Your domestic worker's first week: the onboarding checklist

Most of the legal duties you have as a domestic employer start on day one, not after a trial period and not when the first month is over. The good news is that almost all of it is a one-off job. Do it in the first week and the rest of the year is a monthly payslip and a UIF declaration.

Before day one: agree the job

• Days and hours. Which days, what time to start and finish, and the lunch break. The ordinary-hours limit for a domestic worker is 45 hours a week; anything more is overtime at one and a half times the normal rate.
• The work. Cleaning, laundry, cooking, childcare, garden - write the main duties down. It prevents most disagreements later.
• Pay. An hourly, weekly or monthly rate, and the pay day. It cannot be below the national minimum wage of R30.23 an hour from 1 March 2026.
• Live-in or live-out. If your employee will live on the property, agree the room and any deduction for it in writing first - see accommodation and food deductions.
• Probation, if you want one. Agree it in advance and keep it short - see what probation can and cannot do.

Day one: three documents

1. A copy of your employee's ID

• A South African ID or passport copy is needed for the contract, the payslip and the UIF registration.
• If your employee is not a South African citizen or permanent resident, check the passport and a permit or visa that allows work. The Immigration Act prohibits employing a foreign national who is not authorised to work in South Africa, and the employer carries the risk.
• Write down your employee's address, cellphone number and an emergency contact.

2. The written contract

• The law requires written particulars of employment when your employee starts (section 29 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and Sectoral Determination 7 for domestic workers).
• They must cover the start date, the place of work, a description of the job, ordinary hours and days, the wage and how it is calculated, overtime, deductions, leave and the notice period. The full list is in hours, leave and the contract.
• Both of you sign, and each keeps a copy. If your employee cannot read the language it is written in, explain it in a language your employee understands - the law requires that too.

3. A records file

• One folder, paper or digital, with the ID copy, the signed contract, every payslip and a leave record.
• Keep records for three years after the date they relate to (section 31 of the BCEA). If there is ever a dispute at the CCMA or a UIF claim, this folder is your evidence.

This week: register for UIF

• Who: every employee who works for you 24 hours or more a month - roughly one full day a week. Below that, UIF does not apply to you as the employer.
• How: register as a domestic employer on uFiling, the Department of Employment and Labour's online system, or at a labour centre. You get a UIF reference number.
• What it costs: 1% of your employee's gross pay deducted from the wage, plus 1% from you, declared and paid by the 7th of the following month.

The full walkthrough is in UIF for domestic workers, step by step.

This week: register with the Compensation Fund (COIDA)

• Domestic workers have been covered by COIDA since November 2020, when the Constitutional Court ruled in Mahlangu that excluding them was unconstitutional.
• Register your household as an employer with the Compensation Fund, online or at a labour centre. If your employee is hurt at work and you never registered, the Fund can recover the cost of the claim from you.
• Once a year you declare the wages paid and pay a small assessment - see COIDA for domestic employers.

What the first month will cost you

Worked example: full-time, at the minimum wage

• Hours: 9 a day, 5 days a week = 45 hours a week, at R30.23 an hour.
• Monthly wage: R30.23 x 45 x 52 / 12 = R5,894.85.
• UIF: R58.95 deducted from the wage, and R58.95 from you.
• Your monthly cost before COIDA: R5,894.85 + R58.95 = R5,953.80. Your employee takes home R5,835.90.

The calculator below is set to that example. Change the hours, days or rate to match the job you are offering:

Calculator by CalcSA - open the domestic worker cost calculator if it does not load.

The first pay day

• Pay on the agreed day, in cash or by transfer, during working hours.
• Give a payslip every time (section 33 of the BCEA): your name and address, your employee's name, the period, hours worked, the wage, every deduction and the net pay. See what must be on a domestic worker's payslip.
• Leave starts building from day one. In the first six months your employee earns one paid sick day for every 26 days worked; annual leave accrues alongside it.

The checklist

• Before day one: days, hours, duties, pay rate, pay day, live-in terms, probation length.
• Day one: ID copy (and work permit if needed), contact details, signed contract, records file.
• Week one: uFiling registration for UIF (24 hours a month or more), Compensation Fund registration.
• First pay day: correct wage, UIF deducted, payslip handed over, leave recorded.
• By the 7th of the next month: first UIF declaration and payment.

How HomeHR helps

• The HomeHR contract maker builds the written particulars of employment from your answers, ready to sign on day one.
• The payslip maker produces each month's payslip with the UIF deduction worked out.
• The UIF calculator and leave calculator keep the monthly figures and the leave balance straight from the start.

General information, not legal advice. Every figure we use is on the rates page with its source.