Nanny Service Switzerland — from CHF 42/h + 8.1% MwSt.
Nanny Service Switzerland — from CHF 42/h + 8.1% MwSt.
From 1 August 2026 the canton of Zug pays roughly a third of your Kita bill regardless of what you earn. Zurich pays too, but only against your income and your assets. Neither pays a franc towards a nanny — and that is worth saying plainly on a page written by a company that supplies nannies. Below is every published 2026 figure, the condition each one carries, and the one form of childcare relief a nanny does qualify for.
The direct answer first, because it is what most English-speaking parents in Switzerland are actually asking.
Switzerland has no national childcare subsidy paid to parents. Support is cantonal and communal, and the two systems that matter most around Zurich and Zug work in opposite ways.
Canton Zug introduces a Kantonspauschale on 1 August 2026: roughly 33% of average care rates, paid as CHF 47.15 per Kita day for a child over 18 months and CHF 52.60 under 18 months, or CHF 5.15 and CHF 6.65 per hour in a Tagesfamilie. It is independent of your income and your assets — unusual in Switzerland, and the reason this page exists.
Stadt Zürich does not issue vouchers. It pays Subventionen directly to a subsidised Kita, which then bills you a reduced fee calculated from your income and your assets. Two families at the same Kita can pay very different amounts.
Neither pays anything towards a nanny. Both schemes are restricted to licensed Kitas and registered Tagesfamilien. We supply nannies, and we would rather you learn that here than after an application is refused. What a nanny does qualify for is the childcare tax deduction — a separate mechanism explained further down.
And a subsidy does not buy you a week. It buys cheaper days inside a Kita's opening hours. The early start, the late finish, the closure weeks, the morning your child has a temperature and the school holidays sit outside every scheme here. That gap is where in-home care earns its keep.
The biggest change to Swiss childcare funding this year, and at the time of writing no English page explains it.
The canton of Zug will contribute a flat 33% of the average cantonal care rate for every eligible child. Because it is flat rather than means-tested, the figure on your invoice is predictable before you apply — which is not true of almost any other Swiss childcare support.
| Care type | Child aged over 18 months | Child under 18 months | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licensed Kita | CHF 47.15 | CHF 52.60 | per care day |
| Registered Tagesfamilie | CHF 5.15 | CHF 6.65 | per hour |
| Private nanny | Not eligible | Not eligible | — |
| Hort / Mittagstisch | See note below | See note below | — |
In Stadt Zug the Kantonspauschale stacks with the municipal Betreuungsgutscheine, available from the same date to households with taxable income below CHF 170,000 and assets below CHF 500,000 — two reductions on one bill, one cantonal and income-blind, one municipal and means-tested. Two applications, neither triggering the other.
Not one system but two stacked on each other, and the second changes at the edge of your commune.
Almost every guide for English-speaking families describes Swiss childcare funding as cantonal. That is half of it. The money reaches your invoice through two independent layers: a cantonal one, where it exists, and a communal one each Gemeinde designs and funds for itself. They share no form, no threshold and no definition of who counts as working. Two families with identical incomes and places at the same Kita can therefore receive materially different support, because one lives four kilometres away across a communal boundary.
Set by the canton, applied uniformly across it, administered centrally. This is the layer people mean when they say "Switzerland has childcare subsidies".
Zug's Kantonspauschale is the clearest example running: a flat CHF 47.15 per Kita day, identical for every eligible family in the canton. Most cantons have no comparable universal layer at all.
Your Gemeinde decides whether it funds childcare, how much, on what income and asset thresholds, and which providers it recognises.
Stadt Zug runs Betreuungsgutscheine at income under CHF 170,000 and assets under CHF 500,000. Stadt Zürich runs something structurally different: not a voucher but a Subvention paid straight to the Kita. A neighbouring commune may run either, or nothing, and no register lets you compare them.
This is why we will not publish a table of "childcare subsidies by canton". Any such table is out of date, wrong at communal level, or generalising from three cities to a country of more than two thousand communes. Here instead is the question sequence for your address.
Not "what will I get" but "does this commune fund familienergänzende Kinderbetreuung at all, and through which instrument". Ask in writing, and ask for the current Reglement.
Support is almost always restricted to a bewilligte Kita or a gemeldete Tagesfamilie. A place at an excellent Kita that is not on the list is worth nothing to your application.
Thresholds are easy to find; definitions decide the outcome. Taxable or gross income, which tax year, assets gross or net. Two families on one salary can land on opposite sides of a threshold purely on definition.
In Stadt Zug they do, from 1 August 2026. Do not assume that is general. A commune that nets its own contribution against the cantonal one hands you far less than the headline figures suggest.
