Nanny Service Switzerland — from CHF 42/h + 8.1% MwSt.
Nanny Service Switzerland — from CHF 42/h + 8.1% MwSt.
Swiss law gives you up to three days off to care for a sick child against a medical certificate. Every page on this subject stops there. What almost none of them tell you is that SECO states the wage-continuation duty runs only until an adequate replacement solution is found, that a Kita will exclude a feverish child and still charge you for the month, that the Red Cross in Zurich cares for sick children only in exceptional cases, and that the best-known corporate alternative works out at CHF 572 for an eight-hour day. This page covers all of it, and then covers day four.
Written to be read at half past six in the morning, with the answer in the first line of each paragraph.
For the first three days, you do — and the law protects you. Art. 36 Abs. 3 of the Arbeitsgesetz obliges your employer to release you for the time needed to care for a sick child, up to three days, against a medical certificate. It applies to employees with children up to the age of 15. Ask for the certificate at the first consultation, because your employer is entitled to see one before granting the time.
After that, the law expects you to have arranged somebody else. SECO states that the wage-continuation duty exists only until an adequate replacement solution is found. Read that carefully: it limits how long your employer must keep paying you, not how long you may stay home. The Swiss system is built on the assumption that a working parent procures replacement care, and it does not tell you where to get it.
The obvious places often say no. A Kita will exclude a child at 38.5 °C measured axillary, in the ear or at the forehead, will usually ask for 48 hours symptom-free before return, and will still bill the full monthly tariff for the days your child was at home. The Red Cross covers sick children in Bern and Aargau but states plainly in Zurich that sick children are cared for only in exceptional cases.
That is the gap this page exists to close. Rundil sends a vetted, insured, Rundil-employed carer to your home at a published rate: CHF 42 an hour for a Qualified carer excluding 8.1% VAT, per child, minimum two-hour session. No referral fee, no membership, no employer paperwork. Book through the form or send a WhatsApp message; if the crisis is today, say so and we will tell you what is available today.
The three-day rule is quoted everywhere and understood almost nowhere. The German wording settles it.
The provision reads: "Der Arbeitgeber hat Arbeitnehmern mit Familienpflichten gegen Vorlage eines ärztlichen Zeugnisses die zur Betreuung kranker Kinder erforderliche Zeit im Umfang bis zu drei Tagen freizugeben." The operative verb is freizugeben — to release, to grant time off. The article says nothing whatsoever about money. That single omission is the source of nearly every misunderstanding a Swiss parent has about this rule.
Three things follow, and they matter on the morning you need them. First, the entitlement is triggered by a medical certificate, not by your word. Second, it is capped at three days per illness event — not three days a year, and not three days per child. Third, Abs. 1 of the same article defines Familienpflichten as the care of children up to the age of 15, alongside care duties towards relatives in need of assistance. A parent of a 16-year-old is outside the provision entirely.
Your employer must release you for the time required to care for a sick child, up to three days, once you present a medical certificate. This is a public-law obligation on the employer and it cannot be contracted away in your favour or against it.
It covers the time required. If your child recovers by lunchtime on day two, the entitlement stops there. If the illness runs longer, the article stops at three days regardless of how unwell the child still is.
It says nothing about pay. A page that tells you Switzerland gives you "three paid days" is merging two separate legal instruments and will mislead you the moment your employer disagrees.
Wage continuation flows from the Code of Obligations, not from the Arbeitsgesetz. Caring for your own sick child is treated as fulfilling a legal duty under Art. 276 ZGB, which is what brings Art. 324a into play at all.
That means the two questions have different answers, different sources and different limits. You can be entitled to the time and still be arguing about the salary, which is exactly what happens in practice.
It also means the pay side carries its own ceiling — and, as the next section shows, a condition that most parents have never been told about.
This is the most consequential line in Swiss sick-child law and it appears on almost no page written for parents.
