How to hire a domestic helper in Singapore, directly

This is the step that gets skipped and the step that costs the most. When we surveyed employers about the hardest part of hiring, sixteen of the twenty-seven who answered named managing their own expectations, ahead of reference checks and ahead of the agency.

Write the job description first. Hours, duties, rest day, who is in the household, what the first month looks like.

Mandatory if you are a first-time employer, and it must be completed at least two working days before you submit the work permit application. Three hours in a classroom or two hours online, from one of three approved providers. Fees including GST run roughly 35 to 76 dollars for the classroom version and 30 to 36 dollars online, depending on provider and language. (MOM, Employers' Orientation Programme, page last updated 1 July 2026.)

Do this early. It is the step most likely to delay everything behind it.

Direct hire usually means a personal referral, a transfer helper already in Singapore, or an online matching platform. Each has a different verification problem and none of them removes your obligation to check.

If you are taking over a transfer helper, the checks are different and there are questions the previous employer can and cannot answer. Transfer helper checklist

Twenty minutes, video, and it decides the next two years. Spend it on past situations rather than general capabilities.

If you are hiring from the Philippines, note that a video conference before contract signing is not optional. Under the Know Your Employer protocol she must understand the duties, working conditions, household composition, rest arrangements and accommodation before she agrees, and the Department of Migrant Workers and the Migrant Workers Office may monitor or review these calls. (Migrant Workers Office Singapore, based on DMW Advisory No. 25, Series of 2025, effective 22 August 2025, applicable to contracts from 21 October 2025.) It does not apply to renewals with the same employer.

Some conditions are set by her home country, not by Singapore, and where the two differ the stricter one applies.

For Philippine hires: minimum salary 650 Singapore dollars a month, minimum age 24, no placement fee charged to her by either agency, no salary deductions to recover recruitment, placement or training costs under any label including loan or advance, and no withholding of her passport. The contract must be verified by the Migrant Workers Office in Singapore under the DMW standard employment contract, and without verification there is no overseas employment certificate and she cannot leave. (Same source as above. Note that the Philippine Embassy site in Singapore still shows an older figure in an undated post, so confirm directly with the MWO before you rely on the number.)

For Indonesian and Myanmar hires, minimum salary and placement requirements circulate widely but we have not found a primary source for them. Ask the relevant representative office directly rather than trusting an agency blog, which is a commercially interested party.

Both must be in force before she arrives, and neither cost may be passed to her.

Medical insurance with an annual limit of at least 60,000 dollars covering inpatient care and day surgery. Personal accident insurance with a sum insured of at least 60,000 dollars a year. (MOM, insurance requirements for migrant domestic workers, page last updated 1 July 2025.)

A security bond of 5,000 dollars as a banker's or insurer's guarantee, waived for Malaysian helpers. If it is not in place before she lands, she will not be allowed to enter. (MOM, security bond requirements, page last updated 2 February 2026.)

One thing about that bond is worth understanding properly, because it is widely misread. MOM states that you are not liable for her breaches if you can show that you informed her of the work permit conditions and reported a breach once you knew of it. The rule asks you to inform and to report. It does not ask you to monitor. The common inference from the bond to a right to control her phone, her movements or her friendships is not supported by the regulation.

Submit after the EOP is done and with the insurance and bond arranged. She must be outside Singapore during the application and may only travel once the in-principle approval letter is issued and the bond is bought. Malaysian helpers are the exception.

If this is her first job in Singapore, she must attend the Settling-in Programme within seven days of arrival, not counting Sundays and public holidays, and not on the day she arrives. She cannot start work until it is done. You pay, and the cost including GST runs roughly 76 to 93 dollars depending on provider. It is delivered in her own language. (MOM, Settling-in Programme for first-time migrant domestic workers, page last updated 1 September 2025.)

She needs to bring the full in-principle approval letter set, her passport, a copy of her education certificate and a copy of the ICA digital arrival card.

The levy starts on the fifth day after arrival for a first-time helper, counting the arrival day, and the day after arrival otherwise. It is due by the 17th of the following month, and two consecutive missed payments revoke the work permit. (MOM, paying levy for a migrant domestic worker, page last updated 8 July 2026.)

Monthly rates: 300 dollars for a first helper at the normal rate, 450 for each additional one, and 60 at the concessionary rate, which applies to households with a young child, an elderly family member or a person with a disability.

At the normal rate that is 3,600 dollars a year on top of salary. It is not a small item and it is the one most often left out of the mental arithmetic.

The administrative part is now done and the part that determines whether this works has not started. What happens in the first fortnight sets the pattern for the next two years, and doing it by correction as you go is the most common way a good hire turns into a bad placement.