Hire a Housekeeper
in Dubai
Hire Professional Housekeepers & Maids,
Vetted for Family Homes Across Dubai
Last updated:
Morgan & Mallet, a luxury household staffing agency, recruits full-time private housekeepers for high-net-worth households across Dubai.
We place live-in and live-out professionals who work with one household on a long-term basis and become familiar with the way that home is run.
Roughly one in five of the search assignments that we take from UAE households is for a housekeeper, a cook-housekeeper, a nanny-housekeeper, or a head housekeeper. And nearly nine in ten of those households are in Dubai (Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026).
Our Dubai team works with households in areas including Emirates Hills, Palm Jumeirah, Jumeirah Golf Estates, Al Barari, Dubai Hills, and District One.
We start by understanding the property, your daily routine, the other staff already in place and how independently you expect your housekeeper to work. Morgan & Mallet has a 96% placement success rate.
Housekeeper searches for UAE households
Applications reviewed for those roles
Applications per Dubai housekeeper search
Dubai housekeeper roles are live-in
Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026. Figures updated June 2026.
Does Your Household Need a Maid or a Housekeeper?
In Dubai, the words maid, housemaid, and housekeeper are sometimes used for similar domestic roles, so the title alone doesn’t always tell you what someone will actually be responsible for.
The more useful distinction is the level of responsibility you want them to take within your home.
Domestic help
A housemaid
Will generally provide domestic help such as cleaning, laundry, and everyday organization. This is also the term commonly used by companies supplying staff through hourly or monthly packages.
What we recruit
A professional private housekeeper
Usually takes full responsibility for the condition and presentation of one household on their own.
Alongside cleaning and laundry, that could include wardrobe care, preparing bedrooms and guest areas, looking after delicate fabrics and surfaces, and organizing their own workload so that you don’t need to direct each task throughout the day.
Most housekeeping briefs that we take in Dubai need more than just cleaning. Four in ten of the housekeeper roles we have recruited for in the UAE were combined roles, like a cook-housekeeper or a nanny-housekeeper.
Cooking is in more than half of all our Dubai housekeeper briefs, and childcare in just over four in ten. Tell us exactly the combination you need in the first conversation we have together (Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026).
If you mainly need occasional cleaning, a cleaning or monthly maid service might suit you better.
If you want someone who becomes part of your permanent household team and learns how you like the home maintained, that’s the type of housekeeper Morgan & Mallet recruits.
What to Expect When Hiring a Housekeeper with Morgan & Mallet
You might already know exactly what you need from your housekeeper, or you may want help shaping the role. Our team will guide you through the process from the first conversation through to placement.
Here’s what to expect when you contact our Dubai team for help placing a housekeeper.
Your Initial Consultation
We talk through your home, day-to-day routine, preferred working pattern, whether you have a live-in or live-out preference, housekeeping standards, and any cooking or pet care needs.
At this point, we can also help you figure out if a housekeeper is the right fit for your staffing needs, or if a combination of roles might be better.
Finding and Shortlisting Candidates
Our network has more than 3,300 housekeepers and head housekeepers, made up of 45 nationalities.
English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tagalog are the most common languages of the housekeepers in our network, with Arabic closely following (Morgan & Mallet candidate database, June 2026).
Once the brief is clear, we search in the UAE and internationally for housekeepers whose experience matches it.
That can include candidates already working in Dubai as well as experienced private household staff who are happy to relocate.
Instead of sending a large group of loosely relevant CVs, we concentrate on candidates whose previous responsibilities, working style, and availability make sense for your home.
Interviews and Trials
We arrange interviews so you can get to know each candidate properly, understand how they work, and get a sense of whether they’re the right person for you.
Personality is really important as well. Private household staff work around a family every day, so communication style, discretion, and the ability to judge when to step forward or give the household space can matter as much as prior housekeeping experience.
Where appropriate, a trial can be arranged in your home before you make a final decision.
Offers, Contracts and Visa Steps
“Most of our clients here are expats. They don’t know the rules in Dubai. They usually ask me about employment contracts, what benefits to provide, and about holidays. I explain the general overview: flight tickets, whether it’s yearly or every two years, and the rights of the candidates.” Morgan Richez, Co-Founder.
Once you’ve chosen a candidate, we help you put together the offer and clearly agree on the practical details. That includes salary, working hours, days off, accommodation where relevant, duties, travel expectations, and the terms of the position.
For a Dubai placement, we will also establish the candidate’s current visa and work status and explain what needs to be arranged before they start.
Post-Placement Support
Our support continues during onboarding and after your new housekeeper starts, helping both sides settle into the arrangement.
All permanent placements come with a 90-day replacement guarantee.
