FAQ

…a young person who lives in a host family in a foreign country to improve language skills and get to know the country and its people and culture.

The host family provides free board and lodging and also pays a certain pocket money, in return the au pair looks after the host family’s children for some hours a day and also supports with light housework.

Register for free to see detailed information valid for your country, nationality, age,…

…full time nanny, nor a cleaning lady nor a caretaker for the elderly or the sick!

Especially in comparison to fixed opening hours of a day care center, an au pair offers unmatched flexibility in distributing the childcare times over the day and week.

But the family has to bear in mind, that (depending on country – the exact figures for each country can be found in the country information) an au pair is only allowed to work between 20 – 30 hours per week (only in the USA it’s up to 45 hours) so it’s definitely no full time childcare option.

Additionally the au pair needs to have the opportunity to participate in language classes which might interfere with the times when the family actually needs the au pair to look after the kids.

In most countries an au pair is cheaper than comparable childcare options (the actual cost depending on country can be found in the country information of the respective country)

An au pair is no employee, it’s an additional family member with whom the family shares their home and life.

If a family doesn't like the prospect of living with a stranger, they better shouldn’t become a host family.

An au pair provides live-in care, which e.g. means that in case of emergency the au pair will normally be available to immediately look after the kids.

But of course this also means that the family needs to have a spare room which can be used as the au pair’s room (and if this was the guest room before, the family might not be able to accommodate guests anymore…)

Family holidays normally mean fun and relaxation for the kids, but are rather exhausting for the parents. If the au pair joins the family, holidays will suddenly also mean relaxation for the parents!

The children will get to know a different culture and language and may even pick up a few words of the au pair’s language.

Being looked after by an au pair will broaden their horizons and improve their knowledge of the wider world.

Additionally to looking after the kids, an au pair normally also takes care of household chores (which a nanny normally doesn't)

Au pairs normally don’t have professional childcare experience, they have usually just done some babysitting or have younger brothers and sisters.

So the family will have to spend some time to get the au pair acquainted to all the necessary routines and also their discipline methods.

The family might see this as a disadvantage, as they can’t expect professional knowledge and advice – or as advantage, as the au pair will normally fully support their parenting style, feeding habits,…

That's an interesting advantage especially for babies: As their immune system isn't working at full capacity yet, being in contact with other (ill) kids (as it is the case especially in day care), will lead to frequent illness meaning that the baby will stay at home and need to be looked after at home - and often it also passes on the illness to the whole family.

As au pairs are only allowed to stay for a certain time span (in most countries one year), kids have to get used to comperatively frequent change of their care giver / attachment figure. If this is positive or negative to the development of the child very much depends on the character of the child and also how close the bonding with the au pair is.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of an au pair?

Discuss with others in our community!

...to connect au pairs, host families and agencies

• Provide high quality, up-to-date information about rules & regulations for each host country
  • this is also the base to detect if an au pair can actually become au pair in a specific host country
• Be the platform where au pairs and host families can find their “perfectMatch” by offering
  • the biggest possible database of au pairs and host families
  • an advanced matching algorithm
• Make the matching process fast, simple and secure
  • private ratings, notes,… to keep overview of applicants
  • secure contact via internal messaging system
  • several automated and manual checks to keep cAP free of scammers
  • ratings & reviews  (former au pairs can rate their families and the other way round - coming soon)
• Support au pairs and families throughout the whole process
  • multilingual community
  • individual support by the multilingual cAP team
  • nearBy function which allows to find au pairs and families nearby
  • event calendar (coming soon)
• Offer high quality agency support
  • work together with qualified partner agencies all over the world to provide different support models (agency checked, administrative support, full support) to au pairs and families
  • allow to find the best local agency with help of ratings and reviews by clients of the agencies

Does it make any sense to show a list of au pairs to a host family containing au pairs with a nationality which doesn’t allow to participate in the au pair program?
Or show a list of host families to an au pair in countries, for which the au pair won’t be granted a visa because of age or nationality?

