Part-time cleaner or live-in helper: which suits your home?

If your main need is a clean home, a part-time cleaner is usually the simpler fit: you pay for the hours you book and nothing else. If you need daily childcare, care for an elderly parent, cooking or someone at home most of the day, a live-in helper is the arrangement built for that, but it is an employment, and MOM sets out what the employer must provide.

The two are often compared on price alone, which misses the point. They are different commitments. This guide sets out what each one involves, using MOM's published rules as of 29 September 2026, and ends with a way to decide.

Employment or a service

A live-in helper, which MOM calls a migrant domestic worker, is your employee. You apply for her work permit, pay a monthly levy, buy her insurance, pay her salary every month whatever the workload, give her rest days and house and feed her in your home.

A part-time cleaner from a cleaning service is a service you buy by the hour. The company employs the cleaner and deals with their work pass. You book a session, the cleaner comes, and you pay for that visit. If you need four hours a fortnight, you pay for four hours a fortnight.

What employing a live-in helper involves

These are the main obligations on MOM's own pages. Figures change, so check MOM's site before you apply.

If you are a first-time employer, you must also attend MOM's Employers' Orientation Programme before applying, and a helper working in Singapore for the first time must attend the Settling-In Programme soon after she arrives.

Who pays the concessionary levy

MOM's concessionary rate applies when an eligible person lives at the same address. That includes a child who is a Singapore citizen below 16 years old, an elderly Singapore citizen aged 67 or above, and a person certified by a doctor as needing help with at least one activity of daily living. There are further conditions, such as for permanent residents, so read MOM's levy concession page for your case.

She can only work in your home

A helper can only work for her employer at the residential address declared to MOM, and she cannot take on work with other employers. That matters if you were hoping to share her with a relative or a neighbour.

What a part-time cleaner involves

A part-time cleaner comes for a fixed number of hours, one-off or on a regular slot. There is no permit, levy, bond or insurance for you to arrange, and no salary to pay in a month you are away. Ask who provides the equipment: with us, you provide a vacuum cleaner and mop, and the cleaner brings the cloths and cleaning products.

MOM itself points to this option in one case. For a family in a 2-room HDB flat with only one bedroom, its advice notes the space constraint and suggests considering a domestic cleaning service for household chores, alongside extended family and care facilities for caregiving.

What a part-time cleaner does not do is live with you. There is no one at home to watch young children, cook dinner or help a parent overnight. If that is the real need, a cleaner will not meet it however many hours you book.

Why you cannot share someone else's helper

It is tempting to ask a friend's helper to clean for a few hours on her day off. MOM's answer is direct: it is an offence for a domestic worker to take part-time work, with or without her employer's consent, because her work permit allows her to do chores only for her employer at the address on her permit.

Part-time help from a migrant worker is meant to come through a company that is allowed to deploy them. MOM's Household Services Scheme exists for exactly that, and our guide to the Household Services Scheme explains how it works and how to check a company.

A decision guide

Start from what your household actually needs, not from what the arrangement costs.

If you are torn, start with the part-time option. It commits you to nothing, and a few months of regular visits will show whether cleaning was really the gap or whether you need more hands at home.

How it works with HomeMaster

We are a cleaning service, so we sit on the part-time side of this choice. Sessions are 2, 3 or 4 hours with one cleaner, one-off or on a weekly or fortnightly slot. A regular 3 to 4 hour slot is $20/hour, GST included, with no agency fee and no surcharge on weekends or public holidays. Our part-time cleaner page has the full breakdown.

For a regular slot we aim to keep the same cleaner where possible, and if they are unavailable we arrange cover. Every cleaner is background checked and reference verified before their first job. Message Helen, our AI assistant on WhatsApp, with your home size and how often you would like a clean, and she replies with real open times and the exact price. If you are unsure how often, our guide to weekly or fortnightly cleaning walks through the trade-off.