Employing a housemaid, driver or nanny in Oman — after the 2025 rewrite

If you employ a housemaid, a nanny, a driver or a gardener in Oman, the framework you were briefed on when you arrived has almost certainly been replaced. Ministerial Decision 574/2025 came into force in October 2025 and, for the first time, writes down hours, rest days, leave, a gratuity and the treatment of the worker's passport, and attaches a fine to each of them.

What changed in October 2025

Ministerial Decision 574/2025, the Regulation Governing the Work of Domestic Workers and Those in Their Position — اللائحة التنظيمية لعمل عمال المنازل ومن في حكمهم — was signed by the Minister of Labour on 16 Rabi' al-Thani 1447, corresponding to 9 October 2025, and published in Official Gazette 1617. It came into force the day after publication.

We could not confirm the publication date itself. One retrieval put it at 12 October 2025, and rather than assert a date we cannot verify, we are telling you it is unsettled. That matters more than it sounds, because the gratuity in Article 31 runs from the date the Regulation came into force. The enacting provisions then do two things that are routinely misreported: Article 2 gave employers who already had domestic workers three months to bring their arrangements into line, and Article 3 repealed Ministerial Decision 189/2004 in full, together with Forms 4 and 8 of Ministerial Decision 1/2011 — those two forms, and nothing else.

Article 2 lists twelve occupations

• Domestic worker
• Nanny
• Private driver
• Gardener
• Agricultural worker
• Residential building guard
• Home health assistant
• Private nurse
• Household cook
• Camel herder
• Livestock herder
• Horse handler

Article 6 bars anyone under 21 from employment in these occupations. The Royal Oman Police applies the same minimum age to the work visa, which costs OMR 20, and requires the profession and the gender on the visa to match the work permit. A permit issued for a female housemaid will not carry a male worker, and a permit for a driver will not carry a gardener.

"Excluded under Article 2 of the Labour Law" is the wrong summary

That sentence is everywhere, and it comes from the repealed 2003 labour law. The current Labour Law, Royal Decree 53/2023, says at its Article 2 that the Law does not apply to those whose work is governed by special laws or systems, and it empowers the Minister to regulate categories of work with a special nature. MD 574/2025 is the exercise of that power. It is a delegated regime, not a hole in the statute.

And the separation is not total. Article 37 of the Regulation applies the Labour Law's dispute provisions to domestic workers and exempts the worker's claims from judicial fees and costs. That opens the ordinary route: Ministry of Labour conciliation under Article 9 of the Labour Law, a mandatory step before court, to be completed within a maximum of 30 days, producing a settlement minute that has the force of an executory instrument. A domestic worker with an unpaid-wages claim is not outside the system.

The contract: written, in Arabic, registered

Articles 19 and 20 require a written contract in Arabic, in two copies, one for each party. It must state:

• the parties
• the start date and the probation period
• the type, nature and place of the work
• the working hours and the rest periods
• the monthly wage and the date on which it is paid

The contract must then be registered electronically with the Ministry. An approved translation alongside the Arabic is permitted — that detail reaches us through the Oman Observer's English summary rather than a text we could read directly, so treat it as secondary. Article 3 makes the Regulation a floor: a contract term that gives the worker less than the Regulation is void, while a term that gives more stands.

Probation is capped at 15 days, counts as service, cannot be repeated by the same employer for the same worker, and may be ended during the period on 7 days' notice. Under Article 21, if you intend to let the contract expire at its term rather than renew, you must notify the other party at least two months beforehand. Article 17 requires a file for each worker, retained for one year after the service ends.

Hours, rest and leave

Article 22 sets working hours at not more than 12 hours a day, with a rest period of not less than 8 hours. The Arabic verb joining the two is تتخللها — the rest falls within, or is interspersed through, the day. Overtime of up to two hours is permitted with the worker's written consent, paid at an additional rate equivalent to the daily wage.