No!

But only if due to registration some basic data like nationality or age are known, the right and relevant information can be shown automatically.

We protect your data!

In contrast to most other matching sites for au pairs, we don’t show data of our members to the public - not even partly.

Only registered members - who accepted our terms and conditions and privacy policy and by that agreed not to share any of this data or use it for any other purposes - get access to your data.

We offer unlimited functionality (including features being premium features on other sites) to au pairs and families for free!

As an agency you can test all of our services for 7 days – with full functionality, free of charge and without any obligations.

Only if after this test period you’re convinced of our services and want to go on using them, you decide to continue with a membership with costs. 

There are two payment options: monthly and yearly payment, with decreasing costs, the longer you stay with us.

No subscription trap! Your contract is never elongated automatically!

connectAuPair doesn't offer any free basic memberships.

Why?

Because a basic membership - like other matching sites offer it - is actually pretty useless and only leads to a lot of non-active members.
(With a basic membership for free one can normally only search and quite often also get in contact via standardized messages, but it’s not possible to write or answer „real“ messages. And as quite often it’s not even indicated who’s a basic member and who’s “premium” member, the other doesn’t know why (s)he doesn’t get an answer….)

Apart from statistics, which show impressive numbers of members, no one profits from this kind of membership – it only leads to frustration if you don’t get an answer and don’t know why.

As an au pair you can enjoy all our services for free – also those, which are premium elsewhere!

New: premium functions are now also free for families! 

Our advanced perfectMatch algorithm helps you to find the perfectly matching au pair / host family for you.

Besides an advanced matching algorithm, our system offers you several helpful functions like filtering for status, assigning favorites or adding notes and reminders to help you keep overview and find your perfectMatch even faster.

In our multi-lingual community you can exchange information, seek help, get support, stay connected and find friends – therefore you should also join connectAuPair if you already are a host family or au pair!

With nearBy, we offer you an overview which host families (and au pairs) live close to you, so it’s easy for you to get in contact with other host families not only online but also in real life.

Even if you use our perfectMatch function, it might occasionally happen, that after some time the host family and the au pair decide that it’s better to separate again.

With our special functions (coming soon) for au pairs who want to change family it’s easy for the au pair and the host family to quit an unhappy relationship and give it another try.

As host family and au pair are going to spend a lot of time together and looking after children is a highly responsible task, it’s very important that host family and au pair really match.

While opposites attract in certain areas of life, this will not be the case when it comes to fundamental questions of living together and how to bring up the children - if au pair and host family don't share the same principals there, conflicts will be inevitable.

If the au pair doesn’t speak the language of the host country well (B2 level) and the family doesn’t speak the mother language of the au pair, it’s absolutely necessary to have another language (mostly English) which both sides speak well (at least B2), so that also problems and critical topics can be addressed in this language.

Although most countries only require language proficiency level A1 to get an au pair visa, we highly recommend that au pairs have at least A2, better B1 knowledge of the local language - most (but not all) kids are very patient if the au pair doesn't understand them too well in the beginning, but just think of an emergency case (children getting hurt on the playground,…) with no-one around speaking English…

If you have a common language to discuss everything, and you are a very tolerant and relaxed person, you might not need to restrict your search criteria any further.

All other might think of the following…

If an au pair was brought up with an anti-authoritarian parenting style and thinks this is the only right parenting style, it will be hard for him or her to support a very authoritarian parenting style of the host family - and the other way round.

Preferences regarding food and special diets are another important factor for a harmonic living together – an au pair being used to eating meat three times a day will probably not be happy in a host family on a vegetarian diet.

What someone eats is often also influenced by religious rules – with some tolerance and curiosity every “pairing” of religions will be possible – but a devoutly religious host family of one religion and a devoutly religious au pair of another religion are probably a rather disadvantageous pairing…

These are only some examples which illustrate, why we’ve developed perfectMatch.

