Nanny Service Switzerland — from CHF 42/h + 8.1% MwSt.
Nanny Service Switzerland — from CHF 42/h + 8.1% MwSt.
The moment a nanny starts work in your home, your family becomes an employer under Swiss law. Your household owes AHV from the first franc, a wage at or above the 2026 NAV floor of CHF 20.35 an hour, accident cover, holiday pay and a statutory notice period. This page sets out every one of those obligations, costs them honestly, and compares the three legal routes — including the one that is cheaper than paying us.
The direct answer first, because most English-speaking families arrive at this question already halfway into an arrangement they have not registered.
Hiring a nanny in Switzerland means employing someone in your own household. There is no self-employed nanny status a private family can rely on, and no threshold below which household work escapes social insurance. From the first hour you are the employer: you register with your cantonal Ausgleichskasse, deduct and pay AHV, IV, EO and ALV, insure her against accidents and issue a Lohnausweis.
The wage is not a private arrangement either. The federal NAV Hauswirtschaft sets binding minimum hourly wages in every canton except Geneva, and childcare workers are explicitly in scope. From January 2026 the floors are CHF 20.35 unskilled, CHF 22.30 with four or more years’ experience or an EBA, and CHF 24.55 with an EFZ — before holiday and public-holiday supplements, from an average of five hours a week with the same employer.
There are three legal routes, and this page compares them fairly. Route one is employing her yourself and running the payroll through a tool such as quitt or Clino — genuinely the cheapest in cash terms, at roughly CHF 38.40 an hour of care actually delivered on the worked example below. Route two is a placement agency, which finds the person and hands you the employer role anyway. Route three is a managed service where the provider is the employer.
Rundil is route three. We employ the nanny, so your household registers nothing and carries no AHV, BVG, UVG or payroll admin. You receive one invoice at CHF 42, 47 or 54 an hour excluding 8.1% VAT, per child, minimum two hours, and pay only for hours delivered. That is more cash per hour than employing directly — decide below whether the difference is worth it.
Every honest version of this decision starts by admitting there are three of them, and that the cheapest is not the one we sell.
Almost every article on this subject is written by someone with one route to sell. We are in the third category, so take this as your test of the rest of the page: if you have time to recruit properly and the appetite to be an employer, employing a nanny directly and running her payroll through a subscription tool is the cheapest legal way to get childcare into your home.
You find the nanny, you sign the contract, you are the employer. A subscription service such as Clino (CHF 19.90 a month, 26 cantons) or quitt handles registration, payroll, the AHV and UVG declarations, withholding tax and the Lohnausweis.
What you keep: the lowest hourly cost of the three routes and full control over who is in your home.
What you carry: the recruitment, the reference checks, the criminal-record extract, the holiday and public-holiday hours you pay for and receive no care in return, sick pay, the notice period, and the day your only childcare provider phones in sick.
An agency recruits, screens and introduces candidates and charges the family a fee. When the arrangement starts, you are still the employer: the contract is between your household and the nanny, and every obligation below is yours.
What you keep: the recruitment work is done, by someone with a bench of candidates you could not reach through a classified advert.
What you carry: the entire employer role, plus a fee. No Swiss agency we could find publishes what it charges a family, so this page publishes no range. There is also a licensing question, and a fine that lands on the family — set out below.
The provider employs the nanny and supplies childcare as a service. Your family signs no employment contract, registers with no Ausgleichskasse and files nothing.
What you keep: no payroll, no AHV, BVG or UVG in your name, cover when your nanny is ill or on holiday, vetting done, liability carried by the provider, no notice period.
What you carry: a higher price per hour, and one less degree of control — you are buying a service rather than hiring a person.
This is the obligation families get wrong most often, and the one with the least forgiving threshold rules.
Work in a private household is liable for social-insurance contributions from the first franc earned — no minimum, no “she only does a few hours” exception. Your household registers as an employer with the cantonal Ausgleichskasse, deducts her share of AHV, IV, EO and ALV, adds the employer share and settles on the schedule the Kasse sets.
