The household cheque procedure is a simplified registration and contribution procedure for social insurance for private households. You use the household check to register a domestic help on a mini-job basis. You can also use the household check to make changes to the employment relationship or to deregister.
Mini-jobs in private households are a special form of marginal employment. They are particularly subsidized by the state through low social security contributions, a flat-rate wage tax and a tax reduction.
With the household check, the employer reports the essential data on employment in the private household. On this basis, the mini-job center calculates the social security contributions, levies and taxes. It collects these contributions from your account every six months by direct debit.

The mini-job center takes over

• Registration for statutory accident insurance,
• Collection of accident insurance contributions,
• payment of flat-rate tax to the tax authorities.

Family members as domestic help:

• A close relative can also take on a mini-job with you as a domestic help, which you must register with the mini-job center. The employment contract must not be a sham. In addition, the job must not be a family-type job.
• A paid employment relationship between a married couple is generally not possible. This also applies to children who help in their parents' household as long as they live there and are cared for by their parents.

Half-yearly check:

• If you pay your domestic help a different amount each month instead of a constant fixed amount, you would legally have to submit a new household check each time.
• You can use a half-yearly check to relieve yourself of this bureaucratic obligation. The form covers a period of half a calendar year. You simply enter the relevant months and certify the changing earnings.
• If you already indicate on the normal household check when you register that the pay you receive fluctuates each month, you will automatically receive a half-year check from the Minijob-Zentrale.

Change check:

• With the change check, you inform the Minijob-Zentrale if, for example, the amount of your domestic help's earnings, your bank details or a contact address has changed.

Notifications and certificates:

• At the beginning and end of employment and at the end of the year, the Minijob-Zentrale reports the individual data of each employed person resulting from the household cheque procedure to the data office of the pension insurance institutions.
• The domestic help receives written notification of this. The mini-job center also transmits the data on the private household to the accident insurance fund.
• You will receive from the mini-job center:
  • before the respective due date, a notification of the amount of contributions to be collected for the corresponding contribution period and
  • after the end of a calendar year, a certificate for the tax office with the following details:
    • the period for which pension insurance contributions were paid and
    • the amount of wages paid in the previous year and the taxes due on them.

Budget check calculator:

• You can easily determine the amount of contributions to the mini-job center and the reduction in income tax with the household check calculator.
• In principle, the following applies: Since January 1, 2023, the employer's contributions to the Minijob Central Office have amounted to a maximum of 14.94% of gross pay for private households. This amounts to a maximum of EUR 80.38 per month (EUR 538.00 x 14.94 percent).

If the employee opts for full pension insurance, a proportion of their salary is also paid to the Minijob-Zentrale, up to a maximum of EUR 73.17 (EUR 538.00 x 13.6 percent) per month.