Is there a need of Babysitter service in Budapest?

A few things to consider.

From the client side:

- There are only a few 10s of thousands of expats in Budapest. Of those many are students, retired, or otherwise have no children. So your actual potential client list probably is only in the low thousands.

- Baby sitting, right or wrong, often exists in the black economy, so you have to compete with that. Taking that into account, that may drop you potential client base to hundreds.

- So your main target group might be mostly only well paid expats without local connections. But given Hungarian salaries, those could just as easily afford an au pair, so why bother with just a baby sitter?

From the business side:

- Tax rules here are complicated. And your baby sitters will need to register with the tax office, get a NAV payment book and will charge you more to account for income and social taxes. For part time workers in Hungary, this rarely is worth it. There is no legal way to just pay a Hungarian or another expat to babysit unless that person has a Hungarian tax number and reports their income with their payment booklet. And NAV is cracking down on businesses that don't follow the rules.

- Privacy issues here are strict. Have you checked with local law enforcement what personal information you can and can not access, even with their permission, from your babysitter?

- You will need a local partner or employees. Quite frankly, if you are not here overseeing the business, that is replet with problems. There are many posssible issues here that can occur, which you may not expect or realize could happen. Different country, different social culture, and different business culture.

I agree with Klsallee, I actually think there may already be such a service here in Budapest, haven't checked for ages but remember seeing such a service a couple years back. Also noticed a pet sitting service.
I do not think most average working HUngarians are willing to pay allot for a babysitter.
Most people lug their kids with them or have a relation sit.
How much can you charge per hour to make it worth your while to pay for a business and expect a profit.
I doubt most Hungarians will even pay 1,000 Forints per hour, you will have to hire allot of sitters and have allot of clients for the averages to work out.
It's not like  a fast food business where you can make money on every little items sold or a fast haircut shop, you need to put in real hours babysitting and doubt in the long run the cost of even getting to the job and back would be worth the effort.
I worked at "Supercuts" for a short time when I was a new hairdresser in the US. The owners made a killing, usually on a Sat. the shop averaged over 140 cuts with 8 to 10 stylists working for the day.
Some worked part-time ( me) and others full time.
A new client every 15 to 20 mins. That's about the only way to make money fast and keep prices low.
The old days of sitting at the rate of 50 cents per hour and 75 cents after midnight are long gone. I charged those rates at age 14 as my first working experience back in the 1960's. They also had to feed me dinner and drive me both ways home, call my mom and keep her updated on any changes in their time out.If she didn't ok longer hours then she would pick me up and wait for them to get home with me, give them heck and never let me sit for them again.
You would have to charge at least 2,000 forints per hour and not many Hungarians would be paying that rate.
Not enough wealthy people who need a babysitting service here at this time.

Hi Kata,
I have been here for 7 years as a Professional Brutish Nanny and I have to say the Hungarian Families are very few and far betwee who are willing to pay a decent hourly rate :-(

I came from London to Budapest so the Family I work for knew that my expectancy in salary was not your normal Hungarian one :-)
Here Families like to barter prices which for me is strange :-( Even the Expat ones unfortunately.
There are no other British Professional Nannies lving here to my knowledge but many many Babysittets who work for a pittence and therefore their standard if work reflects this :-(

I think A1 nanny has pretty much summed  it up as a professional babysitter.
One has to remember that most working Hungarians have a tight budget and that often several generations live together, the older ones babysitting while the younger ones go off to work.
There are also allot of nurseries around for young kids.
I know things have changed in 60 some years but in the old days, just about every business in Hungary that have more then 10 or so employees had a nursery right in the work place, they even had a
infirmary with a nurse for ill children.
My HU husband was pretty much raised by the gov. nurseries because his mom went back to work when he was just 3 months old.
Those with some money like to send their kids to bi-lingual schools where they can learn English or another language.
As far as babysitting on the odd Sat, night, it's not going to be enough to keep a business going.
I was sort of thinking about senior at home visits and care but have given up on that. Sort of a senior companion thing, no heavy lifting or cleaning up, more of someone to escort seniors to the doctors offices and take them food shopping.
As I do not speak Hungarian, it is not worth the effort to even think about.Maybe if enough old, helpless ex-pats move here I could go into business, by then though I may be my own job.