Can the Apa or PCH be used to pay an employee or family caregiver?

Verified 03 June 2025 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

Do you receive the personalized independent living allowance (AAL) or disability compensation benefit (DCH)? You want to use these aids to pay a home help (in direct employment or through a service provider) or to compensate a family caregiver ? We are taking stock of the regulations.

What applies to you ?

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L'Apa can be used to pay home help or pay a service provider.

You can pay any person as a home care worker, unless that person is person you live with as a couple.

This person will then be employed as a home care worker and you become an individual employer.

Your steps to declare salaries to the Urssaf must be done through the Declarative Cesu.

You can also pay a fee with the Apa service provider an approved home care worker (an association or company of personal services).

In this case, you pay an invoice to the supplier.

You are not an employer.

You can use the PCH to pay a home care worker, pay a service provider or to compensate a family caregiver.

You hire a home care worker

You can hire directly an employee or call on a representative body.

You can not hire one of the following:

Person you live with as a couple
Your father or your mother
Your children
Retired person
Person engaged in a full-time professional activity.

However, you can hire a family member, including the person you live with as a couple, if your medical condition requires total aid for most essential daily activities and a constant or quasi-constant presence.

By hiring the employee, you become an individual employer.

Your steps to declare salaries to the Urssaf must be done through the Declarative Cesu.

You hire the employee directly

The amount of the human aid for paying home help is €19.34 per hour.

This amount may vary depending on the care provided to the employer with a disability.

You're using an agency

The amount of human aid is €21.27 per hour.

This amount shall be indexed to the pay scale provided for in the national collective agreement for individual employers and homeworkers.

You pay for service

You can, through the PCH, pay a service provider an approved home care worker (an association or company of personal services).

The rate of the human aid to compensate the home care worker is €24.58 per hour.

This rate may vary depending on the agreement between the department and this home help service.

In this case, as you pay an invoice to the provider, you are not an individual employer.

You compensate a family caregiver

You can use the PCH to compensate a family caregiverhe who cannot be paid for home help (e.g. retired person or person you live with as a couple).

The latter must not have any subordinate relationship with the disabled person.

This compensation is a sum of money and not a salary.

Its amount shall be calculated on the basis of 50% of the Net hourly minimum for family jobs, or €4.78 the time or €7.16 if the family caregiver reduces or abandons his or her professional activity.