Here’s the deal
- The hourly wage ranges from approximately €16.86 (cleaner) to €18.32 (household helper), with an average of €17.93 (quitt Report 2026). The minimum wage of €13.90/hour serves as the baseline.
- On top of that, there are employer contributions: approximately 14.6% of the wage for a mini-job, and around 21% for a position subject to social security contributions.
- A monthly wage of up to €603 qualifies as a mini-job; anything above that amount is subject to social security contributions.
- You can claim 20% of your costs back under § 35a, deducted directly from your tax bill, up to €510 per year for a mini-job and up to €4,000 for a position subject to social security. Childcare costs are 80% tax-deductible.
- All in all, a registered helper working about 8 hours a week as a mini-job costs approximately €630 per month after the tax rebate.
The cost of a domestic helper comes down to three things: the hourly wage, employer contributions, and what you can claim back on your taxes. While these figures are easy to find individually, they are rarely presented together. We have consolidated them here and walk through real-world examples of what your actual costs will be. The hourly wages are based on the quitt Report 2026, derived from actual signed contracts rather than estimates.
What does a domestic helper cost per hour?
Between approximately 16.86 € and 18.32 €, depending on the role. The quitt Household Helper Report 2026 analyzes hourly wages from nearly 1,900 contracts:
- Household helper: 18.32 €
- Childcare / nanny: 18.25 €
- Gardening help: 18.16 €
- Elderly care: 17.19 €
- Cleaner: 16.86 €
- Average across all tasks: 17.93 €
Your location also plays a role. Households pay the most in Bavaria (18.92 €), Berlin (18.58 €), and Hesse (18.41 €), and the least in Rhineland-Palatinate (16.00 €). The legal floor is the minimum wage of 13.90 €/hour (2026); you cannot pay less than this. Specific costs for a cleaner and a breakdown of their wages can be found in our blog post What does a cleaner cost?, and figures for a nanny are in our blog post What does a babysitter cost?.
What is added on top of the hourly wage?
Employer contributions. As an employer, you pay a share of social security contributions on top of the wage, and the amount depends on the type of employment:
- Mini-job (up to €603/month): around 14.6% of the wage. On a €500 wage, that is about €73 on top. The contributions are paid at a flat rate via the Haushaltsscheck from the Minijob-Zentrale.
- Subject to social security (from €603.01/month): around 21% of the wage. On a €900 wage, that is about €189 on top. In return, your helper is fully insured, including pension, health, and unemployment insurance.
The 14.6% for a mini-job is made up of health and pension insurance (5% each), accident insurance (1.6%), the U1 and U2 levies, and a 2% flat-rate tax. Your helper's wage remains untouched by this; you pay the contributions on top.
What does a domestic helper cost per month?
We illustrate this with two examples, each using the average household-helper wage of €18.32/hour.
Mini-job, around 8 hours a week (about 32 hours a month):
- Wage: €590
- Employer contributions (14.6%): around €86
- Total cost: around €676/month, or about €8,112 a year
Subject to social security, around 12 hours a week (about 52 hours a month):
- Wage: €950
- Employer share (around 21%): around €200
- Total cost: around €1,150/month, or about €13,800 a year
These are the gross costs. You get part of that back through your taxes; more on that in a moment. You can calculate your own figures with the wage cost calculator. How much of the wage actually reaches your helper is explained in the blog post Net and gross for a domestic helper.
How much do I get back through my taxes?
20% of the costs, straight off your tax bill. Under § 35a EStG the tax office deducts a fifth of your spending on the domestic helper directly from your tax, not just from your taxable income. The limits:
- Mini-job: up to 510 € a year.
- Job subject to social security: up to 4,000 € a year.
For the two examples above that means: with the mini-job's 8,112 € annual cost you get back the full ceiling of 510 €. With the job subject to social security and 13,800 € annual cost it is 20%, so 2,760 €, below the 4,000 € cap. The condition is always that you pay the wage by bank transfer, not in cash.
Childcare is a special case: if you employ a nanny for a child under 14, up to 80% of the costs are deductible as a special expense, capped at 4,800 € per child. That is usually cheaper than § 35a, but you cannot combine the two. The details are in the blog post Tax rebate for household help.
What is left at the end?
Less than the gross costs suggest. Let us finish the mini-job example:
- Total costs: 8,112 € a year (around 676 €/month)
- minus § 35a: 510 € a year
- effective costs: around 7,602 € a year, so around 634 €/month
A registered household helper for around 8 hours a week therefore costs you about 630 € a month, once the tax office has taken on its share. That figure already includes the safety net: your helper is covered by accident insurance, and you are on the legally safe side. According to the quitt Report, 52.7% of households that employ legally name exactly this accident cover as their main reason for registering. How to register a helper is shown in the blog post Hiring a domestic helper.
What does quitt take care of for me?
quitt is an app-based service that handles the employment of your domestic helper for you. You enter the key details, and quitt takes care of registration, payroll, contributions, and insurance, and factors the contributions and the tax rebate into the calculation correctly. So you see from the start what the job really costs, without having to work through percentages and caps yourself.
You stay the employer throughout and decide whom you hire and what you pay. quitt does the work behind it.
Want to know exactly? Work through your costs, contributions and tax rebate included. You can see what the service costs on the pricing page.
Manage your costs
Enter the wage, including contributions and the tax rebate. Our wage cost calculator shows you exactly what your domestic helper costs in just a minute.
