Ending your nanny's or cleaner's contract in France: notice, indemnity and the CESU documents (CCN 3239)

A private individual who employs someone at home (nanny, cleaner, gardener, carer for an elderly parent) is covered by the convention collective nationale des particuliers employeurs et de l'emploi à domicile of 15 March 2021, IDCC 3239. It merged the former agreements for household employees and for registered childminders.

The point that surprises many expats: the general dismissal procedure of the Code du travail does not apply here. Art. L.7221-2 of the Code lists the only provisions that reach household employment, and the list does not include the ordinary dismissal chapter (L.1232-2 and following). Art. 161.1.1 of the agreement therefore sets out its own procedure, which is the one described below.

Two different sets of articles exist inside the same agreement:

• Employee working at the employer's home (nanny at your home, cleaner, home carer, gardener): part on salariés du particulier employeur, arts. 161 to 163.
• Registered childminder working at her own home (assistant maternel agréé, paid through Pajemploi): part on assistants maternels, arts. 119 to 121.

The two paths share the same documents at the end, but the timeline, the notice and the indemnity are computed differently.

Dismissal of a home employee requires a cause réelle et sérieuse (a genuine and serious reason), or a faute grave / faute lourde. Moving abroad, the end of a childcare need or a change in the household's means are examples of personal reasons commonly stated by household employers; the reason is written in the notification letter.

The steps in art. 161.1.1.1 are:

1. Invitation to a preliminary meeting (convocation à l'entretien préalable), sent by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or handed over against signature. The letter states the purpose, the date, the time and the place.
2. The meeting may be held from the 4th jour ouvrable counted from the day after the letter is presented. It takes place in person. The employer states the reason or reasons and hears the employee's explanations.
3. Notification of the dismissal, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, sent no earlier than the 4th and no later than the 30th jour ouvrable counted from the day after the meeting. The letter states the reason.

Jours ouvrables are Monday to Saturday, excluding public holidays. Sundays and public holidays are not counted, which is why the calendar dates are easy to get wrong when the meeting falls close to a bank holiday.

What the employee does at the same moment: the employee receives the invitation, may attend the meeting (attendance is not compulsory, and the procedure continues if the employee does not attend), receives the notification, and the notice period starts on the first presentation of that letter, whether or not it is collected from the post office.

For an employee working at the employer's home, the notice depends on seniority and on who ends the contract.

The notice runs from the first presentation of the registered letter. When the dismissal letter states a faute grave or faute lourde, no notice is due. The grids are also summarised on the Code du travail numérique page for the agreement.

During the notice period the contract continues normally: same hours, same pay, same declarations. If the employer prefers not to have the notice worked, the pay corresponding to the notice is still due (indemnité compensatrice de préavis).

From 8 months of seniority, a dismissed home employee receives a dismissal indemnity under art. 163.1 of the agreement:

• 1/4 of the average gross monthly salary per year of seniority up to 10 years;
• 1/3 of the average gross monthly salary per year beyond 10 years.

The reference salary is the more favourable of the average of the last 12 months or the average of the last 3 months. Incomplete years count pro rata. The indemnity is not due when the dismissal rests on a faute grave or faute lourde.

The last payslip also carries the compensatory paid-leave indemnity for leave earned and not taken (C. trav. art. L.3141-28), and the compensatory notice indemnity when the notice is not worked.

The free calculator on AdminLanding applies these articles for both parties: it returns the notice, the dates in jours ouvrables, the indemnity and the list of documents, and you can save the dates and invite the other party to the same calendar. It is a deterministic rule engine: the same inputs always give the same output.

A home employee and a household employer may end the contract by mutual agreement, the rupture conventionnelle of art. 161.3 of the agreement. The specific indemnity cannot be lower than the dismissal indemnity of art. 163.1. The Labour Code mechanics apply to the agreement itself: each party has 15 calendar days to withdraw after signing (C. trav. art. L.1237-13), and the administration then has 15 jours ouvrables to homologate the agreement filed on the TéléRC portal (art. L.1237-14).

This route is not open to registered childminders: art. L.423-2 of the Code de l'action sociale et des familles excludes it for assistants maternels.

When the child is looked after at the childminder's home under a Pajemploi contract, the end of the contract at the parents' initiative is called retrait d'enfant (art. 119.1). It is notified by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or handed over against signature. No reason has to be stated, but the decision cannot rest on a discriminatory or otherwise unlawful ground.

From 9 months of care, the childminder receives an indemnity equal to 1/80 of the gross salaries paid since the start of the contract (art. 121.1), excluding the maintenance, meal and mileage indemnities.

What the childminder does at the same moment: she receives the letter, continues to care for the child during the notice, and receives from Pajemploi the same set of documents described below once the last declaration is made.

Whatever the route, the employer hands over four documents and the employee keeps them:

• Last payslip, including the indemnities above. The last pay is declared in the CESU or Pajemploi account by the 5th of the following month.
• Certificat de travail (C. trav. art. L.1234-19): dates of the contract and nature of the job.
• Attestation employeur for France Travail (art. R.1234-9): the employee needs it to register for unemployment benefit.
• Reçu pour solde de tout compte (art. L.1234-20): the list of sums paid at the end. The employee may contest it within 6 months of signing it, for the sums it lists.

The employer generates the certificat, the attestation and the solde de tout compte from the cesu.urssaf.fr or pajemploi.urssaf.fr account after the last declaration; the platforms explain the end-of-contract section under fin de contrat. The documents are in French, as required for their legal use in France.

Two AdminLanding pages walk a household employer through this in English: ending a home employment contract and the URSSAF end-of-contract documents. If you are on the other side of the contract, the companion article covers the employee's rights at the end of a household contract.

Minimum hourly wages for both annexes were revised by avenant n° 10 of 5 February 2026 (annex 5 for childminders, annex 6 for home employees), extended by the arrêté of 4 May 2026 published in JO n° 0108 of 8 May 2026, in force since 1 June 2026. The final payslip is computed on the actual contractual salary, which cannot be below the minimum of the employee's level.

Example. A nanny at your home, hired on 1 September 2022, is dismissed for a personal reason on 24 August 2026. Seniority: 3 years and 11 months. Notice under art. 162.4.1: 2 months from the first presentation of the letter. Indemnity under art. 163.1 on an average gross monthly salary of 1 800 €: 1/4 x 1 800 € x 3.92 years = about 1 764 €, plus the compensatory paid-leave indemnity on the last payslip. Entering the same dates into the calculator gives the exact jours-ouvrables dates for the meeting and the notification letter.