How Much Does a Maid Cost in Dubai? 2026 Price Guide

UAE Hiring Guide

Last updated: July 2026

Most people asking this question aren't budgeting for a salary. They're budgeting for a salary, a visa, insurance, a flight home, and a deposit — and nobody told them that going in. That's the gap this guide fills.

Maid Cost in the UAE at a Glance

Monthly Salary by Nationality

Nationality is the single biggest driver of the base salary figure, more than city or job title. Families sponsoring directly should expect roughly this spread:

These are direct-employer salary figures — they sit on top of the visa, insurance and flight costs below, not instead of them. Agencies typically price nationality into a flat monthly package rather than breaking it out, so if you're comparing an agency quote to this table, ask what's bundled in.

Part-Time vs Full-Time: Which Costs Less?

Part-time is cheaper on paper, but the comparison only holds if your actual need is occasional.

• Part-time maid: AED 30–50/hour through a licensed cleaning company. Two 3-hour visits a week runs roughly AED 9,300–15,600 a year — no visa, no MOHRE registration, no employer obligations. It cannot provide daily childcare, live-in availability, or consistency of the same person every visit unless you book with the same provider repeatedly.
• Full-time maid: AED 55,000–85,000 a year once visa, insurance and flights are added. It can provide daily cooking, cleaning, childcare and live-in availability, but it cannot be cancelled without the notice and process the law requires — you're an employer, not a customer, the moment you sponsor a visa.

The One-Time and Annual Costs Nobody Mentions

This is where most cost estimates online fall apart — they quote salary and stop. If you're sponsoring a live-in maid's visa yourself, here's the full stack:

Add it up and a live-in maid you sponsor yourself lands around AED 35,000–65,000 in year one. From year two, the visa cost drops off (it's a two-year visa), so ongoing annual cost is closer to salary + insurance + flight.

Direct Hire vs Agency vs Online Platform

Three ways to hire, and each trades cost for effort differently.

None of these three is "cheapest" in absolute terms — they're cheapest for different problems (visa admin, legal risk, or search time). Choose based on which one you're actually trying to avoid.

The Legal Minimums You Can't Negotiate Around

Domestic worker employment in the UAE is regulated under Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2022, enforced by MOHRE (Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation) and processed through Tadbeer centres. This law sets a floor under every quote above:

• Minimum sponsor income: you generally need to show AED 25,000/month in earnings to sponsor a domestic worker visa as an expat.
• Salary payment: must go through the Wage Protection System (WPS) via bank transfer, by the 2nd of the month. Paying cash is a MOHRE violation, regardless of what a private arrangement says.
• Working hours and rest: entitled to at least 12 hours of rest in each 24-hour period (including 8 consecutive hours), one paid rest day per week, and 30 days of paid annual leave.
• Health insurance: mandatory, employer-paid, for the full duration of employment.
• Annual flight home: one return ticket per year is a legal entitlement, not a courtesy.
• End-of-service gratuity: customarily calculated at 14 days' basic pay per completed year of service, carried over from the earlier domestic-worker law. The 2022 law does not fix a formula, so confirm the exact figure in the MOHRE/Tadbeer contract before signing.

What Actually Changes the Price

• Nationality — the largest single swing factor, as shown above.
• Live-in vs live-out — live-in adds food and housing but removes the security-deposit variance some embassies apply to live-out placements.
• Experience and skill set — cooking, driving, elderly care and infant care each command a premium over general cleaning.
• Sponsorship route — direct-hire vs agency-sponsored is a bigger cost lever than city.
• City — a real but secondary factor; Dubai and Abu Dhabi agency rates run slightly above Sharjah and Ajman, mostly reflecting agency overhead rather than the worker's own salary.

Where This Gets Complicated

Two things this guide can't fully solve for. First, embassy-specific minimum wage floors and deposit requirements change by nationality and occasionally by home-country policy — the Philippines, for instance, has had periods of enforcing its own minimum salary requirement for OFWs independent of UAE agency pricing. Second, "market rate" quotes swing a lot between agencies for reasons that have nothing to do with the worker — some agencies price in a much higher margin, and the only way to catch that is to ask for the salary, visa cost, and insurance as separate line items rather than accepting one bundled number.

If a quote won't break down into the line items in the tables above, that opacity is itself a warning sign, not a detail to skip past.

---

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Reading

Disclaimer: Costs and regulations here reflect typical market rates and UAE federal law as of mid-2026. Fees, minimum income thresholds, and embassy-specific requirements change; confirm current requirements with MOHRE or your Tadbeer centre before signing a contract.