Two exemptions circulate in expat forums and neither does what families think. The CHF 2,300 rule does not apply to household work at all, so a nanny paid CHF 1,800 in a year is fully contribution-liable. The CHF 750 household exemption applies only to employees aged 25 or under, and only if she does not ask for contributions. Exceed it and the entire annual salary becomes liable.
| Threshold you may have read about | Does it apply to a nanny? | What actually happens | Who decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHF 2,300 wage of minor importance | No | Excluded for household work — liability starts at the first franc | Federal law |
| CHF 750 per household per year | Only if she is 25 or under | Exceeding it makes the entire annual salary liable | She may request contributions regardless |
| “She invoices me as self-employed” | No | The Ausgleichskasse determines status, not the parties | Cantonal Ausgleichskasse |
| “It is cash between friends” | No | Undeclared employment, with arrears and penalties | Cantonal authorities |
There is a lighter track for small household employers: the vereinfachtes Abrechnungsverfahren. You settle once a year, and source tax is a flat 5% — 0.5% federal plus 4.5% cantonal and communal — which discharges the tax on that income. Declaration due by 30 January.
It is useful, and capped. No single employee may earn more than CHF 22,680 a year and total household payroll may not exceed CHF 60,480. Cross either and you move to the ordinary procedure. At CHF 30 an hour, CHF 22,680 is 756 hours — about 14.5 hours a week.
Our derivation from the published ceiling, not an official figure. At the NAV unskilled floor of CHF 20.35 the same ceiling is reached at about 21.4 hours a week.
The NAV Hauswirtschaft is a federal standard employment contract with binding minimum wages, and childcare workers are named inside its scope.
Families assume wages in a private household are a matter of negotiation. They are not. The Normalarbeitsvertrag Hauswirtschaft sets binding hourly minimums for domestic employees, and its scope explicitly includes Kinderbetreuer, so a nanny is squarely inside it. It applies from an average of five hours a week with the same employer.
The rates rose 2% on 1 January 2026, approved on 5 December 2025, and the ordinance runs to 31 December 2028. A page quoting CHF 19.95, CHF 21.85 or CHF 24.05 is quoting 2025. Geneva sits outside the federal NAV, running its own contrat-type with a higher floor.
| Category | NAV 2026 gross per hour | 2025 figure — do not use | Typical profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unskilled | CHF 20.35 | CHF 19.95 | No formal childcare qualification |
| Unskilled with 4+ years’ experience in the field, or holder of an EBA | CHF 22.30 | CHF 21.85 | Experienced carer or two-year federal certificate |
| Holder of an EFZ | CHF 24.55 | CHF 24.05 | Three-year federal apprenticeship, e.g. Fachfrau Betreuung EFZ |
A family using a nanny for two school runs and a Wednesday afternoon is already inside the NAV. Below five hours you are outside the wage floor but not outside AHV or accident cover.
Two insurances your household must arrange in its own name, with two very different trigger points.
If her annual salary reaches the 2026 BVG entry threshold of CHF 22,680, occupational pension becomes compulsory. Your household must affiliate to a pension fund, register her, deduct her share and pay at least an equal employer share. The insured amount is the coordinated salary: gross pay minus the Koordinationsabzug of CHF 26,460, or minus 30% where that applies.
A figure we derived from the 2026 threshold and the NAV unskilled floor — it is not an official published number. At a market wage of CHF 30.00 gross the same threshold arrives at about 14.5 hours a week, so a better-paid nanny crosses it sooner, not later.
A nanny doing three full weekdays is almost certainly inside compulsory BVG; one doing two afternoons is probably not, and a pay rise can pull you in. Note that quitt publishes an outdated threshold of CHF 21,330 while Clino carries the correct CHF 22,680.
Every employee is compulsorily insured against accidents and there is no exemption for private households. Below eight hours a week your nanny is insured for occupational accidents only — and the journey to and from your home counts as occupational, precisely the risk a school-run nanny carries. From eight hours, non-occupational accidents are covered too.
| Weekly hours with your household | Occupational accidents | Non-occupational accidents | Who pays the premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 8 hours | Compulsory | Not covered — the commute counts as occupational | Employer |
| 8 hours or more | Compulsory | Compulsory | Employer, plus the employee for non-occupational |
| Any hours | CHF 148,200 | CHF 148,200 | Ceiling on insured earnings, not on liability |
The Code of Obligations applies to a nanny in your kitchen exactly as it applies to an employee in an office.
Every employee is entitled to at least four weeks of paid holiday, and five until the end of the year in which they turn 20 — four weeks you pay for and receive no childcare. On an hourly wage it is settled as a supplement.
Applied on top of the gross hourly wage. A CHF 30.00 wage becomes CHF 32.50 an hour with the four-week supplement included. Read the full mechanics on our nanny holiday entitlement page.