How We Recruit and Vet
World-Class Housekeepers
Across Dubai
A great private housekeeper is much more than someone with hotel housekeeping experience. They understand how to keep an entire home running to the standard you expect while working comfortably around your family, guests, and other household staff.
Our UAE recruiters search our international network of more than 50,300 vetted household professionals for candidates with the right private household experience and the confidence to manage their workload without constant direction.
One of our searches for a Dubai housekeeper on average has around 45 applications. This compares to about 30 for the same search in France and 26 in the US. There is no problem with the amount of candidates, but it’s more difficult finding the most suitable candidate (Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, 2022 to 2026).
Our Housekeeper Vetting Process Explained
Every shortlisted housekeeper completes a structured 90-minute interview with one of our recruiters. We explore their employment history, the homes they’ve worked in, what they were personally responsible for, and why they left previous roles.
We also ask detailed questions about how they would approach situations they might find in your home, based on the brief you provided, particularly where the role involves working alongside other staff or managing their day without close supervision.
Our recruiters also look beyond what’s written on a CV. We want to understand how a candidate works in practice, how they keep on top of what needs doing and how capable they are of working discreetly around a family’s daily life.
Previous hotel experience can be very useful, but running housekeeping in a private villa in Dubai needs a different way of doing things.
Morgan Richez, the agency’s Co-Founder, talks about this clearly when discussing experienced housekeepers: “It’s all about precision and eyes for detail.” He describes a strong housekeeper as someone who looks beyond the obvious elements of a task and understands that different households have their own specific ways of doing things.
At Morgan & Mallet, only around one in five applicants is accepted into our candidate network. By the time we introduce someone to your household, they’ve already been interviewed in depth and considered carefully against the requirements of your role.
Structured
interview
Applicants
accepted
Replacement
guarantee
Morgan Richez, Co-Founder
What Does a
Private Housekeeper
Do in Dubai?
A private housekeeper looks after the day-to-day running and presentation of your home, keeping things looking and feeling exactly the way you want them to.
The role might include laundry and ironing, wardrobe organization, care of fine fabrics and household linens, preparing bedrooms and guest areas, keeping kitchens in order, and making sure the home’s interior and exterior living spaces are presentable before visitors arrive.
If you live in a larger villa or have specific family needs, your housekeeper may work alongside a chef, driver, or house manager, so being able to coordinate with other staff is important.
For very large homes, a senior or executive housekeeper may oversee a wider housekeeping team. In these cases, we make sure any shortlisted candidates have relevant team management experience.
If you need someone to take regular care of your children, too, our team can also help you decide whether a nanny in Dubai or a combined role would be better for you.
What Dubai families put in the housekeeper brief
| Duty or requirement | Share of Dubai housekeeper briefs |
|---|---|
| Laundry and ironing | 78% |
| Discretion or confidentiality | 64% |
| English | 60% |
| Cooking | 57% |
| Childcare | 43% |
| Working alongside other staff | 38% |
| Pet care | 35% |
| Travel with the family | 31% |
| Wardrobe and fine fabric care | 30% |
| Arabic | 18% |
Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026. Based on 110 housekeeper, cook-housekeeper, nanny-housekeeper and head housekeeper briefs.
What Type of Housekeeper
Does Your Home Need?
When you’re looking to employ a housekeeper, there are different professionals with different remits available, from single live-in housekeepers to entire housekeeping teams.
The right setup depends on your home and how much support you need each day, and our recruitment team will help you figure out exactly what you need.
Live-In Housekeepers
A live-in housekeeper lives at your property and usually works full-time, with accommodation provided as part of the role.
Seven in ten of the Dubai housekeeper roles we recruit for are live-in (Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026).
This arrangement is common in larger villas with the space to comfortably house staff and works well for families who want consistent support throughout the week.
We’ll make sure the working hours, duties, accommodation, and time off are agreed clearly from the beginning.
Live-Out Housekeepers
A live-out housekeeper travels to your home for their agreed working hours but stays in their own accommodation elsewhere in Dubai.
Around two in ten of our Dubai briefs are live-out.
This can work quite well for homes without dedicated staff quarters and families who simply prefer the additional privacy that comes with a live-out arrangement.
Even if they don’t live in your home, Morgan & Mallet recruits for full-time household positions rather than hourly or occasional cleaning services.
Executive Housekeepers
An executive housekeeper takes on a more senior role and is usually responsible for overseeing housekeeping standards across a large residence.
A head housekeeper search in the UAE at Morgan & Mallet has around 29 applications, compared with 45 for a housekeeper role. Allow extra time for this search.
Executive or head housekeepers manage other housekeepers, organize rotas, oversee laundry and wardrobe care, and coordinate with the house manager or other senior household staff.