Before- and after-school care, the Mittagstisch, holiday cover and care outside Kita opening hours — routinely outside the funded definition, and exactly the hours working parents struggle with.
One child over eighteen months, five care days a week, in Stadt Zug. How far the published figures take you, and where they stop.
Two working parents in Stadt Zug, one child aged two, a place at a bewilligte Kita: every published condition is met. The cantonal arithmetic is therefore determinate — the only part of a Swiss childcare bill you can calculate in advance.
The 4.33 multiplier is the standard Swiss convention for turning a weekly figure into a monthly one. Note what this number is and is not: the reduction, not the price, arriving regardless of what the household earns or owns.
Step two is the municipal layer. From the same date Stadt Zug runs Betreuungsgutscheine for households with taxable income below CHF 170,000 and assets below CHF 500,000. Under both thresholds the voucher stacks on the cantonal allowance and reduces the same invoice again. Over either, it disappears and the allowance is unaffected — the household keeps its CHF 1,020.80 a month either way.
| Element of the calculation | Status | What we can tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Kantonspauschale, over 18 months | Published | CHF 47.15 per care day |
| Five care days a week | Your booking | CHF 235.75 per week |
| Same figure per month at 4.33 weeks | Arithmetic | CHF 1,020.80 per month |
| Income or asset test on the cantonal layer | Published | None — it does not apply |
| Stadt Zug voucher eligibility | Published | Income under CHF 170,000, assets under CHF 500,000 |
| Stadt Zug voucher amount | Not verified by us | Set by the commune — ask for its Reglement |
| The Kita's own monthly tariff | Not verified by us | Varies by provider — ask in writing |
| What you finally pay | Cannot be stated | Tariff minus allowance minus voucher |
That missing term is not a small caveat: CHF 1,020.80 a month is transformative against a CHF 2,000 tariff and merely helpful against a CHF 3,500 one. Ask your Kita for its 2026–27 tariff sheet in writing, and whether the fee continues during closure weeks. And note what five care days still leaves uncovered: five blocks inside one provider's opening hours is not five working days for two commuting parents.
Different enough that assuming it works like Zug gives you the wrong number.
The canton pays a fixed amount per care day, the same for every eligible family. Earnings and savings are irrelevant, so you can calculate your net Kita cost from the published rate before you speak to anyone. A high-earning Zug family gets what a low-earning one gets.
The city pays a Subvention direct to the Kita, scaled by a Beitragsfaktor derived from your income and your assets. The Kita then invoices you the reduced amount.
The published tariff is therefore a range, not a price. The city provides a calculator rather than a table, and no single figure can honestly be quoted here.
Zurich also attaches a qualifying-reason test — city residency plus employment, training, active job search, an integration measure or health grounds — and caps subsidised days per year, so a five-day booking may not see every day subsidised.
The city's published worked examples show how wide the range is: what lands on the parent's invoice runs from roughly CHF 12 to CHF 120 per care day, up to 240 subsidised days a year. Two families whose children share a room can pay a tenfold difference for the identical day, entirely as designed.
| Stadt Zürich contribution factor | City pays per care day | Parent pays per care day | Annual cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% — lowest assessed contribution | CHF 108 | CHF 12 | 240 days |
| 50% | CHF 54 | CHF 54 | 240 days |
| 75% | CHF 27 | CHF 93 | 240 days |
| No subsidy — full tariff | CHF 0 | CHF 120 | — |
The exact income and asset thresholds behind those factors are deliberately not reproduced here: the city publishes a calculator rather than a table, and we could not verify a threshold set we would print.
Relocation advice covers tax, rent and commute. It almost never covers this, and for a household with a preschool child it can be the largest single line.
Zug and Zurich are twenty-five minutes apart and fund childcare on opposite principles, which makes the border a real financial event for a household with preschool children. The question is not which canton is generous, but which is generous to you.
| If your household is… | Moving into Stadt Zürich | Moving into Canton Zug | What decides it |
|---|---|---|---|
| On a modest income with few assets | Possibly the best outcome in Switzerland — up to CHF 108 of a care day carried | A flat CHF 47.15 a day, same as everyone | The Beitragsfaktor can beat a flat rate outright |
| On a high income or holding assets | Subsidy scales away — you can end at full tariff | CHF 47.15 a day regardless; the city voucher only under the thresholds | Zug does not ask what you earn |
| Needing certainty for a relocation budget | A calculation you cannot run until your tax position settles | A published figure you can budget against today | Predictability, not generosity |
| Employing a nanny rather than using a Kita | No support | No support | Neither canton funds in-home care |
Three practical points. First, the Zurich model is asset-tested as well as income-tested: households arriving with savings or a relocation payment can find their income would have qualified them and their balance sheet does not. Second, the Kantonspauschale is cantonal, so it survives a move between Zug communes; the Stadt Zug voucher does not. Third, a subsidy that makes care cheaper without making it more available lengthens the queue, so register early and arrange a fallback before you need it.