If host family and au pair answer all questions of the extensive perfectMatch questionnaire, the optimum pairings for the best possible au pair experience can be found.

You think filling in the whole questionnaire is too much work or you simply want to see all possible matches?

Simply use fastMatch – here you only need to fill in the absolutely necessary matching criteria (date and time span, host country, language skills,...) to immediately get a list of matching profiles.

The first step on your way to find the perfect host family / the perfect au pair is to register - for free!

• Fill your profile with the basic data
• Upload some nice pictures of yourself (one is mandatory, but to stand out from the crowd you should add 5 - 10)
• Add more information about yourself in the "MORE ABOUT ME" section - this is your application letter respectively job offer
• Set your status to "I'm searching for..." in MY MATCHING

• Look for matching au pairs or families in the matching results
• Filter the results by several criteria to further narrow your search
• Click on a profile to get more details
• If you think you would match, add the candidate to your favorites

You have indentified your favorite candidates?

• Get in contact to show that you're interested!
• Simply open your favorite's profile and send them a message via our messaging system!
• The more personal the content of your message, the better your chance to get an answer!

A well done profile will answer most questions on its own, but still you should get in contact via skype / viewphone to make sure the candidate is real and to make a sympathy check.

You've found the perfect host family / the perfect au pair? Great!

• Inform them / him / her about your decision.
• Set your status to "matched" so that all other candidates know you're not searching anymore.
• Now you need to work out some formalities...

Before the au pair contract is signed some details and conditions should be clarified.

Most things like daily schedule, tasks of the au pair,... should already be answered by the information in the host family's profile - if not, it's now time to settle them.

As learning or improving the host country's language is one of the main goals of being an au pair, make sure that it will be possible for the au pair to attend a language course. Check the following:

• Which course (the current level of language knowledge can be tested online - see links & downloads) is needed?
• When will it take place (date, time)?
• Is the time compatible with the time schedule for the au pair? If not, are there any alternatives, e.g. a private language class (normally at higher price, to which the family is ready to contribute)?
• How much does it cost? Can the au pair afford it? How much is the family eventually ready to contribute?

If all questions are answered, the contract can be signed (you find a model contract in links & downloads in the country information) and exchanged by mail, telefax or e-mail so that au pair and family have a copy with both signatures.

Conditions different to those in the model contract are generally only permitted, if they are more favourable for the au pair (e.g. paying for travel costs, less working time, more holidays, higher pocket money, paying for the language course,...) and should in any case be put down in written form.

The next steps are depending on the host country and the nationality of the au pair - you find them in "step by step" in the country information of the respective host country.

Your family makes you nuts? Your au pair is driving you crazy? You are thinking about leaving your host family? You plan to dismiss your au pair?

Before you do so, try to analyze the root cause of the problem and seek for a solution - other host families and au pairs in our community can for sure support you!

Your host family dismissed you? Your au pair wants to leave earlier than planned? You can't sort out continuing problems and want to leave your host family? You can't sort out continuing problems and want to dismiss your au pair?

In both cases you need a new host family / au pair - fast.

As an au pair, you can simply adopt your search criteria in MY MATCHING (make also sure that your current address is right, so that families can see that you already live in the host country!) and find matching  host families in the matching results.

As a host family, you now basically have two options: Search for an au pair who

• is already in your country and searches for a new family ("rematch")
• can come to your country without a visa and is available right away (this is especially possible inside EU/EEA/CH)

Both searches can easily be done with settings in MY MATCHING in combination with filters in the matching results!

A summer au pair is a young person who over summer time - typically during the summer holidays of the kids - lives in a host family in a foreign country and helps with looking after the kids and doing light housework.

Generally, au pairs holding the citizenship of one of the EU/EEA/CH member states can become a summer au pair for a host family living in EU/EEA/CH.