For these roles, we look specifically for candidates with previous management experience in private homes.
Housekeeping Teams
For very large villas or families with several residences across Dubai, one housekeeper may not be enough to cover everything to the standard you expect.
When we speak with you during your initial consultation, if we feel there’s a need to recruit a wider housekeeping team, we help define role responsibilities at the outset, make sure duties are divided clearly so the team works well together without gaps or unnecessary overlaps.
How Much Does a
Housekeeper Cost in Dubai?
Typical salary · per month
Morgan & Mallet recruitment data and 2025/26 Household Staff Salaries Annual Report
Based on Morgan & Mallet recruitment data and our 2025/26 Household Staff Salaries Annual Report, the typical salary for a professional housekeeper in the UAE is between AED 54,000 and AED 300,000 per year, equivalent to approximately AED 4,500 to AED 25,000 per month.
The appropriate salary for your housekeeper will depend on the position’s responsibilities. A senior housekeeper managing other staff will usually be a different proposition from an individual housekeeping role, as will a position requiring extensive wardrobe care, regular travel, or additional cooking responsibilities.
Previous private-household experience can also affect expectations. Morgan Richez has spoken about the value of housekeepers trained in five-star hospitality, particularly when a home contains expensive or delicate furnishings that require proper care rather than simply cleaning.
For a live-in housekeeper, you’ll normally provide suitable private accommodation as part of the package. There are other employment costs you’ll need to plan for, too, including visa sponsorship, medical insurance, and any flights or travel expenses agreed as part of the role.
When we take your brief, our Dubai team can talk you through what experienced candidates are likely to expect and help you set a salary that feels right for the position.
| Role | Monthly salary (AED) | Annual (AED) |
|---|---|---|
| Housekeeper, UAE-based, usually live-in | 4,500 – 7,500 | 54,000 – 90,000 |
| Senior or head housekeeper | 8,000 – 15,000 | 96,000 – 180,000 |
| European-trained head housekeeper, relocating to Dubai | 15,000 – 25,000 | 180,000 – 300,000 |
Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026, and the 2025/26 Household Staff Salaries Annual Report. Accommodation, visa, medical insurance and flights are paid on top.
How Does Sponsorship Work for Maid Visas in Dubai?
If you employ a housekeeper in Dubai, the visa arrangements will depend on how they’re employed, whether they’re live-in or live-out, and their current status in the UAE.
For a live-in housekeeper employed directly by your family, this will usually mean sponsoring them as a domestic worker.
The process includes the relevant work permit and employment contract, medical checks, medical insurance, Emirates ID, and residence paperwork.
Live-out arrangements can work differently, particularly where the housekeeper already has an existing visa or employment setup.
If you’d rather not handle that process yourself, Morgan & Mallet can manage it for you through our licensed third-party partners. We coordinate the paperwork, appointments, medical checks, Emirates ID, salary setup, and end-of-service gratuity, so you have one point of contact throughout.
For domestic staff such as housekeepers, the process usually takes around 7-10 working days, depending on the individual case.
The cost will depend on the visa route and employment setup, but our Dubai team can confirm the relevant fees once we understand your situation in full.
7–10 days
Usual processing time for domestic staff, depending on the individual case
- Work permit and employment contract
- Medical checks and medical insurance
- Emirates ID and residence paperwork
- Salary setup and payroll
- End-of-service gratuity
Managed through our licensed third-party partners.
Why Choose Morgan & Mallet to Find Your Dubai Housekeeper?
Morgan & Mallet has been recruiting private household staff since 2015. Our dedicated Dubai team works with families across the UAE and the wider Gulf, having built more than a decade of understanding of how differently private homes can operate.
Eighty-eight percent of the UAE housekeeper searches we have done in the past were for Dubai households, so the recruiters you speak to know the villas in Emirates Hills and the apartments in Downtown, along with how each area typically wants its staff to be set up (Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026).
Runette van Heerden, who worked in private service in Dubai before moving into recruitment, makes the point that experience on paper only tells us so much.
That is why our recruiters look at how candidates communicate, their level of flexibility, and how they have handled previous roles, then consider how that fits with the environment and expectations of your household.
That same attention is applied to how the position itself is set up. Clear duties and an understanding of what both the family and candidate expect give a placement a much stronger foundation.
Runette describes the employers she most enjoys working with as those who “tell you exactly what they want, what they don’t like in a very respectful way.”
Every search can include confidentiality or NDA requirements where needed, too, and our Dubai team remains involved from the very first conversation through to placement and beyond.
Of our UAE housekeeper searches are for Dubai homes
Housekeepers and head housekeepers in our network
Nationalities among them
Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, UAE, 2022 to 2026. Candidate database, June 2026.
