Maids in Germany - Guide [2024] - Navigate Germany

Germany is famous for cleanliness but finding maids in Germany is a bit hard. Managing work with house chores is always stressful so you must hire a domestic helper to facilitate yourself. A maid can help you in your house chores, childcare, or anything else. There are multiple domestic help service providers in Germany who offer services to employ house helpers to the people who need it. According to a study, around 90% of maids are hired illegally without insurance and legal licensing which is very risky as mishaps can occur.

Needed Domestic Helps

Cleaners and domestic helpers are two different people work in different ways for different house chores.

Cleaners

Cleaners (Putzhilfe) do the tasks including sweeping the bathroom, kitchen, cleaning the apartment, laundry, ironing or washing dishes, and various cleaning activities. They visits you once, daily, or periodically, for almost 2-3 or more working hours. Whatever help you need, you must record in the employment contract.

Domestic workers

Domestic workers (Haushaltshilfe) are responsible for the jobs such as laundry, cooking, doing the dishes, shopping for groceries, and taking care of your kids and pets. They enter your house with or without your availability once you hire them and you can easily manage your work without any stress. 

Additional Services

You can take additional help from your domestic helper so hire someone who knows how to do certain tricky tasks.

Gardening

Gardening is common nut expensive in Germany. A gardener’s job is to mow the lawn, scrape the leaves and look after the plants in the garden. Ensure to save a few bills by hiring a separate gardener and hire a maid who knows the gardening too. 

Baby Sitting

A babysitter is hired to offer sufficient care to your child. The official minimum wage of a babysitter is 12 Euros per hour and can be more according to the time, services, and circumstances.

Laundry and Ironing

Dry cleaners (Reinigung) are there to take in men’s shirts (bügeln) for around 2-4 Euros per piece. Your dry cleaner will apply the scent on your clothes to remove the typical laundry smell and to provide quality services to their customer. Ironing (mangeln) of your tablecloths and linens is cheaper compared to the loundry. You can get services of a dry cleaner for any loundry or ironing tasks from shirts to curtains and bedsheets.

Window Cleaning

Window cleaning is a must for which you can hire a window cleaner at different wage rate that entirely depends on the size of your house or window. The cost of squeaking clean windows of an apartment is around 30 Euros, but 82 Euros for a house.

Hire A Domestic Helper with Quitt

Negotiate the wage or salary with the domestic helper and decide a fixed or task based amount to avoid future issues. If you are hiring a maid for less frequent work, decide on an hourly wage rate. The obligatory minimum wage (Mindestlohn) is 12 Euros per hour and you cannot pay less than this in Germany whether you hire on hourly or monthly basis. The rate may be between 13-25 Euros per hour according to the location.

There are different kinds of employment in Germany with different taxes based on the amount of salary. These forms of employment are;

• Mini-jobs - If salary is up to €538 per month.
• Midi-jobs - If salary is between €538.01 and €2,000.
• Conventional job - If salary is more than €2,000.

Mini- and Midi-jobs have the advantage of statutory insurance and employer’s insurance. Regular social security contributions apply to conventional jobs.

The most common employment type is mini-jobs in the private household sector. If employees do not want to pay the voluntary pension contributions, their gross equals net. Employers will pay almost 15% of the salary in social security contributions. This is refunded with the income tax statement at the year end (20% of employer costs, up to €510 annually) due to which employee’s contributions are also zero.

In case of a midi-job (sliding zone), the contributions are divided between the employee (amount increases) and the employer (amount decreases). The employer’s costs are between 20% and 28% according to the employee’s salary. Midi-job is tax deductible (up to €4,000 per year is reimbursed).

Complex regulations are easy with go-quitt.de who takes care of the employment classification, registration, administration, and accounting. Quitt provides all information related to the tax refund at the year end.  

Finding A Maid in Germany

Find and employ a maid through different ways discussed here;

Find In Your Surroundings

Look around your surroundings and try to find a helping hand for you. You can ask your neighbors or teacher of your children for the helpers ready to whatever you need. who are willing to help in your house chores.

Advertising

You can access housekeepers by advertising in the local newspapers and noticeboards. Giving a hiring ad is an effective and faster way to get a helper at your door.

Contact Domestic Help Service Providers

Domestic help service providers play a key role if you cannot find a maid yourself. There are two kinds of providers;

Placement Platforms

Placement platforms provide domestic help that you can employ privately. Placement platforms should be used for long-term, trusting employment relationships.

Betreut

This platform offer house helpers in almost all field from cleaning to pet care or au pairs, or elderly care and vigilance.

Putzperle

This platform offer maids for cleaning, laundry, ironing, and window cleaning. Their process is very simple, easy, and quick.

Agencies

Agencies provide a domestic helper employed by them or self-employed. Hire them for one time or regular house chores. It might be expensive but faster option than looking for a reliable maid yourself. A few agencies also have their websites.

Helpling

This is a well-known and professional service provider offers maids for a minimum 2 hiring hour. Their maids work as cleaners and caretakers. Their website is well organized, detailed, and provides trust verification to their clients.

Spic and Span

This platform offer English-speaking helpers at a service rate of 23.90 Euros per hour. You can hire these helps to deep clean your apartment once a month and a minimum hiring duration is 2 hours.

Tip in Germany

No problem if you want to hire a house helper for once a month, but giving something extra is always good in Germany. Trend id to give 10% as a Tip or Trinkgeld in Germany, so you can follow the same with your domestic helper. If you are hiring someone on regular or monthly basis, then you can give extra at the monthend as a bonus. 

Conclusion

Hiring a maid is a bit tricky but if you can afford, you must get some house help to do various house chores. Service providers are a great way to get a reliable maid with convenience. Get assistance, easily hire for whatever service you need, and have a hassle-free chore life.