Haushaltsnahe Dienstleistungen: Deducting household-related services

As a rule, household-related services (haushaltsnahe Dienstleistungen) include all tasks that are normally carried out by members of the household. These are, therefore, simple tasks. To label a task as being ‘household-related’, it’s necessary that the task is performed in your house, flat, or on your property. Some common examples include:

• Cleaning
• Childcare
• Garden maintenance
• Nursing and care services
• Caring and providing for pets
• Winter services
• Catering staff

Hiring a relocation company for moving homes is also considered a household-related service. This article gives an in-depth view on this topic.

You may have plenty of household services to declare in your tax return. We help you account for all of them one-by-one, without missing out. It’s an intuitive question-answer process that is easy to grasp. For your reference, here’s a video explaining how to declare household services with Taxfix:

Anyone who has contractually delegated household-related services during the year can claim household-related services from tax. It doesn’t matter if you’re a tenant, homeowner or live in a retirement home. The bonus applies once per household and may be used again annually.

If you want to claim these expenses in your tax return, you should pay attention to a few points regarding the invoices:

• Safekeeping: You must file away all invoices that were issued to you throughout the year.
• Breakdown of expenses: Within each invoice, the service provider should list individual items such as labour, travel, material, etc. Material costs may not be included.
• Clearing your invoices: Whenever possible, you should clear your invoice through bank transfer and not cash, because the tax office does not recognise cash payments.

You may deduct 20% of your expenses up to a total of 4,000 euros. What’s special about claiming your household-related services from tax is it reduces your tax burden and not just your taxable income. This means that every euro spent moves back into your bank account!

The state can also contribute to craftsmen’s costs through the craftsmen’s bonus or ‘Handwerkerbonus’. You can also deduct 20% of each invoice, limited to a maximum of 1,200 euros.

It is important that you pay attention to the following points. As far as invoices are concerned, the same applies as for household-related services:

• File the invoices safely.
• Ensure that the invoices list individual items (material costs not required).
• Clear invoices through bank transfer whenever possible.

Additionally:

• The costs must not result from work done on a new building.
• You must live in the flat or house yourself, whether you are the owner or a tenant.
• The construction measure must not already benefit from a state subsidy.