SECO, the federal State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, publishes an FAQ on employees prevented from working. On caring for a sick child it states: "Die Lohnfortzahlungspflicht besteht jedoch nur solange, bis eine adäquate Ersatzlösung gefunden wird oder – im Falle gesundheitlich beeinträchtigter Kinder – die Betreuung durch die Eltern aus medizinischen Gründen nicht mehr als notwendig erachtet wird."
Translated with the emphasis where the German puts it: the wage-continuation duty exists only for as long as it takes to find an adequate replacement solution — or, for a health-impaired child, until parental care is no longer medically considered necessary. The qualifier attaches to the Lohnfortzahlungspflicht, the employer's duty to keep paying. It does not attach to your right to be absent. Nobody is telling you to leave a sick child alone once a nanny becomes theoretically available.
Now look at what the clause implies about the design of the whole system. Swiss federal guidance does not treat replacement care as an optional extra for organised families. It treats it as the expected outcome — the thing a working parent is assumed to be arranging while the first days of wage continuation run. The law builds a bridge and openly states that the bridge is short. What it never does is tell you what stands on the other side.
Art. 324a OR is where the salary comes from — and it takes your child's sick days out of the same annual pot as your own.
Because caring for your own sick child counts as discharging a legal duty under Art. 276 ZGB, Art. 324a OR applies and your employer owes wage continuation for a limited period. How limited depends on your years of service and on which cantonal scale your employment falls under: the Berner, Basler or Zürcher Skala. In the first year of service all three converge on roughly three weeks. From the second year they diverge sharply.
| Year of service | Berner Skala | Zürcher Skala | Basler Skala |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | ~3 weeks | ~3 weeks | ~3 weeks |
| Year 2 | 4 weeks | 8 weeks | 9 weeks |
| What the allowance covers | All causes combined | All causes combined | All causes combined |
| Separate pot for a sick child? | No | No | No |
The row that matters is the last one. Days spent caring for a sick child come out of the same annual allowance as the employee's own illness. There is no separate children's pot sitting alongside your personal one. A parent who spent a fortnight flat with influenza in January has already consumed part of the budget that would otherwise have covered a child's ear infection in March. Nothing on the payslip flags this, and most employees discover it only when the wage continuation stops.
Read together with the SECO clause, the picture is coherent and uncomfortable. Your employer owes you a finite, shared allowance, and even inside that allowance the duty to pay lapses once adequate replacement care exists. Neither rule is unreasonable. Both assume something the statutes never supply: a carer you can actually engage, at a price you can see in advance, on the day you need them.
Art. 329h and Art. 329i OR are routinely merged into one entitlement. They are not the same thing and only one of them is about serious illness.
A large amount of advice in circulation blends these two provisions, usually producing a claim that Swiss parents get fourteen weeks off for a sick child. That is wrong, and believing it will cost you. The two articles cover different situations, run on different timescales and are paid by different bodies.
This is paid leave to care for a family member or partner with a health impairment. The cap is explicit: höchstens drei Tage pro Ereignis und zehn Tage pro Jahr.
It is the article that sits closest to the everyday reality of a child who is ill several times over a winter, and the annual ceiling of ten days is the number worth remembering.
Ten days is not a working month. Two children with staggered infections can consume it before the spring, at which point you are back to the same question this page is built around.
This is the fourteen-week leave for a child who is gesundheitlich schwer beeinträchtigt by illness or accident. It must be taken within an 18-month Rahmenfrist that starts on the first day the leave is drawn.
It is compensated through the EO as a Betreuungsentschädigung at 80% of average income, capped at CHF 220 a day. The child must be under 18 when the impairment begins.
The threshold is high by design: a significant and unpredictable change in the child's state of health, and a markedly increased need for parental care. It has nothing to do with a routine fever, a stomach bug or a winter ear infection, and anyone telling you otherwise is misreading the statute.
For anything clinical — whether your child needs to be seen, when they are well enough to return to a group setting, what a symptom means — speak to your paediatrician or call the cantonal medical helpline. This page is about the employment law, the childcare market and the money. It is not medical guidance and we will not pretend otherwise.
