Minimum wage for kasambahay 2026: ₱7,800 in NCR, every region

Direct answer: Minimum wage for kasambahay 2026 is ₱7,800 a month in Metro Manila under Wage Order NCR-DW-06, in force since 7 February 2026. There is no single national rate. Other regions currently run from ₱5,500 in BARMM to ₱7,500 in Central Visayas on the NWPC 6 October 2026 sheet. That cash floor is not a live-in discount, and meals, lodging, SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and 13th month sit on top of it.

If you typed "minimum wage for kasambahay 2026", start with NCR ₱7,800 only when the house is in Metro Manila. Outside NCR, copy the row for your region, not a Facebook number from another province. The boards, not DOLE central, set each floor.

This page is the legal floor. Our salary guide is the planning range above it. When you have the number, browse helpers and hire direct.

The legal floor in every region

If you only need one city, start here, then confirm the wage order in the full table.

Figures in both tables are the current monthly minimum wage for domestic workers from the NWPC summary as of 6 October 2026. Dual-rate regions are split so you do not mix a city rate with a municipality rate.

Two things in that table usually surprise people.

MIMAROPA, at ₱7,000, pays more than CALABARZON at ₱6,750. Palawan and Mindoro are not obviously more expensive than Cavite and Laguna, but the boards move independently and CALABARZON's order is the older one, from March 2025. The tables reward whichever board reviewed most recently, not whichever region has the higher cost of living.

The second surprise is the spread. The gap between the highest floor and the lowest is ₱2,300 a month, which is roughly 42 percent of the BARMM figure. A family that relocates from Davao to Manila and keeps paying the old rate has quietly dropped below the legal minimum by ₱1,300 every payday.

Only two regions still split the rate by municipality

Section 24 of Republic Act 10361 originally set three tiers: one for NCR, one for chartered cities and first class municipalities, and a lower one for everywhere else. Most boards have since closed that gap inside their own region.

As of the 6 October 2026 summary, only Eastern Visayas and Zamboanga Peninsula still publish two different rates. Region VIII pays ₱6,400 in cities and first class municipalities and ₱5,800 elsewhere. Region IX pays ₱6,000 and ₱5,500 on the same split. Everywhere else in the country, one figure covers the whole region regardless of whether the household is in the provincial capital or a fourth class town.

If your household is in Region VIII or IX, check your municipality's income classification before you set the wage. Getting the class wrong is a ₱500 to ₱600 monthly error, and it compounds into the 13th month pay and the contribution brackets.

Who the wage order covers, and who it does not

Wage Order NCR-DW-06 is worth reading in full because it is short and it spells out coverage more plainly than the statute does. It applies to all domestic workers, live-in or live-out, and lists general househelp, yaya, cook, gardener, laundry person, and anyone who regularly performs domestic work in one household on an occupational basis.

Three groups are outside it: service providers, family drivers, and anyone who works occasionally or sporadically rather than as an occupation.

The family driver exclusion catches families out constantly. Your driver is an employee with real rights. He is simply not covered by the kasambahay wage order, so you cannot use the ₱7,800 figure as either a floor or a ceiling for that job. Price it as its own role. Our family driver salary guide covers how.

The wage order also settles a question agencies sometimes muddy. Where a household hires through a licensed private employment agency, the prescribed wage rate is borne by the principal or client, and if the client fails to pay it the agency is jointly and severally liable. Section 5 then says it plainly: no exemption is allowed under the wage order. There is no small-household discount, no first-timer rate, and no probationary rate.

One provision cuts the other way and is genuinely useful. Section 6 of the wage order lets a household and a kasambahay voluntarily agree on a competency-based pay scheme above the minimum. If she holds a TESDA certificate or handles newborn care, you can build that into the pay structure rather than negotiating a vague "experienced" premium every year.

The floor is not the Metro Manila going rate

₱7,800 is the number below which you are breaking the law. It is not the number that gets an experienced yaya to say yes in Quezon City.

