Childcare costs tax deduction in Switzerland: the 2025 limits in seven cantons

If you pay for daycare, a childminder or a day school because you work, study or can't work, the costs come off your taxable income until the child turns 14. The limit applies per child and depends on your canton: for tax year 2025 it runs from CHF 6'000 in Schwyz to CHF 25'400 in Zug. For the direct federal tax it's CHF 25'800 per child everywhere. Meals don't count, and for married couples both parents generally have to be unable to provide the care themselves.

What counts as childcare

The deduction covers care by third parties: a crèche, an after-school club, a childminder, a day school. The link that matters is to your job, your education or your incapacity for work. The child lives in your household, and you carry the cost yourself.

The federal guide is blunt about the edges. Care outside your working or study hours isn't deductible, and neither are the child's meals or accommodation during care. So the Saturday afternoon babysitter on your day off stays a private expense.

Married couples face a second condition. Aargau and Zug spell out that both parents must be prevented from providing the care. If only one parent works and the other is neither studying nor unable to work, there's usually no basis for the deduction.

One allowance per suitcase

On a flight, every passenger gets their own baggage allowance, and a half-empty child's suitcase doesn't let the parents pack extra kilos into theirs. The childcare deduction works the same way. Each child has a separate ceiling, and whatever one child doesn't use is simply gone rather than passed to a sibling.

The canton sets the size of that allowance, and there's a second ceiling on top. One Swiss tax return produces two taxable incomes, one for cantonal and municipal tax and one for the direct federal tax, so the same daycare invoice gets capped twice at two different amounts. The federal column is identical across all seven cantons.

Zug's ceiling is more than four times Schwyz's. Move from Einsiedeln to Baar and the deduction for the very same daycare place changes, even though nothing about the care does.

All of these amounts belong to tax year 2025, and they're adjusted for inflation from time to time. Lucerne has already published CHF 18'200 for 2026, and why deduction limits change every year explains the mechanism. For any other year, check the figure in your canton's guide.

What Lea and Noah's parents deduct in Bern

Take a family in the canton of Bern where both parents work. Lea is three and spends four days a week at daycare; the 2025 invoice shows CHF 21'000 for care, with meals billed separately. Noah is seven and attends day school, which costs CHF 6'000 for care.

The federal side takes everything. Bern caps Lea's share at CHF 16'000, and Noah's unused CHF 10'000 doesn't help her. If Bern counted the limit per family, all CHF 27'000 would come off, so here CHF 5'000 of real spending has no cantonal effect.

The parents don't have to work this out themselves, though. Bern's guide says that higher costs are cut back to the ceiling automatically during assessment, so the return shows what was actually paid.

The same family in Zurich or Aargau could deduct the full CHF 27'000 cantonally; in Schwyz it would be CHF 12'000. What a deduction finally saves in francs depends on your marginal rate, and what a tax deduction actually saves works through that.

Lucerne and Zug also reward care at home

Two of the seven cantons have an extra deduction for parents who look after their children themselves. They handle it in opposite ways.

Lucerne grants an own-care deduction of CHF 2'000 for every child under 14 living in the household, and it comes on top of any third-party care costs. Where third-party care is needed because of incapacity for work, Lucerne sets no ceiling at all: uncovered costs are deductible in full.

Zug's own-care deduction is CHF 12'200 for each child under 15 at the end of the tax period, and it only applies to cantonal tax.

Zug doesn't let you combine it with the third-party care deduction. Its tax handbook sets the threshold at that same amount: if the third-party care deduction doesn't reach it, the own-care deduction can be claimed instead. In a one-child household with only a few daycare days, that route can come out higher than the daycare fees actually paid.

When the parents aren't married

Unmarried parents each file their own return, which raises the question of who gets the deduction. Zurich answers it directly. Where the parents live together with children under joint parental authority, each can claim half, at most CHF 12'500 for cantonal tax and CHF 12'900 for federal tax per child. A different split has to be proven by the parents, and the same applies to alternating custody with joint authority.

Lucerne splits its own-care deduction in a similar way: if the parents are taxed separately and both meet the conditions, each deducts CHF 1'000. Which split fits your situation depends on custody, living arrangements and maintenance payments, and your canton's guide sets it out.

What the tax office wants to see

Every canton wants the costs proven. Aargau and Solothurn ask for a list with receipts, Zug has its own form and Schwyz a supplementary one. Three cantons add conditions of their own:

• Bern only grants the deduction if the carer's name and address are given.
• Aargau requires the carer to be over 16 and reduces the ceiling pro rata if you only worked for part of the year.
• Zug treats 10 % of the invoice as non-deductible meals where care and food aren't shown separately.

Subsidies from the municipality or canton come off first; Aargau, Schwyz and Zug say so in writing. Whether and how far the deduction applies in your case depends on your work situation and your receipts. A daycare invoice that lists meals separately saves a follow-up question.

You can upload the daycare statement to TaxWize, which reads it for you, and every value it reads can be checked and corrected. For an estimate of how children affect the tax in your municipality, try the tax comparison.

Sources

All sources were read on 24.09.2026.

• Swiss Federal Tax Administration, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, direct federal tax (CHF 25'800 per child, care outside working hours, meals and accommodation): estv.admin.ch
• Canton of Zurich, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, section 16.6 (CHF 25'000, half each for cohabiting parents and alternating custody): zh.ch
• Canton of Aargau, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, section 15.0 (CHF 25'000 per child, both parents, carer over 16, pro rata reduction, subsidies): ag.ch
• Canton of Bern, Wegleitung natürliche Personen 2025 (CHF 16'000 per child, meals, carer details, automatic reduction): wegleitung.sv.fin.be.ch
• Canton of Lucerne, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025 (third-party care CHF 18'000 per child, own care CHF 2'000 on top, CHF 1'000 each when taxed separately, no ceiling for incapacity): steuern.lu.ch
• Canton of Lucerne, Tariftabellen und Abzüge 2026 (third-party care CHF 18'200): steuern.lu.ch
• Canton of Solothurn, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, section 570 (CHF 25'000 per child, meals, list naming recipients): so.ch
• Canton of Zug, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, codes 253 and 404 (CHF 25'400 per child, both parents, 10 % meals, own-care deduction CHF 12'200): zg.ch
• Canton of Zug, Steuergesetz (BGS 632.1), § 33 para. 2 and 2bis (third-party and own-care deductions not combinable): bgs.zg.ch
• Canton of Zug, Steuerbuch no. 22.8 «Eigenbetreuungskostenabzug», as of 19.01.2026 (threshold CHF 12'200 for tax periods 2025 and 2026, § 33 para. 2bis StG): wissen.zg.ch
• Canton of Schwyz, Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, section 3.11 (CHF 6'000 per child, living costs, contributions received, supplementary form): sz.ch