Search this topic and you will find a dozen pages that end on day three. Here is what the fourth morning actually looks like.
Children do not read the statute. A middle-ear infection runs five to seven days. A stomach bug plus the 48-hour symptom-free rule that most Kitas apply on return can keep a child out for four or five days without anything unusual having happened. The three-day entitlement is therefore not a description of childhood illness. It is a description of how long an employer must wait before the problem becomes entirely yours.
You call the practice, get the ärztliches Zeugnis and notify your employer. Art. 36 Abs. 3 ArG covers you. One parent stays home and the day is written off.
Wage continuation is running against your shared Art. 324a allowance. Your employer may reasonably ask what your replacement plan is, because SECO tells them the duty to pay ends when one exists.
The statutory release ends today. The child is frequently not better today. Holiday days, unpaid leave or a partner's goodwill are what remain.
No statutory instrument applies. The Kita still cannot admit the child and is still invoicing. This is the morning Rundil was built for, and it is the one the entire ranking set is silent about.
We checked what the competing pages say about the fourth morning. ch.ch, which will almost certainly win the featured snippet for this query, states the three days, advises you to look for an alternative solution as quickly as possible, and names the Red Cross — without mentioning that the Red Cross in Zurich excludes sick children, without a price, without a lead time and without any answer for day four. The Local covers three days, ten days and fourteen weeks and omits the SECO replacement clause entirely. Espacedroit is paywalled after the introduction. Moneyland, IamExpat and the employment-law sites cover entitlement only.
If the fourth morning is already here and you are reading this at 06:40, the fastest route is the WhatsApp number at the top of this page. Tell us the postcode, the age of the child and the hours you need covered. If today is not possible we will say so immediately rather than leave you waiting on a callback. For a same-day requirement, our emergency nanny cover in Switzerland is the right entry point.
Both halves of that sentence are published policy. Together they are the reason a paid-for childcare place is worth nothing on a sick day.
kibesuisse, the national association of Swiss childcare institutions, publishes the guidance that most Kitas base their exclusion policies on. The thresholds are specific: exclusion at 38.0 °C measured rectally in infants, or 38.5 °C measured axillary, in the ear or at the forehead. Return is typically permitted after 48 hours symptom-free. The association is explicit about why: Kita staff are "ausgebildet, nicht-kranke Kinder zu betreuen" — trained to care for children who are not ill.
That policy is correct and we would defend it. One febrile toddler in a room of twelve is an infection-control problem, the staffing ratio does not allow for a child who needs one-to-one attention, and a group room is a poor place to recover. The issue is not the exclusion. The issue is what happens to the invoice.
| What the Kita does | Published position | Effect on a working parent |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature threshold, infants | 38.0 °C rectal | Child cannot be admitted |
| Temperature threshold, other measurement | 38.5 °C axillary, ear or forehead | Child cannot be admitted |
| Return to care | ~48 h symptom-free | A two-day bug becomes a four-day absence |
| Staff remit | Trained to care for children who are not ill | No in-house alternative exists |
| The monthly tariff | Payable in full during absence | You pay for a place you cannot use |
On the billing, the sector does not hide it. A published set of Swiss Kita terms states it flatly: "Der pauschale Monatstarif ist auch bei Abwesenheit des Kindes (Krankheit, Unfall, Ferien) zu bezahlen (Rückerstattungen und Reduktionen sind ausgeschlossen)." The flat monthly tariff is payable even when the child is absent through illness, accident or holiday, and refunds and reductions are excluded.
One practical step, worth taking before you ever need it. Ask your provider for the exclusion policy and the return-to-care rule in writing, together with the Betriebsferien calendar. Knowing the exact temperature threshold and whether your Kita applies 24 or 48 hours symptom-free turns a chaotic morning into a decision you have already made. Providers publish these documents readily; the example linked below is a typical one.
Put in the hours, the number of children and the tier. You get the real figure, per child, including 8.1% VAT, before anyone calls you back.
