The narrowest of the three cleaning tiers and the one with a genuine legal story: the overwhelming majority of domestic work in Germany is undeclared. It is included here precisely because the default is Schwarzarbeit — with no accident cover, no pension credit and no sick pay for the worker — and because the legal alternative is much cheaper than almost anyone believes.
| Official title | Haushaltshilfe — also Reinigungskraft im Privathaushalt |
| Protected title | No. No qualification exists or is required |
| Category | services |
| Typical qualification | None |
| Regulated | No — but the employment itself is |
| Last reviewed | 2026-09 |
The default is illegal, and everyone knows it
Estimates of the share of domestic cleaning in Germany that is undeclared run to the large majority — it is one of the biggest Schwarzarbeit markets in the country. Households pay cash, nobody registers anything, and both sides assume the alternative is complicated and expensive.
It is neither. That is the core of this file.
The three legal ways to do it
| Arrangement | How it works | Who carries what |
|---|---|---|
| Haushaltsscheck Minijob | The household registers with the Minijob-Zentrale, which calculates contributions and collects them by direct debit twice a year. No payroll to run | The household is the employer, with the duties that implies |
| Employment above the Minijob ceiling | Ordinary employment with full social insurance | More administration; full cover for the worker |
| Engaging a firm or a registered self-employed cleaner | You buy a service and receive an invoice | No employer duties; the cleaner’s own business carries them |
For the first route, the employer-side flat rate is roughly half the commercial Minijob rate — in the order of 15% of gross, including accident insurance.
And §35a EStG gives much of it back. The household deducts 20% of the cost directly from its tax bill: up to €510 a year for a Haushaltsscheck Minijob, and up to €4,000 a year for an invoiced service or employment above the Minijob limit — the larger figures requiring an invoice and payment by bank transfer. Cash kills the deduction, which is the design.
The arithmetic is set out in Minijob and geringfügige Beschäftigung. The short version: for a household Minijob at the ceiling, the levies and the tax credit substantially cancel each other out.
What being undeclared costs the worker
This is the part that rarely gets said plainly, and it falls almost entirely on one side of the arrangement:
| Undeclared | Haushaltsscheck | |
|---|---|---|
| Accident insurance | None. Fall off a ladder in someone’s home and there is no cover, no rehabilitation, no wage replacement | Full, included in the flat rate, from the first hour |
| Pension credit | None | Yes — small, but it counts toward the qualifying periods |
| Sick pay, paid holiday | None in practice | Legal entitlement — this is employment |
| Proof of income | None — which blocks tenancy applications, credit and some residence procedures | A payslip and an annual statement |
| Unemployment cover | None | None either — Minijobs build none. See the reference |
| Legal exposure | Both parties; for a non-EU worker it can also endanger residence status | None |
The household’s exposure is a fine. The worker’s exposure is their body, their pension and, potentially, their permission to stay. The asymmetry is the argument.
Live-in care — the part of this market nobody labels correctly
The largest and most legally fraught segment of private-household work in Germany is not cleaning. It is round-the-clock care of older people at home, usually by women from central and eastern Europe, working and living in the household for weeks at a time before rotating out.
It is typically arranged through agencies as a posting by a foreign employer, which places it under the posted-worker rules described in The Bauhauptgewerbe — a construction reference, but the same AEntG and A1 machinery.
The decisive legal point: German labour courts have held that on-call time in live-in care counts as working time and must be paid, at least at the minimum wage. Arrangements advertising “24-hour care” for a flat monthly fee cannot be reconciled with that, and the sector has been in slow legal adjustment ever since.
If you are considering this work: establish who your employer is, which country’s law and social insurance apply, whether there is an A1 certificate, and how the hours are recorded. If nobody can answer, the answer is bad.
Pay
Market estimate. There is no sector agreement for private households, so the statutory Mindestlohn is the floor — a perishable figure, not quoted here.
| Reality | |
|---|---|
| Undeclared cash rate | Commonly quoted per hour, above the minimum wage — which is how the arrangement is sold to the worker, and it is a bad trade against everything in the table above |
| Haushaltsscheck Minijob | The Minijob ceiling caps monthly earnings per household; several households is the normal pattern |
| Registered self-employed cleaner | Sets their own rate, invoices, and carries their own insurance and pension |
Working for several households is how this work reaches a living income, and it is also how people end up unintentionally over the Minijob ceiling — the ceiling is tested per worker, not per household, so multiple Minijobs add together.
For people who have just arrived
- This work supports no visa. There is no qualification and therefore no §18a route.
- Check your residence permit before working, and be aware that undeclared work can directly jeopardise your status — a risk the household does not share.
- Ask to be registered via the Haushaltsscheck. It costs the household very little after §35a, and the request is entirely reasonable. Bring the numbers.
- Language: A2 is enough for the work, more for arranging it yourself.
- If you want a career in cleaning, the route runs through the Gebäudereiniger qualification, not through more households.
Pitfalls
- “It is easier for both of us this way” is not easier for you. The risks are not symmetrical.
- Accident insurance is the single strongest argument. It is included, it is cheap, and it is the thing you cannot buy back after an accident.
- Multiple Minijobs add up against one ceiling.
- Live-in care is not a Minijob and should never be treated as one. Establish the employer, the hours and the A1.
- Keep your own record of hours and payments, in every arrangement.
Sources
- §8a SGB IV, Haushaltsscheckverfahren — gesetze-im-internet.de/sgb_4, accessed 2026-09
- §35a EStG — gesetze-im-internet.de/estg/__35a.html, accessed 2026-09
- Minijob-Zentrale, Haushaltsscheck — minijob-zentrale.de, accessed 2026-09
- Bundesarbeitsgericht on working time in live-in care (2021) — bundesarbeitsgericht.de, accessed 2026-09