In practice, Metro Manila offers for an all-around kasambahay or a yaya sit well above the floor, and specialised work such as newborn care, elderly care, or serious cooking sits higher again. Those are market estimates, not legal figures, and they move with the neighbourhood and the schedule. Run your own numbers through the salary calculator rather than copying a figure from a Facebook group.

The useful way to think about it: the wage order tells you where the conversation starts, and it tells you when a candidate is being underpaid by her current employer. It does not tell you what a good one costs. A family that offers exactly the floor in Makati is competing against every other family that offers exactly the floor, which is a bad place to be when the candidate has three interviews this week.

What a household pays on top of the wage

The wage is not the cost of employing a kasambahay. Here is the rest of it, and none of these come out of her salary.

Three meals a day and a safe place to sleep. Section 6 of Republic Act 10361 requires at least three adequate meals a day and humane sleeping arrangements that ensure safety, plus rest and assistance during illness or injury sustained in service. The same section bans withdrawing any of it as punishment.

SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG. Section 30 covers a kasambahay under all three after one month of service.

13th month pay. Section 25 entitles the domestic worker to it. Under Presidential Decree 851, 13th month pay is one twelfth of the basic salary earned within the calendar year, payable not later than 24 December.

A weekly rest day. Section 21 gives her at least twenty-four consecutive hours of rest each week, agreed in writing. She may waive a particular rest day, but only in return for an equivalent daily rate of pay. A waived rest day is a cost, not a favour.

Service incentive leave. Section 29 gives five paid days a year after one year of service. Unused days do not carry over and are not convertible to cash.

On the contribution side, the SSS schedule for household employers under Circular 2024-007 is the one to work from. It has been in force since January 2025 and is addressed specifically to household employers and kasambahay. SSS also states that the household employer deducts the kasambahay share only when she earns more than ₱5,000 a month, and since every regional floor now clears that line, sharing is the normal case rather than the exception.

PhilHealth's CY 2025 advisory sets the premium at 5 percent of monthly basic salary with an income floor of ₱10,000, which produces a premium of ₱500 a month at the floor. Every regional kasambahay minimum sits below ₱10,000, so a kasambahay paid at the legal floor lands on that income floor. Confirm the current year's advisory and how PhilHealth splits the premium before you finalise a budget, and do the same for Pag-IBIG, whose schedule is published separately.

Worked example: the NCR floor against a ₱10,000 offer

Take two Metro Manila households. One pays the legal floor. One offers ₱10,000 to a candidate with five years of experience. The wage gap is ₱2,200. The gap in what the household actually spends is smaller than that.

The SSS figures come straight from Circular 2024-007. A ₱7,800 wage falls in the ₱7,750 to ₱8,249.99 compensation range, which maps to a monthly salary credit of ₱8,000. The household employer pays ₱800 for regular Social Security plus ₱10 for Employees' Compensation, so ₱810. The kasambahay's own share at that credit is ₱400, deducted from her pay, not added to yours. At ₱10,000 the credit is ₱10,000, the household share is ₱1,000 plus ₱10, and her share is ₱500.

The 13th month line is the one twelfth rule spread across the year so December does not ambush you. At the floor that is ₱650 a month. At ₱10,000 it is ₱833.

So the real difference between the two households is about ₱2,583 a month, or roughly ₱31,000 a year, before PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG. That is what it costs to move from the legal minimum to an offer that competes. My view is that it is cheap. Weigh it against a replacement search in March, the interviews, the trial weeks, and the childcare you cover in the gap.

Three shortcuts that are illegal, not clever

Paying a lower rate for a training or probation period. Section 5 of the NCR wage order allows no exemption. There is no training rate, no probationary rate, and no discount for a first job. If you want to test the fit, use a fixed short term at the full rate and say so in the contract.

Deducting the cost of her meals or her room. This is the most common one, and it is usually framed as fair rather than deceptive. It is neither. Section 6 makes food and lodging your obligation, and Section 25 permits no deductions beyond those the law mandates unless she consents in writing. Feeding a live-in kasambahay is not a service you are selling her.

