Filipino Maid Salary in Malaysia: 2026 Rates, Levies & Total Cost

Ask three Malaysian maid agencies what a Filipino helper costs and you will get three different answers, and none of them will mention that the Philippines government has just moved the minimum wage goalposts. Here is the real breakdown: not a sales page, an itemised total.

The reason nobody agrees is that most of the numbers you will read come from agencies with an incentive to make the total look small, and even the figures that should be simple are not settled. The annual levy alone turns up as RM610, RM630 or RM410 depending on which state the page is written for and which year it was published, yet every site states its number as if it were the only one. Sort out which figure applies to you and half the confusion disappears.

So this post does three things the ranking results do not. It itemises the full Filipino-specific cost stack in one table, it explains the pending DMW wage rise as the voluntary, phased change it actually is rather than a scare headline, and it ends by pointing you to a government-verified agency register instead of one agency’s own quote. If you would rather start from a shortlist, you can browse licensed maid agencies in Malaysia now, but read the numbers first so you know what you are looking at.

Filipino Maid Minimum Salary in Malaysia (2026)

The number every agency quotes is RM1,800 per month, pegged to the USD400 minimum set under the Philippines–Malaysia labour agreement and fixed in practice since that standard was set in 2006. It is the figure you will see on almost every Philippines maid salary page in Malaysia.

One caveat matters here, and no agency blog says it out loud. No primary Malaysian government page (JTKSM or Immigration) was found stating the RM1,800 figure directly. It is agency-reported and derived from the bilateral agreement, so treat it as the market standard rather than a legally gazetted rate. It is what you will actually be quoted, which is what counts for your budget, but it is not a government-published minimum.

In practice the rate moves with experience. Entry-level helpers commonly start around RM1,500 per month. Helpers with real experience, especially those trained in childcare or elderly care, command RM1,800 to RM2,500 per month. If a candidate has the exact skills your household needs, expect to pay toward the top of that band, and expect a good agency to defend the higher number.

For context, a different bilateral agreement covers Indonesian helpers, whose 2022 arrangement sets a lower floor of around RM1,500 per month. That is a genuinely separate agreement with its own terms, not a straight discount on the same job, so do not treat the gap as free money. If you are still weighing nationalities on price, it is worth comparing Indonesian maid agency costs against the Filipino figures here before you commit.

That RM1,800 figure is about to become outdated. Here is why.

The DMW Wage Rise: USD400 to USD500, What’s Actually Confirmed

The Philippines’ Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) issued Memorandum Circular 03-2025 on 22 August 2025, proposing to raise the minimum monthly wage for Filipino domestic workers abroad from USD400 to USD500. It is the first change to that floor since it was set at USD400 in 2006, so it is a real shift, not a routine adjustment.

Here is the part competing guides either skip or misreport. This is not yet mandatory. The DMW later clarified that the USD500 floor is being implemented on a voluntary basis, not forced on employers. The original plan was for the rate to apply 60 days after the advisory, but a six-month transition period was then granted, with full effect targeted for around April or May 2026.

The rise also does not touch every contract. It applies only to newly hired workers and to returning or vacationing workers signing renewed contracts. If you already have a helper on an unexpired contract, that agreement is unaffected. This is exactly the nuance the agency blogs blur, and getting it wrong in either direction costs you money or credibility with your helper.

It is not hypothetical either. At least one Malaysian agency, Agensi Pekerjaan CCS Sdn Bhd, was reported as the first to fully comply with the circular and implement the USD500 rate. Malaysian recruiters have warned that the extra USD100 could make Filipino helpers harder to hire and push overall recruitment costs up. So the direction of travel is clear even while the timing stays soft.

The practical takeaway for anyone signing a new contract in 2026 is simple. Budget for RM2,250 per month, the USD500 equivalent, as the safer planning number, even though RM1,800 quotes are still circulating. If your agency is still on RM1,800, ask directly whether they intend to move, and get the answer in writing before you sign. You can read the circular yourself in the official DMW Memorandum Circular 03-2025.

The Government Levy: Why the Number You’ve Read Is Probably Wrong

Salary is only one line in the invoice, and the next line is the one three sources cannot agree on. The annual foreign worker levy is where the data quality falls apart, so here is the honest version. Sources disagree, and pretending otherwise would just add a fourth confident-but-wrong number to the pile.

One 2026-dated breakdown, specific to Sarawak, states the first-worker levy as RM630 per year for Filipino helpers and RM610 for Indonesian helpers. A separate figure of RM410 per year for “most nationalities” also circulates via the FWCMS system, but it could not be confirmed against a primary source and it directly conflicts with the RM610 and RM630 figures. Do not anchor your budget on the RM410 number without checking it with your agency or JTKSM first.

