The inversion, in one line

The four countries that pay least all offer free school at age 3. The two that pay most bill for it. Luxembourg is the only exception that combines both advantages.

What the law says exactly, country by country

• France — nursery school has been compulsory since the 2019 school year, from age 3. Not merely available: compulsory, and free in the state sector.
• Italy — the scuola dell'infanzia takes children from age 3. Eurydice puts it plainly: «families do not pay fees». It is not compulsory.
• Spain and Portugal — public pre-school education is open and free from age 3, with no obligation.
• Belgium — free nursery education from two and a half, the earliest in the table; compulsory at 5.
• Luxembourg — free early education from age 3, compulsory schooling at 4.
• Switzerland — compulsory school at age 4 completed (HarmoS), free. Before that, nothing public: day nursery, childminder, or family.
• Liechtenstein — Kindergarten at 4.
• Austria — kindergarten compulsory and free from age 5 (minimum 20 hours over 4 days). Before 5: optional, and paid, at fees set by the Länder.
• Germany — beware the false friend: there is a legal right to a Kita place from age 1 since 2013, and from age 3 since 1996. A right of access is not free provision: fees are set by the Länder, and some have abolished them while others maintain them.
• Netherlands — primary school takes children from age 4; before that, childcare is paid and offset by a means-tested allowance.

Three families, the same salary, three positions

The first row combines both advantages. The second pays for childcare. The third receives five times less. And the work is the same.

Three obstacles, and none can be got round honestly

1. There is no cantonal fee. The price is set by the commune, not the canton. Speaking of «the price of a nursery in Valais» makes no sense: there are as many as there are communes.
2. The fee depends on income. The City of Geneva sets its price on the previous year's tax assessment, with bands of assessed income running up to CHF 220,000, and deducts CHF 10,000 from three dependent children. An «average price» would flatten precisely the variable that decides.
3. The sources contradict each other. The City publishes its tables as a PDF whose figures cannot be extracted; the secondary sources we cross-checked give, one a maximum of CHF 20,000 a year, the other up to CHF 133 a day — nearly double. Choosing between them would be guessing.

Two benchmarks, and what they actually measure

• Average spending per household, published by the Federal Statistical Office: from CHF 448 in Ticino to CHF 1,907 in Zurich. ⚠ This is not a price per place: it is what households that use childcare spend on average, with very different take-up rates from one canton to another. A canton where little external childcare is used shows a low average without being cheap.
• The tax deduction ceiling: childcare costs are deductible from taxable income up to CHF 25,000 per child. That figure does not say what you will pay — it says what the legislator anticipates you might pay. In its way, it is the clearest admission of the real cost.

Five questions, in this order

1. How old will your children be at the time of the change? A child of three and a half will cost a Swiss resident half a year of nursery; a four-year-old, nothing.
2. Which commune would you live in? It sets the fee, not the canton — and the gap between two neighbouring communes can exceed the gap between two cantons.
3. What is your assessed income? Not your gross salary: the income retained by the tax authority, including wealth in several communes.
4. Does your canton of work increase the rate from the third child? Fribourg, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva do — up to CHF 100 more a month.
5. Will your allowance be taxed? In eighteen cantons out of twenty-six it forms part of the withholding tax base. The amount displayed is then not the amount received.