Working as an au pair in Canada: pay, hours & visas

This is a guide, not legal or immigration advice.

Rules change, vary by region and depend on your exact arrangement and nationality. Everything here was researched from official sources and dated, but figures go out of date — check the official links on this page before you rely on any of it, and get proper advice on your own visa position.

Where you stand

There is no au pair route in Canadian immigration. People doing this work come either as a home child care provider under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which needs the family to get a labour market impact assessment, or on an International Experience Canada working holiday. The old Live-in Caregiver Program is closed to new applicants. Either way you are an employee under provincial employment standards.

What makes Canada different: There is no national minimum wage for you. Each province and territory sets its own, and the gap between the lowest and the highest is wide enough to matter a great deal on a 30-hour week.

The numbers

Minimum wage

CA$15–CA$20.17

an hour, depending on province — lowest Alberta, highest Nunavut

Federal rate

CA$18.15

does NOT apply to household work

Room and board

Capped and conditional

and a shared room counts for nothing in Ontario

Au pair visa

Does not exist

you come as an employee

Can you go?

International Experience Canada is the usual route for young people from countries with a bilateral agreement with Canada.

The employer-specific caregiver route requires the family to obtain a positive labour market impact assessment before you can apply, which is a serious commitment on their part. Confirm which route a family is actually offering.

Three things worth doing

Ignore the federal minimum wage

It applies to federally regulated employers like banks and airlines, not to household work. It also sits in the middle of the provincial range, so quoting it looks plausible and is wrong. Your province is what counts.

Room and board credits are limited and conditional

Provinces cap how much accommodation and meals can count towards your wage, and in Ontario a shared room counts for nothing at all for domestic workers. It only counts if you actually received the meals and occupied the room.

Check the date on any rate you are quoted

Several provinces change their minimum wage in October, and one has not moved since 2019. A figure from last year may be right or badly out of date depending on where you are.

Check it yourself

Every figure on this page came from these. Rules change — if something matters to you, read it at the source.

Minimum Wage Database (federal) → IRCC — Caregivers → Ontario ESA — minimum wage and room and board →

Keep your own record

Whatever the rules say where you are, they only help you if you can show what you actually worked. NannyTank counts your hours as you work them, works out overtime at the legal rate where there is one, and turns the month into a claim your employer approves in one tap.

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