On the thirteenth month: it is not mandatory in Switzerland and the federal NAV does not impose one. It is contractual. Public holidays are cantonal, and the NAV rates exclude both supplements.
If your nanny is ill you must keep paying her for a period that grows with her years of service. The scale is cantonal — Zurich, Basel and Bern each apply their own table — and by year two it is measured in weeks. Unless you have bought KTG insurance, that money comes out of your household, and you are also paying for replacement care.
Ending the arrangement is a legal process with fixed minimums, always to the end of a calendar month.
| Length of service | Statutory minimum notice | Effective date | Practical consequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| During year 1 | 1 month | End of a calendar month | Notice on 2 March, paid to 30 April |
| Years 2 to 9 | 2 months | End of a calendar month | Two months of salary after the relationship has broken down |
| Year 10 onwards | 3 months | End of a calendar month | A quarter of a year to unwind |
| Probation, if agreed in writing | Shorter, by agreement | Any day | Only if the contract says so |
The NAV requires a written contract, and your household must also issue payslips, run withholding tax where applicable and produce a Lohnausweis each year — almost all of it in German, French or Italian. That is why so many international families end up technically non-compliant.
The obligation to check sits with the employer, and getting it wrong is the fastest way for a household to end up in front of the cantonal authorities.
For EU and EFTA nationals, employment in a Swiss household is straightforward under free movement. For third-country nationals it is not. Admission is limited to managers, specialists and other qualified workers, is quota-limited, and requires the employer to show no suitable candidate was available in Switzerland or the EU/EFTA — the Inländervorrang.
A nanny or domestic-help role does not normally satisfy that test. So a non-EU nanny must already hold a permit that allows her to be employed — typically a settlement permit C, or a B permit via family reunification. Do not build a childcare plan around a permit application you were told would “probably be fine”.
Employment permitted subject to registration. Wage floors, AHV, UVG and BVG apply exactly as they would to a Swiss national.
A settled resident may be employed without a separate labour-market decision. Verify the permit itself, not a photograph of one.
Often the practical route by which a non-EU nanny is lawfully employable. Confirm the endorsement rather than assuming.
Quota-limited admission is reserved for qualified specialists and subject to Inländervorrang.
One table that turns the whole legal section into a decision you can make from your calendar.
The obligations above do not arrive at once. They switch on at different weekly hours, so the shape of your week decides how much of an employer you become. Figures assume a gross wage of CHF 30.00 an hour — our assumption, not a published rate.
| Weekly hours | Annual gross at CHF 30.00/h | What switches on at this point | Falls on |
|---|---|---|---|
| From the very first hour | Any amount | AHV, IV, EO, ALV and Ausgleichskasse registration; UVG occupational cover including the commute | Employer |
| 5 hours a week (average) | CHF 7,800 | NAV Hauswirtschaft minimum wage becomes binding for the arrangement | Employer |
| 8 hours a week | CHF 12,480 | Non-occupational accident cover becomes compulsory in addition | Premium deducted from the employee |
| About 14.5 hours a week | CHF 22,680 | Simplified-procedure ceiling reached, and BVG entry threshold crossed at the same moment | Employer |
| Any hours, employee aged 25 or under | CHF 750 | The only exemption in household work; exceeding it makes the whole annual salary liable | Employer |
| Household payroll, all staff | CHF 60,480 | Simplified procedure no longer available at all | Employer |
A cruel coincidence in the 2026 numbers: the simplified-procedure ceiling and the BVG entry threshold are the same figure, CHF 22,680. A household tends to lose its simple annual settlement and gain a pension-fund affiliation on the same day.
The number no one publishes, calculated openly enough that you can change our assumptions and redo it yourself.
A complete base case for a family in canton Zurich. The wage is an assumption; the rates applied to it are published or standard figures. The point is the multiplier between the wage you agree and the money that leaves your account per hour of childcare delivered.
One nanny, one child, canton Zurich. CHF 30.00 gross an hour, well above the NAV floor. 30 hours a week, 48 working weeks, giving 1,440 hours of care delivered.
Four weeks’ holiday under Art. 329a, nine paid public holidays at six hours each and five paid sick days — hours you pay for and receive no childcare.
Base wage bill: 1,440 × CHF 30.00 = CHF 43,200. Holiday supplement at 8.33%: CHF 3,599. Public holidays at 3.75%: CHF 1,620. Sick-pay budget at 2.08%: CHF 900.
