What Legal Home Help Costs in Every Canton in 2026

Every household that employs someone at home in Switzerland is an employer, and an employer's hour costs more than the wage. This study puts one number on that for every canton: the all in cost of one hour of legal home help at the legal minimum wage, computed from the rules in force on 1 January 2026.

The short version

At the legal minimum and four hours a week, one hour costs a household between CHF 21.71 in Ticino and CHF 26.84 in Geneva, wage and employer contributions included. Nineteen cantons sit at the federal floor of CHF 20.35 an hour set by the standard contract for household work; five cantons set their own floor, from CHF 20.00 in Ticino to CHF 24.59 in Geneva. On top of the wage, the employer pays AHV, IV and EO, unemployment insurance, and a family allowance contribution that each canton sets itself.

How to read the table

• Legal floor is the minimum hourly wage that applies to household work in that canton in 2026: the federal standard contract for household work (NAV Hauswirtschaft) at CHF 20.35 for unqualified staff, or the cantonal minimum wage where the canton has one and it is higher, and Ticino's own floor of CHF 20.00 where the cantonal law replaces the federal figure for small jobs.
• Employer cost per hour is that wage plus the employer's contributions: AHV, IV and EO at 5.3 percent, unemployment insurance at 1.1 percent, the cantonal family allowance contribution, and the administration charge of the compensation office. Holiday pay of 8.33 percent is owed on top of the hourly wage and is included.
• Per month is the same for four hours a week, that is 17.32 hours a month.
• Booked by the hour is what the same hour costs when the household books a Helper on Helpore Flex at the marketplace floor of CHF 24.55: the wage, the employer costs and the flat Helpore fee of CHF 3.50, all in, the price a household sees before it confirms.

What the figures say

The spread between cantons is CHF 5.13 an hour, and almost all of it is the minimum wage. Geneva's floor for domestic staff is CHF 24.59, the highest in the country, so the cheapest legal hour there costs a household CHF 26.84. Ticino's law sets CHF 20.00 for the household sector, the lowest floor, and the hour costs CHF 21.71. In the nineteen cantons without their own floor, the standard contract's CHF 20.35 applies and the hour costs between CHF 21.9 and CHF 22.3 depending on the family allowance rate of the canton.

The family allowance contribution is the quiet variable. It is a percentage of the wage the employer pays to the canton's family allowance fund, and it ranges from about 1.6 percent to over 2 percent. On a four hour week it moves the monthly bill by a few francs; on a full time wage it is the difference of a month's contribution over a year.

Booked by the hour, the picture flattens: at the marketplace floor of CHF 24.55 the all in price sits between CHF 30.00 and CHF 30.43 in every canton, because the Helpore fee is flat and the wage is the same everywhere. The contributions still follow the canton.

Method

• Wage floors: the federal standard contract for household work (NAV Hauswirtschaft, SR 221.215.329.4, amended on 5 December 2025, in force since 1 January 2026), the cantonal minimum wage laws of Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura, Ticino and Basel-Stadt as published by the cantons for 2026, and the Geneva standard contract for domestic staff (CTT-EDom) for the household category.
• Contributions: the 2026 rates of the AHV, IV, EO and ALV, the family allowance contribution per canton, and the administration charge tier of the compensation office, as used by Helpore's payroll engine for every contract it prepares.
• Hours: four hours a week, the most common regular arrangement for a cleaner. At that volume no occupational pension contribution is due (the annual wage stays under the BVG threshold of CHF 22,680) and accident insurance covers occupational accidents only (non occupational cover starts at eight hours a week with the same employer).
• The table is computed at page load from the same engine that produces Helpore's contracts and payslips, so it cannot drift from the product. Figures are rounded to the cent.

Sources

• NAV Hauswirtschaft, SR 221.215.329.4, minimum wages in Art. 5, in force since 1 January 2026.
• SECO, information on the NAV Hauswirtschaft 2026, holiday and public holiday supplements.
• AHV/IV leaflet 2.06, household employment, contribution rates 2026.
• Cantonal minimum wage pages of Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura, Ticino and Basel-Stadt, read on 8 September 2026.

Cite as: Helpore, What legal home help costs in every canton, September 2026, helpore.com. Press and researchers can reach us at hello@helpore.com. The study is repeated every quarter and after every change of a wage floor or a contribution rate.