• Article 23 — at least one paid rest day a week. Working it requires written consent and earns either an extra day's wage or a substitute day off.
• Article 24 — paid sick leave of up to 30 days a year, on a certified medical report.
• Article 25 — annual leave of not less than 21 days a year, commutable to cash by written agreement, with any unused balance payable on termination.
• Article 26 — leave periods count as service.

Wages

Article 27 requires the wage to be paid in Omani Rials within not more than 7 days of the date it falls due under the contract. Article 28 treats the obligation as discharged either by the worker's signature on a register or by bank transfer — and adds that the Ministry may determine the payment system. That last clause is a latent hook: electronic wage payment could be imposed on households without amending the Regulation. Article 29 allows deductions only for deliberate damage to work tools, debts ordered by a court, or repayment of a loan the worker consented to and which carries no interest, and in no case may they exceed one quarter of the wage.

There is no minimum wage for expatriate domestic workers in Oman. The OMR 325 national minimum is expressed as applying to citizens. You will also find tables of embassy-set wage floors by nationality in circulation, and no official Omani publication sets out any of them. They may reflect what a sending country's embassy requires before it will attest a contract, but they are not Omani law, and we could not trace a single figure to an Omani source.

Accommodation, insurance and the passport

• Article 13 — treatment preserving the worker's dignity, safety and health; food and suitable accommodation; no hazardous or degrading work.
• Article 14 — accommodation that is well ventilated, lit and air-conditioned, with a bed, a wardrobe and a sanitary bathroom.
• Article 15 — free transport where the worker does not live in the house.
• Article 16 — health insurance is mandatory and at the employer's cost.

Article 4 prohibits forced or compulsory labour, violence and harassment. Article 7 prohibits charging the worker any sum in return for their own recruitment — recruitment cost sits with the employer, without exception. Against that, Article 18 sets out the worker's own duties: to perform the work, to respect Omani laws, customs and religion, to treat the family well, and to preserve the employer's property and secrets.

The permit and what it costs

The permit is Ministry of Labour e-service 290, private work permits for individuals. The fee turns on the occupation and on how many workers you already sponsor, and the standard mistake is to apply the OMR 101 and OMR 141 figures across the board.

Artisanal fisherman is not one of the twelve occupations in Article 2 of MD 574/2025, but it appears in the same fee service, so it is in the table. The documents required are a salary certificate, a bank statement, and proof of ownership of the home, farm or property the worker will serve. Approval takes 1 to 10 days. You can file through the Ministry's e-services portal or through a Sanad service office.

One exemption is worth knowing about. Ministerial Decision 602/2025, published in Gazette 1619 on 26 October 2025, did not come into force on the date its own commencement provision first implied: Ministerial Decision 44/2026 (Gazette 1632, 25 January 2026) moved it to 15 February 2026. Its Article 15 exempts from the Schedule 2 fees, for one worker — a second only with ministerial approval — persons with disabilities holding an official card, persons requiring special medical care on a social report, elderly persons unable to care for themselves, and beneficiaries of the family income benefit.

No Omani government page publishes an end-to-end procedure linking the permit, the visa, the contract and any later transfer. Each step is documented separately, by a different body, on a different page. What follows is a practitioner's sequence assembled from those separate official sources — it is not an official flowchart, and no official flowchart exists.

1. Establish which of the twelve occupations you are recruiting for, and which fee band applies given your existing worker count.
2. Apply for the work permit through e-service 290 with the salary certificate, bank statement and ownership proof. Allow 1 to 10 days.
3. Obtain the work visa from the Royal Oman Police at OMR 20, with profession and gender matching the permit exactly.
4. Sign the Arabic contract in two copies, covering the five matters Article 20 requires, and register it electronically with the Ministry.
5. Put the health insurance in place before the worker starts. It is mandatory and it is yours to pay for.
6. Open the worker's file, and keep it for one year after the service ends.

