Most households employing someone in the home have no written agreement at all. The arrangement started with a conversation, it has worked fine for years, and writing it down feels like it would make things formal and awkward.
Two things are worth knowing about that. The first is that the law requires the document. The second is that you already have a contract, in writing or not, and the document only decides whose memory wins when the terms are questioned.
The law that applies is SD7, not the BCEA
This matters before anything else, because most advice you will find online is written for businesses and quietly gives a household the wrong answer.
Domestic workers are covered by Sectoral Determination 7, the Domestic Worker Sector determination. Clause 1(4) of SD7 says the Basic Conditions of Employment Act applies only to matters that SD7 does not regulate. So where SD7 has a rule, SD7 wins and the BCEA section is not the one to read.
That is not a technicality. It changes real answers, and the deductions rules and the notice periods are two places where the household answer differs from the business answer. Quoting a BCEA section number at a household is one of the most common ways to be confidently wrong.
What the law actually requires
SD7 clause 9 requires the employer to give the domestic worker written particulars of employment when they start work, and to keep a copy for three years after the employment ends.
The particulars must cover:
- the full names and addresses of both of you
- their job title, or a description of the work
- the place or places of work
- the date employment started
- their ordinary hours and days of work
- their wage, and how it is calculated
- the rate for overtime
- any payment in kind and its value
- how often they are paid
- any deductions
- their leave
- the notice period required to end the employment
If they cannot read, you must explain the particulars to their in a language they understand.
Notice what this is: a record, in plain terms, of what you have already agreed. It is not a legal instrument that needs a lawyer, and it does not have to be long.
A handshake is already a contract
This trips people up. If you have not written anything down, you do not have "no contract". You have an oral contract of employment, fully binding, and the written particulars requirement is a separate obligation you have not met.
So the document does not create the relationship or the obligations. What it does is settle what the terms were. Without it, a disagreement about the agreed wage, hours or leave is one person's memory against another's, and the party with no records is generally the one who struggles.
That party is usually the employer, because the employer is the one the law expects to keep records.
The floor you cannot contract below
An agreement cannot go below the legal minimum, however willingly both sides sign it. The minimums that most often come up:
- The national minimum wage of R30.23 an hour from 1 March 2026. Domestic workers are on the full rate.
- Annual leave of at least three weeks a year for a full-time worker
- Sick leave, family responsibility leave, and the public holiday rules
- The notice periods in clause 24
- Overtime only by agreement, paid at one and a half times the normal wage
If they agree to R25 an hour, that agreement is worth nothing and you owe the difference. Consent does not lower the floor.
The under-24-hours rule is the one genuine exception to scope. Under clause 1(3), where they work less than 24 hours a month for you, only the wage clauses of SD7 apply. Above that, the whole determination does. A once-a-fortnight cleaner may well be under it; anyone doing a regular weekly day is not.
Notice: the household answer is different
Since you will want this in the contract, get it right. Under SD7 clause 24 the notice period is:
- one week if they have been employed for six months or less
- four weeks if they have been employed for more than six months
There is no two-week band for a domestic worker. The BCEA has a three-step ladder with two weeks in the middle for other employees, and section 37(1)(c) of that Act names domestic and farm workers explicitly for the four-week step after six months. Writing "two weeks" into a household contract is the single most common drafting error, and it is unenforceable where it falls below the minimum.
We cover this in more depth in our guide on notice periods.
Three things the contract does not cover
The written particulars are one obligation. These are separate, and having a contract does not discharge them:
- UIF registration and monthly contributions, if they work more than 24 hours a month. See UIF contributions.
- COIDA registration. Domestic workers were brought into the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act by the Constitutional Court in Mahlangu v Minister of Labour in November 2020, with retrospective effect. Registration with the Compensation Commissioner is compulsory.
- A payslip on every pay day, under clause 6(1), with a copy kept for three years under clause 6(2). See what a payslip must show.
Keep it updated
When a term changes, the particulars change in writing. A raise, a change in days, a new task, a different finishing time.
This is where written agreements usually die. The document is signed in year one, the job changes four times over six years, and by the time anyone reads it the paper describes a job nobody has done since 2021. A contract that no longer matches reality is not much better than none.
WageDesk keeps the current terms, the wage, the hours and the leave in one record that updates when they change, and produces the payslip from the same record. So the written position and the paid position stay the same thing, which is the only version of this that survives six years.
This article explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. A specific dispute needs proper advice.