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.
You can find and employ somebody yourself, or you can book a carer we already employ. On a day-four morning the difference is measured in hours.
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 Swiss Red Cross runs home childcare canton by canton, and the cantons give opposite answers on sick children. This is the single most useful fact on this page.
Federal and cantonal information pages routinely point parents at the Swiss Red Cross for care of a sick child at home. It is good advice in several cantons and useless in the largest one. SRK home childcare is organised by cantonal association, and each association writes its own admission policy, its own income-scaled tariff and its own lead time. The differences are not cosmetic.
| Cantonal SRK association | Sick children? | Hourly tariff | Lead time and minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zurich | Only in exceptional cases | CHF 6 / 12 / 18 / 30 | Within 24 h in emergencies · min 3 h · to age 12 |
| Bern | Yes — explicitly covered | CHF 7.50 – 40 | 48 h notice, or 24 h if requested before 11:30 · min 3 h |
| Aargau | Yes — illness or accident of the child | Income-scaled | Home childcare, cantonal terms apply |
| Rundil, Switzerland-wide | Yes — it is the core service | CHF 45.40 incl. VAT | Short notice · min 2 h · published rate |
Zurich states it directly: "Kranke Kinder werden nur in Ausnahmefällen betreut." Sick children are cared for only in exceptional cases. The service is otherwise excellent value — CHF 6, 12, 18 or 30 an hour depending on household income, a three-hour minimum, children up to twelve, and a response within 24 hours in an emergency — but the emergency it is designed for is a parent who is ill or hospitalised, not a child who is.
Bern says the opposite, in as many words: "Ja, unsere Kinderbetreuerinnen und Kinderbetreuer sind auch gerne für Sie da, wenn Ihr Kind krank ist." Yes, our carers are also there for you when your child is ill. The tariff runs from CHF 7.50 to CHF 40 an hour by income, the minimum is three hours, and the lead time is 48 hours — reduced to 24 if you request before 11:30. Aargau likewise names illness or accident of the child among the situations it covers.
Two further limits apply across the associations and are worth knowing before you make the call. Capacity is finite and winter is the peak: the same weeks in which every family needs cover are the weeks in which volunteers and staff are themselves ill. And the income scaling that makes the service so affordable also means a high-earning household in Zurich or Zug pays the top rate for a service that, in Zurich, will not take a sick child anyway. We operate across both cantons — nannies in Zurich and nannies in Zug.
profawo is the best-known emergency and sick-child provider in Switzerland. Its published economics are the benchmark this page is priced against.
ETH Zurich publishes the terms it has negotiated with profawo for its staff, which makes them the clearest public figures available in this corner of the market. The rate is CHF 49 an hour, plus a CHF 180 referral fee per placement. For a single eight-hour day that is CHF 572, or CHF 71.50 per hour once the referral fee is spread across the day. ETH reimburses 50–100% of day one and 50–80% of day two.
A Rundil Qualified carer for the same eight hours is CHF 42 excluding VAT, which is CHF 45.40 including 8.1% VAT, giving CHF 363.22 for the day with no referral fee of any kind. The gap on a single day is roughly CHF 209. Across four sick days in a winter it is more than CHF 800, and the referral fee recurs with each new placement rather than being paid once.
| One eight-hour day of sick-child care | Hourly | Fees | Day total |
|---|---|---|---|
| profawo, via an employer agreement | CHF 49.00 | CHF 180 per placement | CHF 572.00 |
| Rundil Qualified, incl. 8.1% VAT | CHF 45.40 | None | CHF 363.22 |
| Rundil Experienced, incl. 8.1% VAT | CHF 50.81 | None | CHF 406.45 |
| Rundil Expert, incl. 8.1% VAT | CHF 58.37 | None | CHF 466.99 |
| Rundil Flex, incl. 8.1% VAT | CHF 59.46 | None | CHF 475.64 |
There is a second and more important limitation in the ETH arrangement, and it is not about price. The scheme is open to employees and students of ETH only, for children aged 0 to 12, and ETH states explicitly that its own emergency childcare is not sick-child care. CERN operates a comparably closed population. These are excellent benefits for the people who have them and completely unavailable to everybody else — which is most of the country.