Gross annual salary: CHF 49,319 — past both the BVG entry threshold and the simplified-procedure ceiling.
| Employer line | Rate applied | Annual amount | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| AHV / IV / EO | 5.30% | CHF 2,614 | Compulsory |
| ALV unemployment insurance | 1.10% | CHF 543 | Compulsory |
| Ausgleichskasse administration | 0.20% | CHF 99 | Compulsory, rate varies |
| FAK family allowances, Zurich | 0.98% | CHF 483 | Compulsory, cantonal |
| UVG occupational premium | 0.70% | CHF 345 | Compulsory, indicative |
| BVG employer share | Half of 10% on CHF 22,860 | CHF 1,143 | Compulsory above CHF 22,680 |
| KTG daily sickness benefit | 1.00% | CHF 493 | Voluntary but standard |
| Payroll subscription (Clino) | CHF 19.90/month | CHF 239 | Optional tooling |
| Total employer cost on top of the wage bill | — | CHF 5,959 | — |
A multiplier of about 1.28 on the gross wage agreed. Change the canton and the FAK rate moves it by a few rappen. Full arithmetic on the nanny price page.
In plain terms: employing a nanny yourself and running her payroll through a subscription tool costs about CHF 38.40 an hour of childcare delivered. Rundil’s Qualified tier is CHF 42 excluding VAT, or CHF 45.40 including it — roughly CHF 7 an hour more, about CHF 10,000 a year. Any page telling you otherwise is doing arithmetic in its own favour.
What that CHF 7 buys is the next three sections: recruitment already done, cover on the days your nanny cannot come, liability carried by a company, and the ability to stop with 48 hours’ notice instead of two months. Some households will employ directly anyway — a good outcome, and this page was written to help them do it correctly.
You have the direct-employment number above. Here is the other one, with 8.1% VAT already inside it and no enquiry form standing 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.
Not a discount argument — we are the more expensive column. What differs is everything behind the two numbers.
The employer column of the worked example above is a real bill that someone pays. When you book Rundil, the person paying it is Rundil. We are a managed childcare service. 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.
A statutory section, written about the market rather than about us. Read it before you sign anything with an agency.
Placement of workers is regulated by the Arbeitsvermittlungsgesetz, the AVG. Anyone placing workers commercially needs a cantonal licence, and SECO treats an activity as commercial once it is carried out regularly against compensation — in practice from about ten placements in twelve months. Commercial Personalverleih is separately licensed, and SECO is explicit that there is no special treatment for private households; the decisive test is whether the essential Weisungsrechte pass to the client.
Most guidance stops there, having described a duty that belongs to someone else. The part that matters to you is the penalty provision, routinely reported the wrong way round.
| Provision | Who it falls on | Maximum fine | Conduct |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 39 Abs. 1 lit. a AVG | The placer | CHF 100,000 | Placing workers without a licence |
| Art. 39 Abs. 2 lit. a AVG | The employer — the family | CHF 40,000 | Knowingly engaging an unlicensed placer |
| Licence trigger | The placer | — | From about ten placements in twelve months against compensation |
The AVG does cap fees, and the cap is narrower than the internet believes. The limits — a registration fee of at most CHF 45 and commission of at most 5% of the first gross annual salary, Art. 9 AVG and GebV-AVG SR 823.113 — apply to the job seeker. There is no AVG cap on what an agency charges the family.
We will not publish a range for what agencies charge families, because we could not verify one. No Swiss agency we could find publishes its family-side fee, and a made-up percentage becomes folklore. Ask for the figure in writing, and ask what happens to it if you need to replace her in month two.
Note what the fee does not buy. Once the introduction is made the employment relationship is between your household and the nanny, and every obligation above is still yours.
If you take one route from this page, this is the one that costs least. Here is how to run it without ending up non-compliant.
Direct employment is not hard. It is a sequence of things that must all be done, in a language probably not your first, on deadlines nobody reminds you about. A payroll subscription removes the mechanical burden but not the recruitment, the cover problem or the legal exposure — you remain the employer.
Advertise, shortlist, interview and call at least two references properly. Order a Swiss criminal-record extract, check first-aid certification and verify the permit category. Budget several weeks and a trial.
Written, as the NAV requires. Set the gross hourly wage at or above the 2026 floor for her category, state whether the holiday supplement is inside or on top of it, and agree probation explicitly. Silence on the 13th month means there is no 13th month.