Paying late, or paying in parts. Section 25 requires wages paid on time, directly to her, in cash, at least once a month, and it specifically bans promissory notes, vouchers, coupons, tokens, tickets, and chits. Bank transfer and e-wallet payment are common in practice. What the section rules out is substituting credit for spendable money, so an IOU until the end of the month or a running tab at your sari-sari store is not payment. Section 28 makes withholding wages unlawful outright.

For the wider picture, including the barangay registration, the written contract, the payslip requirement, and the penalties that attach to each of these, read our Kasambahay Law guide.

How to check for a new wage order yourself

Wage orders are not annual, and no one will notify you when yours changes. Section 24 of RA 10361 directs the regional boards to review kasambahay rates periodically, and the 2026 table shows how uneven that is in practice. CALABARZON has been on the same figure since March 2025. Zamboanga Peninsula moved as recently as May 2026.

The check takes about a minute:

• Open the NWPC page for your regional board. Metro Manila households want the RTWPB-NCR page, which lists both current and previous wage orders for domestic workers.
• Compare the wage order number shown there against the one in the table above. A higher number means a newer order.
• Read the effectivity date, not the date it was signed. A wage order takes effect fifteen days after publication in a newspaper of general circulation, so NCR-DW-06 was approved on 15 January 2026 and only took effect on 7 February 2026.
• Check the NWPC consolidated summary sheet, which is republished with a new "as of" date each time a region moves.
• Adjust the wage from the effectivity date, not from the day you noticed. The wage order's own effectivity clause governs, and back pay is owed from that date.

Set a calendar reminder for January. Boards cluster their orders around the turn of the year, which is why fourteen of the seventeen rates in the table took effect between October 2025 and March 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the kasambahay minimum wage for 2026?

In Metro Manila the kasambahay minimum wage for 2026 is ₱7,800 a month under Wage Order NCR-DW-06, effective 7 February 2026. The rest of the country runs from ₱5,500 in BARMM up to ₱7,500 in Central Visayas, each set by its own regional wage order. The NWPC summary dated 6 October 2026 lists all seventeen rates.

Is the kasambahay minimum wage the same for live-in and live-out?

Yes. Wage Order NCR-DW-06 applies to all domestic workers whether live-in or live-out, and names general househelp, yaya, cook, gardener, and laundry person. A live-in arrangement does not lower the floor. Food and sleeping space are separate obligations under Section 6 of Republic Act 10361, not a discount on the wage.

Can I deduct food and lodging from the kasambahay minimum wage?

No. Section 6 of Republic Act 10361 makes three adequate meals a day and humane sleeping arrangements the employer's obligation. Section 25 allows no deduction from the wage other than what the law mandates, unless the kasambahay gives written consent. Charging her for her own meals is a deduction the law does not mandate.

Does the kasambahay minimum wage apply to a family driver?

No. Wage Order NCR-DW-06 excludes family drivers, service providers, and anyone who works occasionally rather than on an occupational basis. A family driver is still an employee with rights, but the kasambahay wage orders are not the instrument that sets that pay. Price the driver role separately.

How do I know if my region has a new wage order?

Check the NWPC regional board page for your region, which lists the latest and previous wage orders for domestic workers. Section 24 of Republic Act 10361 tells the regional boards to review kasambahay rates periodically, so a new order can land in any year. A wage order takes effect fifteen days after publication in a newspaper of general circulation, so the effectivity date always trails the signing date.

Before you write the offer

Find your region in the table, note the wage order number, and treat that figure as the floor rather than the target. Then add the meals, the sleeping arrangement, the rest day, the 13th month accrual, and the household share of contributions, and you have the real monthly cost of the job you are advertising.

A listing that names a compliant wage and the benefits attached to it reads very differently from one that says "salary negotiable", and the candidates who answer it are different too. When you have your number, browse helper profiles or browse nannies, read ID and NBI status, and create a family account to hire direct. Helpers does not take a commission from the salary you agree. Write the wage, rest day, and benefits before the first interview.