Employing a Domestic Helper in Singapore: The Rules MOM Actually Prosecutes

By Johnathan Lee, Advocate and Solicitor (Singapore). Updated 19 September 2026.

In Singapore, a migrant domestic worker (MDW) may only perform domestic chores, for the employer named on her Work Permit, at the residential address declared to MOM. Sending her to clean your parents’ home or work at your business is illegal deployment, for which MOM states employers may face a financial penalty of up to $10,000 and may also be banned from employing helpers. In August 2025 a moonlighting helper was fined $13,000, and a householder who engaged her was fined $7,000. Salary is due no later than 7 days after the end of each salary period.

Can my helper legally work at my parents’ house?

As a starting point, no. Her Work Permit conditions confine her to domestic chores for your household at the address declared to MOM. Cleaning your parents’ flat on weekends, or doing anything at your business premises, is illegal deployment, even if she agrees and even if you pay her extra.

MOM’s published employment rules recognise a narrow exception. MOM’s employment rules for MDWs allow her to care for your child or your parent at a relative’s residence, but only if you notify MOM before the arrangement starts, have her written agreement, do not have her carry the full load of housework in both households and, for overnight stays, meet MOM’s accommodation requirements. The exception covers caregiving for your own child or parent, not a second household’s chores, friends, tenants or your company.

The penalties fall on you. MOM’s published position is that employers who illegally deploy a helper may face a financial penalty of up to $10,000, and errant employers may also be banned from employing helpers. Where the arrangement amounts to employing a helper with no valid Work Permit for that household, the exposure escalates under section 5(1) of the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act 1990 (EFMA): a fine of $5,000 to $30,000, up to 12 months’ imprisonment, or both. On a second or subsequent conviction, an individual faces a fine of $10,000 to $30,000 and imprisonment of between one and 12 months, so imprisonment becomes mandatory. I explain how these cases unfold on my employment law page.

What does the August 2025 case with the $13,000 fine actually show?

It shows MOM prosecutes both sides. On 25 August 2025, a 53-year-old helper was fined $13,000 on two EFMA charges for part-time cleaning for two other households, earning roughly $375 a month from one and about $450 a month from the other when work was available. The 64-year-old Singaporean who engaged her was fined $7,000 on one charge of employing a foreign worker without a valid work pass. The investigation began with a tip-off to MOM in December 2024.

Three lessons. First, the helper faces heavy exposure herself: a foreign employee who is in the employment of an employer without a valid work pass for that employment commits an offence under section 5(2) EFMA, punishable under section 5(7) with a fine of up to $20,000, up to 2 years’ imprisonment, or both. “She offered” protects no one. Second, the engaging household was an illegal employer under section 5(1) EFMA even though the work was part-time and done on the helper’s rest days. Third, this case began with a tip-off to MOM. Enforcement is steady rather than rare: MOM told Parliament that between 2020 and 2024, an average of 12 migrant domestic workers and 15 employers were fined each year for moonlighting related offences. Lending your helper out, or borrowing someone else’s, has drawn prosecution and substantial fines rather than warnings.

What is the lawful way to get part-time household help?

Use the Household Services Scheme. MOM allows approved companies to hire migrant workers to provide part-time domestic services, including home cleaning, grocery shopping, car-washing and pet-sitting, and basic elder-minding through selected providers. You buy the service from the company, and the company employs the worker. Basic child-minding was added to the scheme in March 2023, but MOM has withdrawn support for it from March 2026 because demand was low, so the scheme is no longer a route to part-time help with young children. Engaging a helper who already works for another household is not an alternative to this. It is the offence described above.

When must I pay my helper’s salary, and is late payment an offence?

You must pay her salary every month, no later than 7 days after the last day of the salary period, and the salary period cannot exceed one month. Those are MOM’s salary requirements, imposed as Work Permit conditions under the Employment of Foreign Manpower (Work Passes) Regulations; breaching them is a criminal matter under the EFMA, not a private dispute.

MOM prosecutes non-payment. In one published case from September 2017, an employer who failed to pay about $5,700 in salaries was fined $15,000, in default six weeks’ imprisonment, and barred by MOM from hiring any helper. Late or unpaid salary is also a classic trigger for forfeiture of your $5,000 security bond.