The allowance handles the Kita day. This handles everything around it — the early start, the late finish, the closure week, the sick day. Per child, including 8.1% VAT, with no enquiry form in the way.
The monthly figure uses 4.33 weeks, the same convention Swiss payroll uses to turn an hourly contract into a salary. Rates are charged per child with a two-hour minimum session, and 8.1% VAT is already inside the numbers on the right. Flex is the on-demand rate for anything booked under 48 hours ahead.
Vetted, checked and English-speaking — the everyday tier.
Several years in the job with references we have called.
Degree in education or childcare, primary-curriculum aware.
On-demand: under 48 hours' notice, evenings, weekends, holidays.
Once you accept that in-home care is a fully private cost, the next question is whether your household becomes the employer or we do. That is a bigger financial decision than any subsidy on this page.
The employer column of the table above is a real bill someone pays. When you book Rundil, the person paying it is Rundil. We are a managed childcare service, not a placement or nanny agency: we employ the nanny, so the AHV number, the BVG number, the accident cover, the sick pay and the notice period are ours. Your household never registers as an employer and never files anything.
The section that argues against our own service. A page that only tells you what you want to hear is not worth citing.
We checked Zug, Zürich and Bern directly and found the same restriction in each: support is tied to a licensed institution — a bewilligte Kita or a gemeldete Tagesfamilie. Care given in your own home, by someone you employ or by a company like ours, falls outside every scheme we could identify. We have not audited all 26 cantons, so the honest formulation is "no canton we could identify" rather than "none exists" — but if an exception exists, it is well hidden.
Canton Bern is the most explicit: its family portal treats a nanny as a weiteres Betreuungsangebot, sitting alongside the funded system rather than inside it. The logic is not arbitrary — public money follows a licensing regime, because licensing is what a canton can inspect.
The federal picture does not change this. The Anstossfinanzierung ends on 31 December 2026. Its successor, UKibeG, passed Parliament in December 2025 and introduces a Betreuungszulage of at least CHF 100 a month, rising by CHF 50 per additional half-day to a maximum of CHF 500 per child. Two caveats: first payments are expected around the turn of the decade, not in 2026, and nannies, grandparents and other home-based care are explicitly excluded from it too.
So if you came here hoping for a scheme that pays part of a nanny's wage: we could not find one, cantonal or federal. Plan for in-home care as a fully private cost. The only relief that reaches it is the tax deduction.
Where a nanny finally does qualify — and where most English-language guides stop short.
The two words are used interchangeably and describe completely different financial events. A subsidy reduces the invoice in front of you, this month. A deduction reduces the income you are taxed on, settled at assessment — a fraction of what you spent, much later, at your marginal rate.
Which is why "is childcare subsidised in Switzerland" and "is childcare tax deductible in Switzerland" have different answers for the same family. A nanny is never the first. She can be the second.
One rule catches almost everyone: you cannot deduct the whole wage. Only the childcare portion of a household employee's pay is deductible, and the split is set cantonally. There is no national percentage. Schwyz allows a flat one quarter of the net wage; Bern allows 50%. That is not a rounding difference, it is a doubling.
The CHF 30,000 is an illustrative input, not a rate we are quoting. The cantonal split, not the wage, decides how much of a nanny reaches your tax return, and a cantonal ceiling then applies on top.
One more condition, and it is where a deduction quietly becomes impossible: the care must have been genuinely provided and paid for, and the employment properly declared. Cash arrangements produce an exposure, not a deduction. If Rundil employs the nanny, the invoice is the record and your household never registers as an employer — see our guide to hiring a nanny in Switzerland.
The honest bridge between "we qualify for support" and "our week is still not covered". Every item below is a real gap.
A subsidy funds care days at a recognised provider, inside that provider's opening hours, on the days it is open, for a child well enough to attend. Read that with a working week in mind and the gaps announce themselves.
A well-run private Zurich Kita opens 06:45 to 18:15 — an 11.5-hour day, generous by any standard and still not a working day plus two commutes.
A 06:00 departure, a 19:00 finish, a hospital rota or a train that puts you back at 18:40 all fall outside it, and you cannot buy the extra hour at the edge. This is the commonest reason a family with a funded place still books a nanny: not instead of the Kita, around it.