Choose between the simplified and ordinary procedures using the CHF 22,680 per-employee and CHF 60,480 total-payroll ceilings. Under the simplified route source tax is a flat 5% and the declaration is due by 30 January.
Accident insurance is compulsory with no household exemption, and arranging the policy is your duty. If her salary reaches CHF 22,680, affiliate to a pension fund and pay at least half the BVG contribution.
Clino, at CHF 19.90 a month across 26 cantons, handles the contract, payroll, AHV and UVG declarations and withholding tax. quitt publishes a strong admin guide, though its BVG threshold of CHF 21,330 is out of date. Neither is your employer; both are software plus administration.
The step families skip. Under Art. 324a CO you keep paying during illness and still need childcare that day. Holiday and public holidays are equally paid and uncovered. Decide who covers them in advance.
Described operationally — what happens commercially, week by week, when the provider is the employer.
On the managed model, Rundil employs the nanny. Your family does not register with an Ausgleichskasse, deduct AHV or ALV, affiliate to a pension fund, buy a UVG policy, issue payslips or file a withholding-tax declaration. There is no employment contract between your household and the nanny, so no notice period to serve and no sick-pay scale to apply. You receive one invoice for hours delivered.
Every nanny is interviewed in person, has her references called by us, and holds a current Swiss criminal-record extract and CPR and paediatric first-aid certification. Identity and right to work are confirmed before a first assignment.
That is route one, step one, removed from your household — repeated free if the fit is not right.
Illness, holiday and public holidays are the structural weakness of employing one person directly: you pay for the hours and get no childcare. Here those hours are not billed, and replacement cover is arranged.
For a two-income household that is often worth more than the hourly difference.
Accident cover, employer liability and the social-insurance obligations sit with the employer, and on this model the employer is Rundil.
Your household buys childcare hours rather than taking on staff.
CHF 42 Qualified, CHF 47 Experienced, CHF 54 Expert and CHF 55 Flex per hour excluding 8.1% VAT, per child, minimum two-hour session. No placement fee, no registration fee, no minimum contract.
Sessions cancelled 48 hours ahead cost nothing, and a nanny is normally assigned within 48 to 72 hours.
One more difference. On the direct model, ending an arrangement means one to three months of notice under Art. 335c CO, during which you pay someone you have decided to part from and arrange replacement care. Here you ask for a different nanny, at no cost.
Ages, weekly hours and your address is enough — a price on the published rate card and, in most cases, a nanny assigned within 48 to 72 hours.
The CHF 7 an hour difference, itemised. Three groups of things you would otherwise buy, arrange or carry yourself as the employer.
An honest allocation, written by the provider of the most expensive one.
Still deciding between in-home care and an institutional place? See nanny versus Kita in Switzerland for the trade-off, and childcare subsidies in Switzerland for the uncomfortable fact that no canton we could identify funds private in-home care. If cost is the binding constraint, a nanny share splits the hourly rate across two families.
Three steps, no employer registration, and the price does not change.
Use the estimator above to see the weekly and monthly figure including VAT. Nothing on this page is hidden behind an enquiry form.
Send the ages, the hours and your address. No placement fee, no registration fee, no contract to negotiate and nothing to sign for a minimum term.
Your nanny is assigned within 48–72 hours and confirmed by WhatsApp. The invoice shows hours and VAT. There is no payroll, no AHV and no filing.
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.
Employer-side answers, with the number 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 employing a nanny yourself, because gross wages and FAK rates differ — so the gap between the two routes is narrowest in Zug and Zurich.
More of the childcare cluster.
Every step from gross wage to the number that leaves your account, with the cantonal variations set out line by line.
See the maths →Four weeks under Art. 329a CO, the 8.33% and 10.64% hourly supplements, and how holiday is settled on an hourly contract.
Holiday rules →The comparison families actually run: cost per child, flexibility, sick days and what happens when you have two children rather than one.
Compare the two →Which cantons pay, and the fact that none funds a private in-home nanny.
Check the schemes →The hours between the school gate and the end of the working day.
After-school cover →The Flex tier for anything booked under 48 hours ahead, including a sick child at home.
Emergency nannies →The two cantons where employing directly costs most — and Zug at the same rate.
Zurich nannies →The hub page: tiers, what is inside the rate, and how the model works.
Start here →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.
