{"id":139,"date":"2025-07-15T22:22:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s37407.p1377.sites.pressdns.com\/homepay\/california-tax-and-labor-law-summary\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T22:22:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:22:35","slug":"california-nanny-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/california-nanny-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 California household employment tax and labor law guide"},"content":{"rendered":"
Learning all the nuances of California nanny tax law is no easy task. To help, we’ve created this overview of everything you need to know about being a household employer in California.*<\/p>
We know you’re busy so here’s a quick “to-do” list with links to extra details below.<\/p>
Before your employee begins to work, you need to fill out Form I-9<\/a> to verify they’re eligible to work in the U.S. The I-9 does not get sent to any government agency but must be presented to authorities if your nanny or senior caregiver’s employment eligibility is ever questioned.<\/p> You must first apply for a EIN (Employee Identification Number)<\/a> with the IRS. This will be used as your unique ID with both state and federal tax authorities. Then you can open an account with your state taxing authority.<\/p> Household employers in California are required to carry a workers’ compensation insurance policy to help employees with medical expenses and lost wages from work-related injury or illness. These policies also provide protection to employers. Workers who accept benefits generally forfeit their right to sue the employer, regardless of fault. <\/p> Some level of workers’ compensation is usually provided in homeowners insurance. Household employers should contact their insurance provider to see if their current plan is sufficient. If not, an enhancement can usually be added to cover a household employee.<\/p> California employers are required to provide all household employees with a written notice<\/a> at the time of hire and upon any wage changes. <\/p> The state of California requires families to share these posters<\/a> with their employees to notify them of their rights. Your city may also have a similar requirement, so view these local posters<\/a> as well to see if you need to share additional resources.<\/p> Note:<\/em> Whenever more than one minimum wage rate applies, employers are required to pay the higher rate.<\/p> California labor law does not allow household employees to be paid a fixed salary. Overtime pay varies on if your employee resides in your home and whether they are a personal attendant. The state defines a personal attendant as someone who spends at least 80% of their time caring for a child or elderly person. Based on this distinction, California overtime rules are as follows: <\/p> Note:<\/em> There are additional overtime requirements for non-personal attendant employees that work 12 or more hours in a day or 6 or 7 consecutive days in a workweek. Please call our office for details if this employment situation arises for you.<\/p> The state of California offers a program called CalSavers, which gives your household employees the opportunity to save for retirement. CalSavers is an employee-funded Roth IRA that allows workers to contribute to retirement via payroll deductions. All employers who had an average of 1+ employees during 2024, are required to enroll with CalSavers by 12\/23\/25. If you have not yet employed an average of at least 1 employee for the year, CalSavers will reach out to you if\/when you are required to enroll. Employers who had 5+ employees during 2022-2024 may already be required to enroll and participate in the program.<\/p> Additional information:<\/p> California employers must reimburse their employee if they are required to drive their own vehicle on the job. The current federal mileage reimbursement rate is 70 cents per mile and miles driven commuting are not eligible for reimbursement.<\/p> California law requires employers to provide employees with a pay stub each payday. It should include the employee’s:<\/p> The California State Disability Insurance Program (SDI)<\/a> provides disability insurance and Paid Family Leave benefits to eligible workers who cannot work for non-work-related reasons (i.e. maternity leave, accident, illness). The SDI program is funded by mandatory payroll deductions from your employee’s wages.<\/p> Household employers in California are required to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to 80 hours each year to their employees. HomePay will track sick time accruals on your account. <\/p> Families with only 1 employee can make contributions toward their employee’s health insurance premiums and treat the amount as non-taxable compensation. In this scenario, neither the employee nor the employer are required to pay any taxes on that portion of the compensation.<\/p> Families with 2 or more employees have 3 options:<\/p> Visit our health insurance page<\/a> for more information about these options. <\/p> Household employers in California are required to provide a Change in Relationship Notice<\/a> to their employee at the time they are fired or laid off.<\/p> California household employers do not need to pay their employees unused sick time. However, unused vacation time must be paid out.<\/p> The state tax agencies expect you to file timely returns for as long as your tax accounts are open — even to report $0 in wages paid.<\/p> Household employers are required to keep wage records on file for at least three years.<\/p> * HomePay can assist with a wide range of the above-listed household tax and payroll needs; however, some state-specific requirements may not be fully supported. Ask a HomePay representative for more information. The information contained in this article is general in nature, may not be applicable to your specific circumstances and is not intended to be a substitute for or relied upon as personalized tax or legal advice.<\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Families with questions about California nanny taxes need to look no further than this overview for all their household employment answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1478,"featured_media":3713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":false,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"2025-07-15T22:22:28.038Z","last_update":"2025-07-15","view_count":67025,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"member-type":[2],"vertical":[3,366],"platform":[11],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","member-type-seeker","vertical-children","vertical-tax-topics-for-families","platform-homepay"],"acf":[],"created":"2016-12-21","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3849,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/3849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Set up EIN & state tax account(s)<\/h3>
Workers’ compensation<\/strong><\/h3>
Wage notice <\/strong><\/h3>
Employment posters <\/strong><\/h3>
During employment <\/strong><\/h2>
File returns, remit taxes and manage correspondence<\/h3>
Minimum wage rates<\/h3>
California overtime requirements<\/h3>
CalSavers Retirement Savings Program<\/h3>
Mileage reimbursement<\/h3>
Pay stub requirement<\/strong><\/h3>
Paid leave <\/strong><\/h3>
Disability insurance<\/h4>
Paid sick leave <\/h4>
Optional benefits for your employee <\/strong><\/h2>
Health insurance<\/h3>
Ending employment <\/strong><\/h2>
Termination notice <\/strong><\/h3>
Managing unused PTO <\/strong><\/h3>
Close down your state employment tax account(s)<\/h3>
Maintain payroll records<\/strong><\/h3>