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How to get a tax refund for childcare & Au Pair costs?

If you’ve hosted an Au Pair or paid for childcare, you may be eligible for a tax refund or deduction depending on your country’s tax laws. In many cases, Au Pair costs can count as childcare expenses, especially if both parents are working or studying. To claim a refund, make sure you’ve kept proper documentation: payment records, the Au Pair agreement, and any proof that your Au Pair provided childcare. When filing your taxes, check if there’s a specific section for childcare expenses or ask a tax advisor for guidance.

Check out more details in this article.

An Au Pair is a really affordable and reliable solution when it comes to childcare. Parents have to spend less money on a person from abroad to watch their children than for a local nanny or kindergarten. Yet the costs for an Au Pair sum up to a few thousand euros, pounds, dollars or whichever currency you have in your home country. Many Host Families wonder if they can set off the costs for an Au Pair against tax liability.

How does it work?

In many countries it is possible to get a tax refund for childcare, like payments for schools and kindergarten. Whether the costs for an Au Pair are refundable or partly refundable depends on the Host Family’s home country.

A good example is Germany: It's possible here to get a tax refund for child care up to 4.000 € per child. The state usually sees an Au Pair as 50% childcare and 50 % help in the household. If families want to state that the Au Pair is not spending 50% of their time cleaning the house they should make that clear in the contract. They could write something like: “child care 85% and household tasks 15%”.
The Au Pair should also always get paid via bank. Cash payments will not be considered by the finance office.

Another example is Norway: Families can claim a deduction from their income for documented expenses for the minding and care of their children. Just like in Germany, the Host Family has to pay the Au Pair via a bank. Multiple payments related to a single childcare option, like an Au Pair, are considered to be one payment with respect to the threshold.

Since the regulations differ from country to country, we can‘t give specific information about each country, but now you know it is possible to get a tax refund for childcare in some countries. You should get informed at your local finance office.
Free Registration as Family

What are the requirements to host an Au Pair?: There are three most important requirements: the Au Pair accommodation, full board and monthly/weekly sum of pocket money. We recommend to go through the full list of requirements for Host Families. If you meet them, you can register as a Host Family today and find an Au Pair that matches your criteria.

Who should pay for the travel expenses?: We recommend Host Families to help Au Pairs with travel expenses, though it’s not their obligation to do so. In any case, the Au Pair needs to cover the travel costs initially. If the Host Family would like to support the Au Pair, they can repay the ticket price in monthly installments that will be added to the Au Pair's salary during 10 months. In the case of Au Pair USA and China, the ticket will be covered by the Host Family. We recommend to discuss this topic before the Au Pair’s arrival and note down the conditions in the Au Pair contract. Learn more about other Au Pair costs to participate in the program or Host Family costs for hosting an Au Pair.

Do you help with documents, visa, etc.?: AuPair.com is an online matching agency, where Au Pair and Host Families can find each other. However, AuPair.com is not a full-service Au Pair agency! That means, that we do NOT place Au Pairs in Host Families actively. We do not organize the stay and we do not help with visa applications or Au Pair and Host Family rematchings. We also do not solve problems between Host Families and their Au Pairs, although if you have a problem with one of our users, you can raise a complaint anytime.

If these services are important to you, we recommend you to contact one of our cooperation Au Pair agency. Addresses can be found at the list of Au Pair agencies.

We want to hire an Au Pair. Can you help?

Online matching agencies, like AuPair.com, let you get in touch with Au Pairs from the entire world. Please note that AuPair.com is not a full service agency. This means that we cannot take over the organisation of the stay. With the help of our platform, you can find your ideal candidate on your own. All further information, e.g. about the au pair contract, the amount of pocket money or the requirements for host families, can be found on our website.

How do we work?

On AuPair.com you can:

totally free search through our database and look for a perfect match
choose one of two accounts: either a free Basic Account or a Premium Account, purchased for a certain price, depending on the length of Premium Membership.

More information about AuPair.com's Premium Membership you can find here.

Basic Users can send requests (invitations and standard messages) to other users, expressing their interest, or add other users to their hotlists.

On the other hand, Premium Users can send to the rest of our service free-form messages, containing i.e. contact data, and are always able to receive an answer, also personalized. Premium Members can also see contact data of other users (with the exception of email address) and some extra content, like videos, references or letters written by Au Pairs.

Still, if your prospective match is Premium, you do not need to purchase Premium Membership to send a feedback and get in direct touch! Only one of the pair Host Family - Au Pair needs to be Premium to push the communication beyond our service and arrange the Au Pair stay