45 hours a week. Always check the state where the work happens.
Can I deduct accommodation from my employee’s salary?
Yes, under specific conditions. The employee has to accept the room voluntarily, and the deduction cannot drop their effective pay below state minimum wage. If you require them to live on-site, the credit is usually reduced or unavailable. California has the strictest caps in the country.
What taxes do I owe if I hire a live-in housekeeper?
The same as any household employee. FICA, FUTA, state unemployment, workers’ comp in most states, and W-2 issuance. All reported on Schedule H with your Form 1040.
Is a live-in nanny a household employee for tax purposes?
Yes. The IRS treats nannies as household employees. All nanny tax rules apply.
What happens if I don’t have a written contract?
In Illinois you’re already in breach of the law. In New York you’ve violated wage notice rules. Everywhere else, not having a contract makes accommodation, hours, NDA scope, and termination terms disputable based on what the employee says. We don’t recommend hiring without one.
What if my staff travel with me to another state?
The wage and hour rules of the state where work happens apply for that period. If your employee spends ten weeks in California, California’s overtime and break rules apply for those ten weeks. Workers’ comp should cover multi-state work or be supplemented with an endorsement.
This article gives general information about US household employment law as of 2026 and is not legal advice. Employment law varies state by state and changes regularly. Talk to a licensed employment attorney in your state before you draft contracts or set up payroll.