Protect yourself with records. Pay by bank transfer where possible (mandatory if she requests it); if you pay cash, keep a record signed by both of you. Since 1 January 2019 you must not keep her salary or any other money of hers, even at her request, nor hold her bank book or bank card. Do not keep her passport either. MOM’s position is that employers should not keep their workers’ passports and should not force them to hand them over; the passport belongs to the bearer and to the issuing authority of her home country. If you provide a locker or other safe storage, she must have unrestricted access to it.

What are the rest day and well-being rules MOM enforces?

Your helper is entitled to one rest day per week, on a mutually agreed day. She can agree to work on a rest day for at least one extra day’s salary, and a rest day can be deferred by up to one month. But MOM’s rest day rules require at least one rest day each month that cannot be compensated away. MOM announced that requirement on 7 October 2022 and it has applied to all new and existing MDWs from 1 January 2023. Buying out every rest day is a breach, whatever she signs.

Well-being conditions also apply: three meals a day, accommodation that meets MOM’s requirements on adequate space, ventilation, safety and protection of her modesty, and all medical costs, including hospitalisation, borne by you. You must send her for a medical examination every six months. Helpers aged 50 and above are exempt from the six-monthly examination and are examined on renewal of the Work Permit instead.

What must I pay: the security bond, insurance and the monthly levy?

Every non-Malaysian helper also requires a $5,000 security bond, usually bought as an insurer’s guarantee. MOM states the bond is at risk if you or your helper breach any Work Permit or security bond condition, including not paying her salary on time, failing to send her home when her Work Permit expires or is revoked or cancelled, or if she goes missing. MOM states you will not be liable for her own violations if you can prove you informed her of the Work Permit conditions she must comply with and reported the violation when you first became aware of it.

Two insurance policies are also compulsory, and you cannot pass their cost to her. Her medical insurance must have an annual claim limit of at least $60,000. Her personal accident insurance must have a sum assured of at least $60,000 a year. Since 1 July 2023, insurers bear 75% and employers 25% of claim amounts above $15,000, so a large hospital bill is not wholly covered.

You must also pay a monthly levy: $300 for your first helper and $450 for each subsequent helper, due by the 17th of the following month. If your household includes a Singapore citizen child under 16, a person aged 67 or above who is a Singapore citizen (or a permanent resident, where you or your spouse is a Singapore citizen), or a person with disabilities certified by a Singapore-registered doctor as needing help with at least one activity of daily living, you may qualify for the concessionary rate of $60 a month. That person with disabilities must also be a Singapore citizen, or a permanent resident who has a parent, spouse or child who is a Singapore citizen. The concession is granted for one helper per eligible person and is capped at two helpers per household. It is not automatic, and households that qualify but never apply overpay for years.

What happens if MOM interviews me as an employer?

Treat it seriously from the first call. In my experience, MOM officers usually speak to the helper first, at length, before the employer hears anything, so by the time you are asked to attend, the investigator may already have her statement, phone messages and salary records. Your statement is recorded under the EFMA’s investigation powers, which allow an employment inspector to examine you orally about facts relevant to the Act and to reduce your answers into writing. You are bound to state the facts truly, and the statement may in practice be tendered against you in a prosecution.

I used to prosecute employers at MOM, and the pattern is consistent. Employers get into trouble by guessing at dates, minimising arrangements they think are harmless (“she only helps my mother a little”), or signing statements they have not read carefully. The Act requires your statement to be read over to you and signed only after correction, so take your time, insist on corrections, and take legal advice. See my guide on what to expect in an MOM investigation; the mechanics for household employers are broadly similar.

Prevention is cheaper: first-time employers must complete MOM’s Employers’ Orientation Programme at least 2 working days before the Work Permit application. It covers most of the rules on this page; ignorance of them is no defence. If you cannot attend yourself, because you have a chronic medical condition or a physical disability, because you are 60 or above and would suffer physical discomfort attending, or because you are a new or expectant mother, you may apply online to appoint a representative or sponsor aged over 21 to attend in your place.

A first-time helper has a programme of her own. She must attend MOM’s Settling-in Programme within 7 days of arriving in Singapore, excluding Sundays and public holidays, and she may not attend on the day she arrives. You pay the fee, currently between about $76 and $93 depending on the provider. She must not start work until she has attended.

How are ill-treatment cases against employers prosecuted?

