Housekeepers in the UAE

She looks after the home itself. MaidMatch describes the typical duties of a housekeeper as:

• Deep and routine cleaning, room by room, to a schedule you agree
• Wardrobe and linen management: laundry, ironing, folding and keeping cupboards in order
• Pantry and kitchen organisation, including keeping track of supplies
• Hygiene standards around the home, especially in the kitchen and bathrooms

A housekeeper concentrates on the home, while a maid's day usually mixes housework with basic cooking and help with the children. A housekeeper tends to suit a larger home, or one where the upkeep is most of the work.

If you also want meals cooked or help with the children, a live-in maid is usually the more flexible choice, or look at maids who can cook. Our guide to choosing between a maid, a nanny, a caregiver and a housekeeper compares all four roles.

Yes, if the home itself is the main job. That often means a villa or a larger apartment, a home with a lot of laundry and linen, or a household that wants a set cleaning routine kept every week. If your children need most of the attention, a nanny is the better fit, and if you need both, agree the mix with one helper before she starts.

Care and consistency. Choose on skills and experience, not nationality. MaidMatch suggests looking for:

• Attention to detail, in the corners and cupboards as well as the obvious surfaces.
• Organisation, so that linen, wardrobes and the pantry stay in order without you checking.
• Hygiene standards, especially around food and bathrooms.
• Experience with a home of a similar size, since a large villa is a different job from a two-bedroom flat.

Ask her to describe how she keeps a home, room by room and week by week:

• What size of home did she keep in her last job, and for how many people?
• How does she plan the week: which tasks daily, which weekly and which monthly?
• How does she care for delicate fabrics, wooden furniture or marble?
• Which cleaning products does she use, and which does she avoid?
• Has she managed a pantry or a shopping list before?
• Can her last family tell you how she kept their home?

Yes, if you agree it before she starts. Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2022, the UAE's law on domestic workers, says what her contract must cover, and MOHRE (the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation) sets the standard contract form. A domestic worker's contract must be on MOHRE's standard form and state, among other terms, the nature and place of the work and the worker's total pay and how it is paid. Write down the whole job, including any cooking or childcare, so that it is clear from the first day.

Changing her job later has a condition. An employer may not give a domestic worker a different kind of work from the contracted job unless the worker explicitly agrees and the new job is one of the listed domestic occupations. As of September 2026, MOHRE lists housekeepers, housemaids, nannies and cooks separately in its employer guide, in its rules on paying salaries through the Wage Protection System (WPS). Paying a domestic worker through the Wage Protection System is mandatory for private trainers, private tutors, personal healthcare providers, personal PROs and private agricultural engineers, and optional for housemaids, nannies, cooks, drivers, housekeepers, gardeners, security guards and similar roles.

We found no official page that says which occupation covers a helper whose job mixes housekeeping with cooking or childcare, so ask MOHRE on 600 590000 which one fits before you apply.

It depends on the helper and the size of the job. Each helper lists her own salary range on her profile. Unlike the other service pages, this one never shows a median salary: with no housekeeping filter, it would be the figure for every helper on MaidMatch, not for housekeepers. Compare what the helpers on your shortlist ask instead.

The International Labour Organization's May 2024 summary of UAE rules covers minimum pay. The UAE sets no statutory minimum wage for domestic workers: any salary floor comes from her home country and applies only to contracts verified through that country's system. The official fees for her work permit and residence come on top, and our guide to hiring a maid in the UAE sets them out.

In five steps:

1. Browse the helpers on this page, or open the helpers page and choose live-in or live-out.
2. Read her profile and watch her video CV for the homes she has kept.
3. Contact her directly. Families contact helpers directly on WhatsApp, through the Hire button on each profile.
4. Agree the job in writing: her duties, her working hours and her day off. The Decree-Law sets the minimum. A domestic worker is entitled to one paid day off a week.
5. Arrange her visa. Sponsorship is the employer's responsibility; families can manage the visa themselves or ask MaidMatch to connect them with its visa partners.