“The perfect candidate on paper doesn’t always translate into the right fit in reality. Personality, communication style, and lifestyle alignment are just as important as experience.”
Runette van Heerden
Morgan & Mallet
Contact our Dubai office
Dubai – United Arab Emirates
48 Burj Gate, Dubai Mall Metro Station, Level 20 – Downtown Dubai
Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring a Housekeeper in Dubai
What Is The Difference Between A Maid And A Housekeeper?
In Dubai, the term maid or housemaid is often used to refer to someone who provides general domestic help, such as cleaning and everyday organization.
A private housekeeper will usually do all of these things, but will also take broader responsibility for how the home is maintained.
They’re also typically expected to work with a lot less day-to-day direction from you. If you aren’t sure which role you need, don’t worry. Our Dubai team can help you work it out before we start the search.
What Are My Responsibilities When Hiring A Housekeeper In Dubai?
If you employ a housekeeper as a domestic worker, you need to make sure the employment and visa arrangements comply with the UAE rules that apply to your particular setup. The employment contract should include the salary, duties, leave and rest periods, and employers have responsibilities around accommodation, meals and medical care or health insurance.
There’s no “one-size-fits-all” rule in terms of your obligations, as the exact arrangements can differ for live-out housekeepers depending on how they are employed and sponsored, but our Dubai team is on hand to help you understand what applies to your situation throughout the recruitment process.
How Much Does A Full-time Housekeeper Cost Per Month In Dubai?
Based on Morgan & Mallet recruitment data for the UAE, 2022 to 2026, professional full-time housekeepers in Dubai typically earn between AED 4,500 and AED 7,500 per month (AED 54,000-AED 90,000 per year).
The salary will reflect the specific role expectations, though. For example, someone managing other staff or bringing extensive private household experience will generally expect more.
Do I Need To Sponsor My Housekeeper's Visa, And How Much Does It Cost?
The correct visa arrangement depends on how your housekeeper will be employed and their current status in the UAE. If you are employing them directly as a domestic worker, the appropriate work-permit, residence and employment requirements need to be put in place.
Morgan & Mallet can coordinate visa and payroll administration through licensed third-party partners, if you’d rather not handle it yourself. The cost and timescale depend on the route being used, so our Dubai team will confirm these once we have checked the candidate’s situation rather than quoting one figure for every household.
Do You Place Housekeepers Of Different Nationalities In Dubai?
Yes. Morgan & Mallet recruits housekeepers from the UAE and overseas, so our candidate network includes people from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities.
This includes experienced professionals from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and India, but we can broaden our search based on your brief and language requirements.
How Quickly Can You Place A Housekeeper In Dubai?
It depends on the brief and who is available at the time. A search can move more quickly when the right candidates are already based in Dubai, while an international search will naturally involve additional relocation and visa arrangements.
Once we’ve had our initial consultation and understand the role, we’ll give you a realistic idea of the likely timescale and keep you updated as the search progresses.
What Personal Qualities Make A Housekeeper Suitable For A Private Household?
Attention to detail is important, but a good private housekeeper also needs judgment. They should be able to recognize what needs doing without waiting for instructions throughout the day, while also understanding the family’s routines and when privacy is needed.
Morgan Richez the Morgan & Mallet co-founder describes excellent housekeeping as being “all about precision and eyes for detail”. Our recruiters also look at the way candidates communicate, how independently they have worked before and how they interact with other household staff.
Can My Housekeeper Sign An NDA Or Confidentiality Agreement?
Yes. If confidentiality is important to your household, we can make that clear from the beginning of the search and prioritize candidates who are comfortable signing an NDA.
The agreement can cover the areas that matter to your family, including information about the household, your profession, guests, travel, or anything the housekeeper may see or hear while working in your home.
What Are A Housekeeper’s Working Hours And Days Off In Dubai?
The working schedule should be agreed upon clearly in the employment contract. Under UAE domestic worker rules, workers are entitled to at least 12 hours of rest each day, including eight consecutive hours, as well as a paid weekly rest day.
They are also entitled to at least 30 days of annual leave for each year of service. For live-in roles, being clear about working and rest periods from the start is important, as living in the family home should not leave any uncertainty about when the housekeeper is off duty.
Can You Place A Housekeeper Who Moves With Me Between Residences?
Yes. If you split your time between Dubai and elsewhere, we can look for housekeepers who are used to traveling with their employers and working across more than one family home.
Regular international travel may affect visa requirements and the employment package, so it helps to have those expectations clear from the beginning. Tell us where the role is likely to take them, and we can put a realistic brief together that attracts the right talent.