Working for a family in France: your rights when the contract ends (nanny, carer, cleaner, assistant maternel)

When a private individual pays you through CESU (cleaning, gardening, home care, a nanny at the family's home) or through Pajemploi (childcare), you are a salarié du particulier employeur: an employee with a contract, payslips, paid leave and unemployment rights. The rules of that employment relationship are in the convention collective nationale des particuliers employeurs et de l'emploi à domicile, IDCC 3239.

One point matters for the end of the contract: the Labour Code's general dismissal procedure does not apply to household employment. Art. L.7221-2 of the Code lists the only Code provisions that reach this sector, and the ordinary dismissal chapter (L.1232-2 and following) is not on the list. The agreement provides its own procedure in art. 161.1.1, and that is the one your employer follows.

The agreement has two sets of articles:

• You work at the family's home (nanny, cleaner, carer, gardener): arts. 161 to 163.
• You are an assistant maternel agréé and the child comes to your home: arts. 119 to 121.

The documents at the end are the same; the timeline, notice and indemnity are not.

A home employee can be dismissed only for a cause réelle et sérieuse (a genuine and serious reason, which includes personal reasons of the household such as a move abroad or the end of a childcare need) or for a faute grave / faute lourde. The reason is written in the notification letter.

The sequence in art. 161.1.1.1:

1. You receive an invitation to a preliminary meeting, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or handed to you against your signature. It states the purpose, date, time and place.
2. The meeting may be held from the 4th jour ouvrable counted from the day after the letter is presented. It is held in person. The employer states the reason or reasons and hears what you have to say. Attending is your choice; if you do not attend, the procedure continues.
3. You receive the notification of the dismissal, by registered letter, sent between the 4th and the 30th jour ouvrable counted from the day after the meeting. It states the reason.

Jours ouvrables are Monday to Saturday excluding public holidays. Your notice period starts on the first presentation of the notification letter, even if you collect it later.

What the employer does at the same moment: prepares and sends the two letters, holds the meeting, keeps declaring your hours on CESU or Pajemploi through the notice, and generates your end-of-contract documents after the last declaration.

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

The Code du travail numérique page for the agreement carries the same grid. No notice is due when the dismissal letter states a faute grave or faute lourde.

During the notice you keep working the same hours for the same pay, and the employer keeps declaring them. If the employer chooses not to have the notice worked, the corresponding pay is still owed to you (indemnité compensatrice de préavis).

If you are the one leaving, a resignation is a clear written statement of your decision (a registered letter is the usual form so the start of the notice is dated). The AdminLanding page on leaving a household job and your notice covers the resignation grid and the documents you still receive on leaving.

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

• 1/4 of your average gross monthly salary per year of seniority up to 10 years;
• 1/3 per year beyond 10 years;
• computed on the more favourable of the average of your last 12 months or your last 3 months, incomplete years pro rata.

The indemnity is not due when the dismissal rests on a faute grave or faute lourde, and it is not due on a resignation.

Whichever way the contract ends, 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 is built for both parties: enter your start date, salary and the date of the letter, and it returns the notice, the dates in jours ouvrables, the indemnity and the list of documents. You can save the dates and invite the other party to the same calendar. It is deterministic: the same inputs always give the same result.

Example. You started on 1 September 2022 as a nanny at the family's home and are dismissed for a personal reason on 24 August 2026, with an average gross monthly salary of 1 800 €. Seniority 3 years and 11 months: notice of 2 months, indemnity of 1/4 x 1 800 € x 3.92 = about 1 764 €, plus your untaken paid leave.

You and the employer may also end the contract together through the rupture conventionnelle of art. 161.3 of the agreement. The specific indemnity cannot be lower than the dismissal indemnity of art. 163.1. After signing, each party has 15 calendar days to withdraw (C. trav. art. L.1237-13); the agreement is then filed on the TéléRC portal and the administration has 15 jours ouvrables to homologate it (art. L.1237-14). A homologated rupture conventionnelle opens the right to unemployment benefit, like a dismissal.

This route does not exist for assistants maternels: art. L.423-2 of the Code de l'action sociale et des familles excludes it.

When the child is looked after at your home under a Pajemploi contract, the parents end the contract by retrait d'enfant (art. 119.1), notified by registered letter or handed over against signature. The parents do not have to state a reason, but the decision cannot rest on a discriminatory or otherwise unlawful ground.

The same grid applies if you are the one ending the contract. From 9 months of care, you receive an indemnity of 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 parents do at the same moment: they send the letter, keep paying and declaring through Pajemploi during the notice, and generate your documents from their Pajemploi account after the last declaration.

At the end of any household contract, the employer hands you:

• Your last payslip, with the indemnities above. The last pay is declared on CESU or Pajemploi by the 5th of the following month, and the payslip is available in your own CESU or Pajemploi employee space.
• Certificat de travail (C. trav. art. L.1234-19): the dates of the contract and the nature of the job. Keep it for your next employer and for your pension record.
• Attestation employeur for France Travail (art. R.1234-9): the document France Travail uses to open your unemployment rights. Dismissal, retrait d'enfant and a homologated rupture conventionnelle all open those rights; a resignation generally does not.
• Reçu pour solde de tout compte (art. L.1234-20): the list of sums paid at the end. Signing it is not a waiver of everything: you may contest it, for the sums it lists, within 6 months of signing, by registered letter.

The employer generates the certificat, the attestation and the solde de tout compte from the cesu.urssaf.fr or pajemploi.urssaf.fr account, in the fin de contrat section. The documents are in French, as required for their use with France Travail and other French bodies.

The AdminLanding page on your rights at the end of a household contract lists the same documents with the article references in English. The employer's side of the same procedure is in the companion article: ending a nanny's or cleaner's contract in France.

The minimum hourly wages of the agreement were revised by avenant n° 10 of 5 February 2026 to annexes 5 (assistants maternels) and 6 (home employees), extended by the arrêté of 4 May 2026 published in JO n° 0108 of 8 May 2026 and in force since 1 June 2026. Your last payslip, the notice pay and the indemnity are all computed on your actual contractual salary, which cannot be below the minimum of your level from that date.