For all others, becoming / hosting a summer au pair is unfortunately no option - most countries issue an au pair visa only for a minimum stay of 6 months and as an au pair visa is normally also issued only once in a life time, most au pairs want to become an au pair for the maximum possible time, which is generally 12 months (all details about the regulations in the different host countries can be found in the country information!)

There are several reasons, why becoming a summer au pair could be the right thing for you!

• You like kids and don't have any plans for your summer time yet :-)
• You're not yet sure if au pairing for a full year is the right thing for you, but you would love to give it a try
• You've just finished school, don't have a lot of money to spend but would still like to get to know a foreign country before you start working or studying
• You're a student and want to add some international experience to your CV to increase your chances on the job market

There are several reasons, why hosting a summer au pair might be a great idea for your family!

• You are working parents and can't spend the whole summer holidays with your kids
• You would love to offer your kids some international experience without travelling yourself
• You have already been thinking about hosting an au pair but are not sure if this is the right thing for you and your family, so you want to give it a try for a rather short time first
  
  

It's really easy:

• Register at connectAuPair
• Set up your profile & define your matching criteria
• Find matching au pairs / host families
• Enjoy a wonderful summer time! :-)

Scammers are fake host families or fake au pairs, who try to misuse the au pair programme to their advantage. Most of them ask au pairs or host families to transfer money to them, but there are even reports about au pairs being forced into prostitution.

To identify scammers as soon as possible, we automatically screen (by some software algorithm) all profiles and messages for certain patterns and unusual activities. If we identify a scammer, we immediately block him / her and inform all users who this scammer has already contacted via our messaging system.

There are some typical patterns scammers use - if you spot any case as described below, better not reply to any messages from the user and immediately report the user to us (you can do so by clicking on "report" in the top right corner in the user's profile)!

Fake host families 

• The first message of the family already contains contact details and the au pair is asked to  write an email or skype message instead of using the messaging system
• The au pair is asked to send her/his CV and pictures to an email address right away
• The family refuses to make a live video call
• The au pair is contacted by a host family from an English speaking country,  although this country is not on the list of wished host countries (as English speaking countries are very popular among au pairs, scammers mostly pretend to live in one of these countries)
• The family offers help with travel arrangements at a special low rate - but the au pair has to transfer some money in advance
• The family offers much higher pocket money than defined by law / than usual
• The family offers the au pair to provide accomodation in a different place (a nearby flat or house) and they will cover the cost, but first the au pair has to contact the real estate agent and pay the rent
• The family, situated in the USA, asks the au pair to get in contact with a specific au pair agency, which is not on the list of designated J-1 visa sponsors (check out the USA country info for more details!)
• The family sends forged checks (e.g. as support to cover the travel cost), then they inform the au pair, that an awful accident happend and they don't need an au pair anymore and the au pair should transfer back the money. Shortly after, the check will bounce and the money is lost for the au pair.
• The au pair is contacted by the lawyer of the family who offers help with formalities - if the au pair transfers a certain amount of money.

Fake au pairs

• The first message of the au pair already contains contact details and the  family is asked to  write an email or skype message instead of using  the messaging system
• The au pair claims to be an English native speaker (as many families are searching for English native speakers), but (due to being not) only sends standard messages
• The au pair is absolutly perfect in all aspects (too good to be true), but can't afford e.g. the ticket to travel to the host country or the insurance and asks the host family to ransfer money to her / him in advance
• The au pair claims (s)he got stuck at the air port (due to some accident) and needs money to buy a new ticket as the old one isn't valid anymore
• The au pair refuses to make a live video call (due to technical problems, not having a good internet connection,...)

Use your common sense!

• If something sounds too good to be true - it's probably not true!
• Never ever transfer money to anyone you don't know personally
• Always arrange a video call to check that the au pair or host family is real

Protect yourself and others! 

• Immediately report suspicious profiles! Click on the three dots in the top right corner of a user profile and then on "report user".