Lifestyle

How much you must pay your domestic worker in 2026

Staff Writer

 ·3 Feb 2026

The Department of Employment and Labour has published the latest adjustments to the National Minimum Wage, increasing the bare minimum that workers, including domestic workers, can be paid.

In line with recommendations from the National Minimum Wage Council at the end of 2025, the NMW has been increased by 5%, taking the rate from R28.79 to R30.23 for each ordinary hour worked.

The wage is for all applicable workers, including farm workers and domestic workers. However, workers employed on an expanded public works programme are entitled to a minimum wage of R16.62 per hour.

For most workers, the hourly rate translates to a weekly rate of R1,264.85 (based on a 45-hour working week) and a monthly rate of R5,894.40 (based on 4.3 weeks or 195 hours).

For a more typical work month of 160 hours, the minimum would be R4,834, up from R4,606 in 2025.

This means that South African households employing a domestic worker will have to adjust their budgets to accommodate the hikes and align their pay with the changes.

Notably, under South Africa’s NMW laws, employers are required to pay at least the minimum for four hours of work a day, regardless of how many hours they have worked.

So the true minimum wage will be around R121 per day, up from R115 in 2025.

Domestic workers have been covered by the full National Minimum Wage since 2022. However, pay data from various sources indicates that the reality on the ground has not quite matched up.

On the bottom end of the scale, Stats SA’s data on median salaries in South Africa recorded the mid-point of domestic worker salaries at R2,350 a month, or R14.69 in a typical 160-hour work month.

Stats SA data shows that many domestic workers earn less than half the national minimum wage.

One of the most comprehensive datasets available on domestic worker pay comes from SweepSouth.

The group’s 2025 domestic worker survey found that domestic workers in the country earn a median monthly wage of R3,932. This is lower than the minimum set in law.

Domestic workers on the Sweepsouth platform fare much better, earning a median salary of R5,545 per month, exceeding the minimum.

The picture shifts on a per-hour basis, given the often informal and “gig” nature of domestic work.

Here, Sweepsouth’s data showed that domestic workers are earning above this, with the average pay at about R33.71 per hour, but this was lower than the 2024 rate.

Domestic worker pay per hour

On a monthly basis, the data shows that wages fall short by some margin, meaning the NMW is not having the real-world impact that it aims for.

Domestic worker pay per month

The adjustments to the NMW can be read below: