Unless you have grandparents around, you can add ca. 500 CHF per week (camps etc) for childcare during school holidays: 13 weeks minus 5 weeks with the parents - or more if you split
If you need childcare for those 8 weeks, then the difference with private school is really minor
Unfortunately not all private school offer care during the holidays which is included in the regular fee.
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In my school they do different bills for what is considered tuition and what is considered childcare. Childcare part I can deduct but the tuition part I cannot. At least my understanding and what the school told me, I haven t tried to deduct the tuition part. If someone tried and this worked please speak up 
Do I understand correctly that your kids goes to private Kindergarten? If yes, how it’s different from public one? Ie. costs/activities/daily and/or yearly schedule?
I somehow always thought Kita - private, Kindergarten - public, School - private/public.
How old are your kids? Are you going to send them to a Montessori school when they are older too, until Matura even? Do they get an equivalent diploma to state schools?
Current plan is until gymnasium. I think there are some places that offer also Gymnasium somewhere (and yes, in general private schools provide an equivalent diploma), but don’t think there are any in Zurich. In any case, I think the method is most appropriate and useful for kindergarten and pre-kindergarten age. If it only depended on me they’d be going to public school at 6, that would mean quite some time and money saved.
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Public school gets the children in contact with lots of different classes and cultures. You have to keep an open mind/approach as parents but I really see this as a benefit. I think this will be great experience for the world after school. Further benefit: the children can make friends in the neighborhood and you don’t have to drive them and organize playdates all the time.
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At LFZ you can do the gymnasium as well (with equivalent diploma).
It is bilingual in French and German.
I’ve been working almost exclusively with expats colleagues in our international company, some of the company benefits also go into subsidizing the education of their children in English-speaking or bilingual private schools in ZH and GE (being that nobody speaks the local language and they may move with kids of any age). Since the company pays the majority share of the cost of education, everyone always goes with private schools, be it Kita or above.
I can only relay second-hand information, but it has been quite consistent and there is a high correlation between the comments from all I’ve asked.
- The Kita, mostly Montessori, is a good perk. Generally they are happy with how the kid develops and integrates, and especially becoming more autonomous.
- From primary and above the feedback differs by school/region but mostly meh. In general the cost of education, even smaller as it is, does not translate into quality of education. The main advantage is portability of education in an international setting - when parents may need to relocate any time to a different continent, even within a school year, school networks and standardized learning ensures that it happens with minimal disruption.
Otherwise with few exceptions they would all choose public schools, to foster better integration and because there is better education (could also be the grass is greener effect), also better exposure across social classes - you may not want your kid to be exposed only to the 1% and the extra curricular activities start to become very very expensive (hello skiing camp on the Swiss mountains), and you can’t deny them their only social circle.
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Thanks all.
Upon reflection and all the people feedbacks I may consider:
- sending kids to public given schools nearby are very good (silver coast Zürich) from what I heard
- schools are nearby making our parent and kids’ life easier
- consider completing kids education with private tuition for German (both of us don’t speak it), math and anything else needed
- save the money and send the kids to international camps when older to learn another language or just get better at theirs
- save to pay for UK or US education should they want to pursue that path
One the reason made think about this is the exposure to different cultures and background (being book and street smart) and the fact that if you look at top roles in MNC or government background is mixed, which means if you are willing to put the efforts you can get anywhere. Plus that a famous school does not translate into success.
One thing I still need to figure out is the hassle to deal with public Swiss system in which kids finish schools during the day and we need to find afternoon solutions and or bringing them to whatever activity / place they need to be (agree here with @Giff that sometime private schools just make it easier)
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Public primary school is working well for us and currently I am happy with the choice we made for the reasons you outline. We also live in an area with good schools.
This article might be interesting for you:
“…while private school students may be outperforming public school students, the difference is eliminated completely when you control for family income and parents’ level of educational achievement.”
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Now I read it. But it is true, the prices for “Hort” normally almost are there. The main difference is that the Hort is getting smaller over the years and the private school cost increase it. Unless you do not live in a city that subside it like Zug.
Besides the methodology for learning, there are other aspects to consider size of the school, number of pupils at each class…
Hello there did u manage to find out if it’s still tax deductible after kindergarten?
AFAIU, school fees are not, but child care (so anything outside the compulsory hours, like hort) is.
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Got an email this morning from the holiday camp for Easter vacations that says that the registration fee is tax deductible. Can anyone confirm it? Thanks
I believe it is. 20 chars
Damn could have done that in the previous years 
In general, cost of child care that is needed because parents are working is tax deductible. This also applies to vacation camps etc.
But not to costs of babysitting on Saturday night due to parents wanting to have an evening for themselves.
ZH for example also excludes Spiel- and Krabbelgruppen. And it’s capped at 10k per child.
Hort can be deducted. I have no experience on holiday camps.
Might be worth confirming or just do it if they go there anyway.
I’ve read that the cap has been raised to 25k for federal tax this year. But haven’t started my 2023 tax report yet to confirm.