Process and costs of hiring a full-time maid in Dubai
Finding the right maid in Dubai can be confusing and time consuming. However many people hire part-time or full-time help to clean the house, look after the kids or take care of the never-ending chores that seem to crop up around the house. Hiring a full-time maid means that you will have someone around the clock to help you with various housekeeping tasks. Depending on the agreement signed with the maid, she may also offer cooking and babysitting services.
If you have a basic salary of +AED 6000/month, you are allowed to sponsor a full time maid or nanny. Be aware though that in the first year, the total cost of your Dubai Nanny or Maid will roughly add up to AED 50,000.
Hiring a Dubai Maid through an Agency – Recruitment fee of AED 15,000-18,000
A lot of people will opt for hiring a full-time, live in maid or nanny. With most expats not having direct family to help manage the household, full time help for your Dubai household may ease the pain a bit of not having family support around. There is usually an initial one-off recruitment cost as well as a monthly salary.
The easiest way of hiring a full-time maid in Dubai is through reputable agencies operating in the region. You can find out more about the different agencies by word of mouth and in the classified sections of newspapers, or contact ServiceMarket to obtain quotes from multiple maid agencies in Dubai. Full time maid agencies come and go but some of the better known ones are Maidsontime, Maidcv and Nanniesdubai. You will typically pay the agency an initial recruitment cost of AED 15,000-18,000. This is a one-off finder’s fee charged by the agency – it includes the cost of finding the right person for you based on your requirements and flying them and all the initial paper work / residency costs.
Salary Cost: AED 2000-4000 / month
The salary is usually decided between the maid and the employer during the interview stage. The amount can vary depending on this agreement and additional benefits are usually offered (such as health insurance, once a year air-ticket, etc.). For domestic help that has been recruited by the agency outside of the country, salaries are typically on the lower end of the spectrum. However, nannies with local experience and good references are highly sought after and can easily ask for salaries that are double of their less experienced counterparts.
Additional costs to consider: + AED 1000/month
Once your nanny/maid has been identified and recruitment costs have been paid, you are not done yet. Assuming that the agency has taken care of all initial costs, you will still need to consider the following costs
- Housing: Since you have rented a home for yourself and are housing your live-in full-time maid there, assume that a portion of the rent cost also goes toward providing lodging to the maid.
- Sponsorship: Sponsorship/visa renewal and any other associated costs for documentation come out to be approximately AED 5,500 This means that this contributes roughly AED 460 additionally to the monthly cost of hiring a full-time maid.
- Food, furniture, phone and more: Providing additional services/benefits to your full-time made is likely to add a few hundreds of dirhams per month to the overall cost.
- Medical insurance: Medical insurance has become mandatory for all domestic help and will roughly cost AED 700-800 / year. Moreover, you may be responsible for additional medical expenses that are not covered by the basic insurance.
- Annual flights: As part of your contract, you will have to provide an annual air ticket for your nanny/maid. This would typically cost anywhere between AED 2000-3000.
Want to deal with the process yourself – here’s how to get started!
In case you don’t want to hire an agency and you have found the perfect helper, you can take care of the paperwork yourself. The process to get a domestic helper can vary from time to time and it is advised to check out drdn.ae for the latest rules, but of the time of writing (August 2016) the following rules and processes apply:
- You need to have a minimum monthly salary of AED 6000 (AED 5000 if you have company accommodation) to be able to sponsor domestic help.
- Your application can be done in any typing center (hundreds are spread out all over Dubai) and you will only need to visit the immigration department once your application has been approved.
- At the same typing center, you will have to pay a fee (AED 310) for opening the file.
- A deposit of AED 2000 needs to be deposited with the immigration department. This can be done in the same typing center (where you can also do all the other necessary paperwork).
- Your nanny will have to do a medical examination which will cost around AED 450.
- For a first time residency, you will need to pay roughly AED 10,000 in fees (residency fees, federal fees and several admin fees), each year you will have to renew the residency which will cost roughly AED 5,600 including national ID card.
- Be aware that you need a lot of paperwork (passport copies, tenancy contract, Emirates ID copies, Labour contract, Marriage certificate in some cases, etc…). Please also make sure to inform upfront at the typing center which papers you need exactly.
Good luck with finding your nanny or maid and remember that ServiceMarket can assist you in finding the right Dubai based maid agency to help you get started.