Hiring through a recruitment office

Recruitment offices operate under Ministerial Decision 1/2011, published in Gazette 927 on 15 January 2011 and amended by Ministerial Decision 420/2012 (Gazette 981, 11 August 2012), which changed Articles 2, 3(d), 8 and 20. Those offices must be 100% Omani-owned: manpower recruitment offices (activity code 781001) and employment offices (code 781002) are items 52 and 53 on the list of activities closed to foreign investment in Ministerial Decision 209/2020 (Gazette 1370, 13 December 2020).

The Ministry's own FAQ describes a temporary licence: a licensed office may recruit and sponsor up to five domestic workers in its own name, as their employer, bearing their wages and legal obligations, for six months, non-renewable, against a fee of OMR 36 per application — and that OMR 36 may not be passed on to the employer. We cite the FAQ rather than an article number, because we could not tie the temporary licence to a specific article of MD 1/2011 and will not invent one. This is the nearest thing Oman has to hiring a worker from the office rather than sponsoring them yourself. It is not the UAE's Tadbeer model, which looks similar in a search result, sits under different law, and is a different country's system.

Article 20, as amended, gives you two real remedies. The office must return the worker within 14 days of the start of work where the profession does not match the licence. And it must refund the sums received for the recruitment within 180 days in three cases: the profession does not match; the worker refuses to work without lawful cause; or the worker has a disability, an infectious disease, a chronic illness or a mental condition preventing performance. An office in breach faces suspension or revocation of its licence, fines up to OMR 200, and possible imprisonment. Separately, e-service 290 allows a replacement work permit where the worker departed within 90 days of arrival.

Ending the contract

Article 30 sets out the ways the contract comes to an end. Article 31 is the gratuity: half a month's wage for each year of service, fractions of a year pro-rated, and nothing at all where total service is under two years.

Article 32 requires all dues to be paid within five days of the last working day, or three days before the worker's departure, and expressly contemplates the transfer of the worker's services to another employer as an alternative to sending them home. On repatriation, Article 33 puts the cost on the employer where the worker was working for their own account with the employer's knowledge, or where the employer or a family member breached Article 4, and on the worker where the worker terminates without legitimate reason before the term ends. Article 34 requires repatriation within a maximum of 30 days. Article 35 lets the employer terminate without gratuity for absence, assault or a criminal conviction, and Article 36 lets the worker terminate without notice and keeping all rights where wages have gone unpaid in full for two consecutive months, or on fraud as to the terms, immoral conduct, or physical or psychological assault.

Transferring the worker to another employer

Transfer out is Ministry of Labour e-service 286, at a fee of OMR 5. It is fully electronic, requires no documents, and the Royal Oman Police confirms it automatically. But the current employer's approval is required, and they must first clear any outstanding fees and fines. Domestic workers are not covered by the conditional-transfer reforms that apply in the private sector, so there is no route here that works without the current employer's cooperation.

What the Regulation does not say

• No penalty specific to passport retention beyond the general Article 39 fine.
• No right to keep a mobile phone, and nothing about an employer holding one.
• Nothing about contact with the worker's family.
• No home leave during the term of employment.
• Nothing on maternity — no leave, no protection from dismissal.
• No shelter or referral mechanism for a worker leaving an abusive household.
• No published licensing criteria — capital, bank guarantee, premises — for opening a recruitment office. We found no figure, and we will not guess one. These are silences in the text, which is not the same as prohibitions.

Penalties and how a complaint starts

Article 39 sets an administrative fine of OMR 50 to OMR 500 for each violation, multiplied by the number of workers affected. Enforcement is not left entirely to the worker: Article 38 allows the recruitment office to notify the Ministry on the worker's behalf where the employer breaches the worker's rights. Together with the Article 37 exemption from judicial fees, that is two routes into the system that the 2004 rules did not provide.

If you are hiring for the first time, the two things worth getting right on day one are the Arabic contract registered electronically and the health insurance, because both are cheap at the start and awkward to retrofit. A Sanad office can file the permit application, register the contract, and tell you which fee band your household falls into before you pay anything.