Oman has no statutory minimum wage for expatriate domestic workers, and that single fact explains almost everything about how housemaid pay works in the Sultanate. The government set a minimum wage of 325 Omani rials for Omani nationals in the private sector, but that rule does not extend to migrant domestic staff. What exists instead is a negotiated number written into a contract, and the range of that number is startlingly wide read more . Recruitment job orders filed with Sri Lanka’s Foreign Employment Bureau list a minimum salary of 110 OMR per month for inexperienced housemaids on two-year contracts. Industry guides for Muscat families put the practical range lower, at 60 to 100 OMR monthly for a housemaid. Meanwhile, some employer listings advertise 120 to 170 OMR for similar roles. The gap between 60 and 170 rials is not a rounding error; it is the difference between barely surviving and modest stability.
Nationality plays a quiet but persistent role in setting pay. Filipino workers command the highest rates, with new contracts reportedly starting at no less than 154 OMR monthly, reflecting stricter minimum salary requirements imposed by the Philippines’ Department of Migrant Workers. Indian and Sri Lankan housemaids typically fall in the 60 to 100 OMR band. Ethiopian workers occupy the lower end, at 55 to 85 OMR. Indonesian workers sit somewhat higher, at 70 to 110 OMR. These differences do not reflect skill or workload differences so much as nationality-based bargaining power, recruitment costs, and the policies of sending countries. A domestic worker’s passport can determine her starting salary before she has cooked a single meal.
The legal framework that governs everything else around that salary is Ministerial Decision 574/2025, which took effect on 13 October 2025. It does not set a wage floor, but it does regulate the mechanics of pay with unusual specificity. Wages must be paid in Omani rials within seven days of the due date stated in the contract. Deductions are limited to a closed list of cases and can never exceed one quarter of the monthly wage. Workers are entitled to at least one paid weekly rest day and no fewer than 21 days of paid annual leave. Working hours are capped at 12 per day with a continuous rest period of at least eight hours. These are meaningful protections. They mean that whatever number appears in the contract, the conditions around it are no longer purely a matter of employer discretion.
Yet the absence of a wage floor leaves a fundamental vulnerability intact. A worker earning 60 OMR per month in Muscat, where food and transport costs are real even when accommodation is provided, has little margin for emergencies. If an employer delays wages, the seven-day rule helps only if the worker knows it exists and has the means to invoke it. Many do not. The recruitment-fee ban under Article 8 of MD 574/2025, which places recruitment costs on employers rather than workers, is designed to prevent the debt trap that often accompanies low starting wages. Whether it is enforced in practice remains the open question.
For Omani families, the cost of hiring extends well beyond the monthly salary. Upfront expenses include a work permit of 201 OMR, agency fees that can range from 300 to 700 OMR depending on nationality, airfare, medical examinations, and insurance, bringing total initial costs to roughly 650 to 1, 300 OMR. The monthly salary is therefore one component of a larger financial commitment, which partly explains why employers negotiate hard on the wage itself. But a household budgeting for a maid and a worker budgeting for her family’s survival are operating under very different constraints.
What should a prospective employer or a prospective worker actually check? The contract must be in writing, registered electronically with the Ministry of Labour, and must state the monthly wage and pay date clearly. Passport retention is banned. Recruitment fees cannot lawfully be charged to the worker. The salary itself is negotiable, and that negotiation happens within a market shaped by nationality, experience, and the specific demands of the household. The best protection for both sides is a clear, registered contract that spells out the wage and the conditions attached to it. Without a statutory minimum wage, that document is the only real safeguard a housemaid has.