A published Zurich Kita tariff states it plainly: the monthly fee is unchanged during closure weeks. Your December invoice is identical to your November one, and the subsidy does not adjust either.
Ask for the Betriebsferien calendar in writing on the day you sign and book cover early. Families who book closure weeks in September get the nanny their child knows.
A Kita cannot admit a child with a fever. That is the correct operation of a group setting. The consequence is one-sided: the place is unavailable, the fee still runs, and a parent's working day ends at 06:30.
A nanny works in your home, so a mildly unwell child is cared for in their own bed by a familiar adult. That is what our sick child care service exists for; if the problem is today, emergency nanny cover is the faster route.
Once a child starts school the Kita is not the alternative at all. Swiss school days are short, fragmented, and dotted with free afternoons that vary by year group.
In Zug the allowance is defined around licensed Kitas and registered Tagesfamilien. Before- and after-school care and the Mittagstisch sit outside that definition — the canton publishes the question but we could not retrieve its written answer, so treat school-hours cover as unfunded until you have written confirmation. The school-age case is set out at after-school nanny care in Switzerland.
No Swiss childcare subsidy we could identify funds care in the evening or at the weekend — every scheme is built around weekday institutional care.
For a household where one parent works a Saturday rota, that is a structural hole rather than an inconvenience. In-home care is billed by the hour with a two-hour minimum session.
We sell nannies. This section tells a lot of readers not to buy one, because the alternative is better for them.
A subsidised Kita place is the cheapest formal childcare available in Switzerland and it is not close. Stadt Zürich's own worked examples show a parental contribution of about CHF 12 to CHF 120 per care day against a day of roughly eleven and a half hours. At the bottom of that range a family pays near a franc an hour for licensed, staffed care with meals included. No private nanny competes with that, ours included at CHF 45.40 an hour including VAT, charged per child.
Even at full private tariff the Kita hour is cheaper. A published Zurich private Kita charges CHF 1,850 a month for two days, CHF 2,550 for three, CHF 3,250 for four and CHF 3,950 for five, across an 06:45–18:15 day. Adjust for closure weeks and unused hours as you like: it does not arrive near CHF 45.40.
| If this describes your household… | The right answer is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You qualify for a low Stadt Zürich contribution factor | Take the subsidised Kita place | Nothing private competes with CHF 12 a care day |
| Five predictable weekday days inside 06:45–18:15 | Take the Kita place | Your week fits the product the subsidy was designed for |
| You want a peer group and a structured group routine | Take the Kita place | One adult in a living room cannot reproduce a room of twelve |
| Two preschool children, ordinary weekday pattern | Take the Kita place | Our rate is per child, so a second child doubles it |
| Hours starting before 06:45 or ending after 18:15 | Kita for the middle, nanny for the edges | You cannot buy the fringe hour at any price |
| You need one day a week, or short days | Nanny | Most Kitas will not sell fewer than two full days |
| No plan for the morning a child has a temperature | Nanny | A funded place is worth nothing on an exclusion day |
| School-age children, fragmented days, long holidays | Nanny | The subsidy was never pointed at these hours |
So who is a nanny actually for? Four groups, defined narrowly on purpose. Families whose hours fall outside institutional opening times. Families who need care at home — a child's temperament, a relocation, a health need, a home language no institution supports. Families who need one adult for their own children rather than for a group. And families who need cover when a Kita is closed to them: closure weeks, exclusion days, school holidays.
If you are not in one of those groups and you qualify for a funded place, take it. If you are, the honest framing is not that a nanny is an expensive Kita. It is that the cheap institutional hour is not available in the shape you need, and no subsidy fixes a coverage problem.
Worked from the published rates, so you can see the mechanism rather than trust us on it.
Because Zug publishes a flat rate, the arithmetic is simple. The Kantonspauschale is deducted per care day, so a child over 18 months on a five-day place attracts 5 × CHF 47.15 = CHF 235.75 a week, before any municipal voucher. Zurich cannot be worked this way at all, because the Subvention depends on a Beitragsfaktor we cannot know — which is itself the most useful thing to understand about it.
| Care pattern | Zug, child over 18 months | Zug, child under 18 months | Zurich |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 days a week | CHF 94.30/wk | CHF 105.20/wk | Income- and asset-tested |
| 3 days a week | CHF 141.45/wk | CHF 157.80/wk | Income- and asset-tested |
| 4 days a week | CHF 188.60/wk | CHF 210.40/wk | Income- and asset-tested |
| 5 days a week | CHF 235.75/wk | CHF 263.00/wk | Income- and asset-tested |
These are the reductions, not the price. What remains payable depends on your Kita's own tariff. We have not published a Zug Kita price range because we could not verify one across the canton, and an invented one would be worse than none.
