Bern Raises Its Kita Fees

The Reclassification: an Age Boundary Becomes a Tariff Jump

The City of Bern publishes two tariff sheets: the old one, in force since 1 October 2023, and the new one, in force from 1 August 2026. Compare them directly and the biggest jump becomes obvious immediately, not for children who already counted as infant or toddler before, but for those who fall right between the two age bands.

For children who already counted as an infant before 1 August (3 to 12 months), the jump stays comparatively moderate at +7.5 percent, because their age band is simply extended to 18 months. For children aged 18 months up to kindergarten entry it is +5 percent. The biggest jump hits only children aged 12 to 18 months: they counted as a toddler until 31 July 2026 (CHF 138 a day) and count as an infant from 1 August (CHF 172 a day), +24.6 percent on a single cut-off date.

What a Family With Two Kita Children Pays

The City of Bern itself converts its day tariffs into monthly amounts: 20 day-rates per month at full-time attendance, a convention that Zurich and Basel-City also use on their official pages. On this basis, it is possible to show what three typical two-child families actually pay more from 1 August.

The reclassification shows up most clearly in the family budget: a family with one child aged 12 to 18 months and one older toddler paid CHF 5,520 a month for both Kita places until the end of July, because both children counted as toddlers. From 1 August it becomes CHF 6,340, because the younger child slides into the pricier infant tariff. CHF 820 more a month, CHF 9,840 more a year, without a single hour of care changing.

Bern in City Comparison: No Canton Costs Three Times as Much

Comparing Kita prices directly between Swiss cities is tricky: age bands, subsidy models and conversion conventions differ. The one genuinely clean comparison exists where both cities publish the same figure, the official Maximalpreis for a full-time place, and apply the same days-per-month convention.

BernBasel-City

The result disproves the idea that other cities cost a multiple of Bern. For children aged 18 months and up, Basel-City is only 4.6 percent above the new Bern tariff, for infants it is 15.8 percent, clearly more, but nowhere near threefold. Bern's increase even narrows this gap slightly, moving closer to its neighbouring cities' tariffs.

Switzerland in OECD Comparison

Bern's tariff increase is a local story, but it fits a national picture. For every member country, the OECD calculates how much a dual-earner couple (both at 100 percent of average wage) spends net, that is after subsidies and tax relief, on a full-time Kita place for two children aged 2 and 3, measured against that country's own average wage.

Switzerland leads every European country in this measure: 28 percent of average wage in 2023, more than the Netherlands (26%) or the UK (25%), and far more than Germany (1%) or Italy (0%). Worldwide only the US (40%) and New Zealand (35%) rank higher, an addition often missing from the public debate when only the US is named. Important for context: for a couple with unequal earnings (100 to 67 percent), Switzerland (19%) is no longer Europe's top spot, the Netherlands (21%) and the UK (25%) rank above it. The result depends heavily on the family model chosen, and this percentage is its own separate metric, never to be mixed with the Bern CHF-per-day figures above.

Numbers to Quote

Five citable, source-attributed sentences for coverage:

Kita Increase or Legal Alternative

The City of Bern's reform touches only its own municipal Kita tariffs. A legally employed nanny's market wage depends on entirely different variables, and stays untouched by the reform.

Bern officially raises its Kita tariffs by 5 to 7.5 percent. For children aged 12 to 18 months it is actually 24.6 percent, not because care gets more expensive, but because the city moves the age boundary.

Surprising Findings

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