For planning purposes in Peninsular Malaysia, the number that actually helps you is the combined annual renewal. Levy plus FOMEMA medical plus permit plus insurance runs roughly RM1,000 to RM1,500 per year. That is the figure to budget against for Year 2 onward, rather than trying to pin down a single disputed levy line.

One hard rule sits underneath all of this: Sabah and Sarawak set their own fees, so never apply a Peninsular figure to a hire there. It is the most common budgeting mistake first-time employers make, and the full East Malaysia detail is further down.

Full Itemised Cost Table: What You’re Actually Paying For

Salary and levy are two lines on a much longer invoice. An agency package is not one fee, it is a bundle, and the bundle is where the rest of the cost hides. A typical Peninsular Malaysia package for a Filipino helper wraps up recruitment, processing and first-year government costs into a single upfront price. Here is what that price usually covers.

The market range for a Filipino-specific package sits at roughly RM15,000 to RM22,000, with many agencies clustering around RM17,000. A general package for a helper of any nationality tends to run a little lower, around RM12,000 to RM19,000. Treat these as self-reported market ranges from competing agencies, not authoritative figures, and insist on getting the bundle itemised in writing before you pay any deposit.

What catches first-time employers off guard is not what is in the package, it is what is left out. The advertised price almost never includes the helper’s monthly salary, which you pay directly on top. It also excludes food and accommodation, and it excludes replacement or transport costs if the helper terminates the contract early. Budget for all three separately, because none of them show up in the quote you are comparing.

If you want to see what real agencies charge in the biggest single market before you weigh a package, compare the best maid agencies in Kuala Lumpur side by side rather than trusting one quote in isolation.

The Real 2-Year Cost of Hiring a Filipino Maid

Put the salary, the levy and the package together and you can finally see what two years actually costs. You will see a two-year total of RM80,000 to RM94,000 quoted around the web. The problem is that it could not be traced to a transparent line-by-line breakdown, and its Sarawak or Peninsular basis is unclear. So rather than repeat a number nobody can source, here is the calculation built openly from the components above, so you can swap in your own figures.

Take a Peninsular Malaysia hire at the market midpoint:

• Upfront agency package: around RM17,000 (one-off).
• Monthly salary: RM1,800 × 24 months = RM43,200.
• Year 2 renewal: levy, FOMEMA, permit and insurance, around RM1,250.

That adds up to roughly RM61,450 over two years, excluding food and accommodation. Substitute your own package quote and salary and the structure stays the same. Building it this way is more useful too, because you can see exactly which line to push back on.

Numbers only tell half the story if you are hiring outside the Peninsula. Sabah and Sarawak play by different rules.

Sabah & Sarawak: Why Your Cost Will Be Different

Sarawak introduced its own new fee schedule from 1 January 2026, run by its own immigration authority and separate from the Peninsular Malaysia system. If you are hiring in Kuching rather than Kuala Lumpur, the Peninsular numbers above do not apply cleanly, and this is where budgets quietly blow out.

The new Sarawak-specific one-off fees break down like this:

Add those six line items up and the one-off Sarawak total comes to RM2,254, roughly RM2,250 on top of a hire that would already have cost less on the Peninsula. It stretches the calendar too: approval now runs about five to eight months, against the one to three months employers saw before the January 2026 change, so start earlier if you are hiring in the state. The full schedule is in migratesafe.org’s breakdown of the Sarawak cost implications from 1 January 2026.

Sabah also runs its own immigration system separate from Peninsular Malaysia. This research pass did not find a comparable itemised Sabah fee table, so do not assume the Sarawak figures carry across. Verify Sabah costs directly with a Sabah-licensed agency before you budget.

How to Verify a Filipino Maid Agency Is JTKSM-Licensed Before You Pay a Deposit

Whatever region you are hiring in, the one check that protects you from every number above costs nothing. Every figure in this post came from a source with a reason to look attractive, whether an agency blog or a market aggregate. The one number that does not lie is an agency’s JTKSM licence status, because it comes from a government register, not a marketing team. If you check nothing else, check that.

Before any deposit changes hands, confirm three things. First, that the licence is currently valid, not lapsed. Second, that the category matches domestic helper recruitment rather than some unrelated staffing permit. Third, that the agency does not appear on the MOHA ESIMS blacklist of banned or suspended operators. An agency that hesitates on any of these is telling you something.

Doing this manually, agency by agency, is slow, which is exactly why this directory exists. Every listing on Maid Agencies MY has already been cross-checked against the JTKSM government register and the ESIMS blacklist, so you can compare JTKSM-verified Filipino maid agencies in one place instead of trusting each agency’s own claims about itself.

Budget the full two-year number, verify the licence, then act. That is the whole job, and doing it in that order is what keeps a hire from turning into a bad surprise.