One structural note on the Tagesfamilie rates, quoted per hour rather than per day. At CHF 5.15 an hour, a ten-hour childminder day attracts roughly CHF 51.50 — slightly more than the CHF 47.15 Kita day — while a short day attracts proportionately less. If your requirement is short days, the hourly basis works in your favour.
The Zug allowance goes live on 1 August 2026. Everything below is written backwards from that date, because the sequence matters more than the forms.
Childcare support in Switzerland is not backdated as a matter of course. It is granted from a decision date, against a recognised placement, for a household already meeting the conditions. A family applying in September for a place that started in August is treated as having applied in September.
Ask your Kita in writing whether it is a bewilligte Kita, or your childminder whether she is gemeldet. Everything downstream depends on this and it takes one email.
Request the cantonal and communal forms early and read the eligibility section before filling anything in. This is where you find out whether all guardians meet the employment test.
Employment confirmations, residence registration, the child's details, the provider's licensing status. A complete file is decided; an incomplete one waits.
CHF 47.15 per Kita day over eighteen months, CHF 52.60 under, running to 31 July 2027. A decision in hand means the first invoice after this date is already reduced.
Every week of delay forgoes up to CHF 47.15 a care day. On a five-day placement that is over CHF 235 a week — real money, lost to a form.
Put a number on lateness. A Zug family with one child over eighteen months on five care days draws CHF 235.75 a week, so a six-week delay is roughly CHF 1,414 of support you were eligible for and did not receive. Only the date on the application changed.
And here is the part nobody writes down: for English-speaking families the bottleneck is almost never eligibility. It is language. Every source page, Reglement, form and decision letter is German-only. The failure mode is not a family that does not qualify — it is one that does, opens a five-page German PDF in June, and submits in October.
A German-speaking friend, a colleague or a paid translator — decide which before you open the form. Any of them costs a fraction of one week of unreduced Kita fees.
Read the eligibility section first. Half the wasted effort here is a complete application from a household that was never going to qualify on the employment or training requirement.
In Stadt Zug that is two applications, two bodies, two sets of evidence. Claiming the Kantonspauschale does not start the Betreuungsgutschein process. Diarise both.
You will need it when the placement changes, when you move commune, when the rates reset on 31 July 2027, and if an invoice arrives unreduced.
Three groups of things you would otherwise buy, arrange or carry separately. This is what makes a managed rate different from a wage.
We have had a wonderful experience with Rundil Childcare. Our child felt comfortable from the beginning, and the communication with us has always been clear and reassuring. It has made managing our weekly schedule so much easier.
Rundil helped us find reliable support for our two children after school. The childcare has been warm, attentive and dependable, and the children genuinely look forward to the time they spend together. We are very pleased with the service.
We needed occasional childcare that could fit around our changing work commitments. The process was straightforward, and the support we received was professional and caring. It is reassuring to know we have someone dependable when we need help.
Our daughter settled in very quickly and always seems happy and relaxed after each visit. We particularly appreciate the regular communication and thoughtful attention given to her routine. Rundil has been a great support for our family.
We contacted Rundil for evening childcare and were very happy with the experience. Everything was handled calmly and professionally, and our children felt safe and comfortable. We would happily use the service again.
The childcare support has been reliable, friendly and very well suited to our family. Our son enjoys the activities and attention, while we appreciate the punctuality and good communication. It has given us real peace of mind.
Eighteen questions, answered from the cantonal sources, with the figure in the first sentence wherever there is one.
Rundil charges the same rate everywhere in Switzerland. What changes canton by canton is the cost of the alternative — so the gap between employing a nanny yourself and booking one from us is widest in Vaud and narrowest in Zug.
Every figure quoted on this page is set out in full somewhere in the cluster.
The comparison this page keeps pointing at, with post-subsidy figures rather than gross rates.
Compare them →The full arithmetic from gross wage to the number you pay, tier by tier.
See the maths →In-home care across the canton where the new allowance lands on 1 August 2026.
Zug nannies →The hours the school day does not cover — and a subsidy generally does not either.
After-school →For the morning a temperature appears, the Kita cannot take your child, and the fee runs anyway.
See the cover →What being the employer involves — contract, payroll, insurance, and the declared employment a deduction depends on.
Read the guide →CHF 42, 47 or 54 an hour excl. 8.1% VAT, per child, minimum two hours. No placement fee, no registration fee, no employer paperwork and no minimum term — a vetted, English-speaking nanny assigned in 48 to 72 hours.