Severely, and usually by the police rather than MOM alone. Physical or sexual abuse complaints are investigated by the police and charged under the Penal Code. Under section 73 of the Penal Code 1871, where an offence is committed against a domestic worker by her employer, a member of the employer’s household, or her employment agent, the court may sentence the offender to twice the maximum punishment it could otherwise impose. That enhancement does not apply to offences punishable with death or imprisonment for life, or to certain offences expressly excluded by the section. The onus is on the offender to prove that the relationship did not adversely affect her ability to protect herself.

On top of the criminal sentence, MOM states that employers convicted of abusing a helper, and their spouses, are permanently banned from employing another helper. If you are accused, do not contact the helper to negotiate a withdrawal: a complainant cannot simply call off a criminal investigation, whether a charge proceeds is a matter for the Public Prosecutor, and approaches to a complainant can be read as interference. Get advice early. My guide on what to do if you are under police investigation sets out the first steps.

How do I end my helper’s employment without losing the bond?

Start with the contract. Migrant domestic workers are not covered by the Employment Act, so notice is a matter of what you agreed: MOM encourages employers to sign an employment contract and to set out in it the notice period and the salary payable in lieu of notice. Either side may end the contract early, and MOM’s guidance is that the party ending it serves the notice stated in the contract or pays salary in lieu, unless you both agree to waive it. Settle her last day of work before you turn to the permit.

Cancel the Work Permit within 1 week after her last day of work, or within 1 week of her departure date if she has already left Singapore. Settle every outstanding employment issue before you cancel, including her salary. This is the duty behind the bond condition above: the security bond is at risk if you fail to send her home once the Work Permit is expired, revoked or cancelled.

You must buy her an air ticket with check-in luggage, and pay the connecting transport costs to the international port of entry in her home country. She must leave Singapore within 2 weeks of cancellation. She cannot work once the Work Permit is cancelled, even while she is waiting to fly, so do not ask her to stay on for a few more days of chores. If she is moving to another household rather than going home, you can transfer her directly to the new employer or through an employment agency instead of repatriating her.

What should employers do, and never do?

Do	Do not
Pay salary within 7 days of each salary period, ideally by bank transfer.	Deploy her to another address or a business, even with her consent.
Notify MOM first if she will care for your child or parent at a relative’s home.	Let her take part-time jobs, or “borrow” someone else’s helper.
Give a weekly rest day, and one uncompensated rest day a month.	Hold her salary, savings, bank book, bank card or passport, even at her request.
Pay the levy by the 17th of the following month, and claim the concession if you qualify.	Let her keep working after the Work Permit is cancelled.
Keep signed salary records and your safety agreement.	Contact her to “settle” a complaint once MOM or the police are involved.
Get legal advice before an MOM interview.	Guess at dates or sign a statement you have not read and corrected.

---

Frequently asked questions

Can my helper work at my parents’ house legally?

Generally no. She may only work at the residential address declared to MOM. The narrow exception is caring for your child or parent at a relative’s residence, after notifying MOM first and with her written agreement. General housework at your parents’ home remains illegal deployment.

What is the penalty for illegal deployment of a maid in Singapore?

MOM states that employers who illegally deploy a helper may face a financial penalty of up to $10,000 and may also be banned from employing helpers. If the arrangement amounts to employing a helper without a valid Work Permit, section 5(1) of the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act applies: a $5,000 to $30,000 fine, up to 12 months’ imprisonment, or both.

Is paying my helper’s salary late an offence?

Yes. Salary must be paid no later than 7 days after the last day of each salary period. That is a Work Permit condition under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, so breaching it is a criminal matter. One employer who failed to pay about $5,700 in salaries was fined $15,000 and barred by MOM from hiring any helper.

Can my helper do part-time cleaning for other families on her rest day?

No. She can only work for her named employer, and rest days do not change that. In August 2025 a helper who cleaned part-time for two other households was fined $13,000, and a householder who engaged her was fined $7,000. The engaging household commits an illegal employment offence.

Will MOM interview me if my helper complains?

Very likely. MOM officers usually interview the helper first and gather salary records and messages before contacting the employer. You may then be required to attend and give a recorded statement, which can be used in a prosecution. You are entitled to read and correct your statement, and to take legal advice.

This article is general information, not legal advice. It states Singapore law as at September 2026. Speak to a lawyer about your specific situation.