France - Should You Declare a Babysitter? What CESU Says

Identifying the employer

With direct employment, you hire the babysitter in your home yourself: you then become a private employer. You are responsible for the formalities associated with hiring and the employment relationship.

With an intermediary agency, you retain employer status even if the agency handles procedures on your behalf. With a service provider, the organisation employs the staff made available to you.

Declaring the work through CESU

If you are a private employer, the declarative CESU enables you to declare your employee and their pay. Wages are declared in the CESU service’s online area.

The work must be declared no later than the 5th day of the month following the period worked. The three-hour threshold mentioned by CESU applies elsewhere: it concerns the form of the employment contract.

Understanding the three-hour threshold

For occasional tasks not exceeding 3 hours per week over a period of 4 weeks, the declarative CESU may serve as an employment contract. Beyond that, a written contract must be drawn up.

This threshold therefore does not remove the requirement to declare the work: it determines whether CESU can also serve as a written contract. Before the childcare takes place, identify your organisational arrangement, then prepare the appropriate declaration.