Four steps, written out so you know exactly what you are committing to before you send the message.
Send the booking form or a WhatsApp message with three things: where you are, how old the child is and which hours need covering. If it is for today, say so in the first line. We answer with what is genuinely available rather than a promise to look into it, because on a sick morning a vague answer is worse than a negative one.
You get the name of the carer assigned to you, their experience and their languages before they arrive. Every Rundil carer is employed by us, vetted, reference-checked and covered by our insurance. You are not being sent a stranger from a listings site and you are not signing an employment contract.
Ten minutes is usually enough: the medication schedule your doctor has set out, the temperature log if you are keeping one, the routine, the food, the nap, the emergency numbers and where things are. The carer follows the instructions you and your paediatrician have given, and never adjusts a prescribed regime.
Billing is per booked hour, per child, with a two-hour minimum session, and VAT is stated separately. If day four turns into day six, you extend the booking rather than restarting a process. There is no referral fee, no membership and no employer paperwork at any point.
On what the carer will and will not do: our carers look after a child who is unwell at home. That means quiet supervision, comfort, fluids, meals, temperature monitoring where you have asked for it, and administering medication exactly as you have instructed in writing. It does not mean nursing care, diagnosis, or any decision about whether a symptom needs a doctor. If a child deteriorates, the carer contacts you first and follows the escalation you have agreed. For anything clinical, your paediatrician or the cantonal medical helpline is the correct call.
On infection, we are straightforward. Our carers work in multiple households, so tell us what the illness is when you book. Some conditions we cover readily; for others we will discuss precautions or say honestly that in-home cover is not the right answer that day.
You are in a stronger position than you think, provided you separate the two rules and arrive with a plan.
Most disputes about sick-child absence in Switzerland are not really disputes about the law. They are the result of two people quoting different articles at each other. Separating the time from the pay, and arriving with a replacement solution rather than an apology, changes the tone of the conversation almost completely.
State that you are invoking Art. 36 Abs. 3 ArG, that you are obtaining a medical certificate, and give a realistic estimate of the hours you expect to be unavailable. Specific beats apologetic.
Ask, in the same message, whether the company has an internal policy on care leave. Larger Swiss employers frequently have one that is more generous than the statutory floor, and it is rarely advertised.
Send it in writing. On day three, when the entitlement lapses, a written trail of what you notified and when is worth having.
Say that you have arranged replacement care from tomorrow and give the hours you will be working. This is exactly the outcome the SECO guidance anticipates, and it converts you from a problem into a person who has solved one.
If you need a partial day — a carer from noon, or cover for two meetings — say that too. A two-hour minimum session means half a working day is a real, bookable thing rather than a compromise you have to negotiate.
Do not volunteer holiday days before you have checked the internal policy and the cantonal scale that applies to your contract. Once holiday is taken it does not come back.
One structural point that catches out households where both parents work. The three-day entitlement attaches to each employee individually, so both parents have their own. Splitting the week — one parent on Monday and Tuesday, the other on Wednesday — halves the effect on each career and preserves each person's Art. 324a allowance. Very few couples do it deliberately.
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 answers, each written to stand on its own, with the legal source or the figure in the first sentence wherever there is one to give.
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.
The rest of the cluster covers the arrangements that stop a sick morning from being a crisis next time.
For a same-day requirement — a fever at 06:30, a Kita closure or a carer who has fallen ill themselves.
Get cover today →Every tier, the VAT arithmetic and the difference between our rate and employing somebody yourself.
See the rates →Including the exclusion policy, the flat monthly tariff and what a paid-for place is worth on a sick day.
Compare properly →For the regular gap between the end of the school day and the end of your working one.
See the cover →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.
