Household staff in Bangalore for families new to the city
Maids, cooks, nannies, drivers, house managers and domestic couples for expatriate families on assignment and NRI families setting up again in India. The extra work here sits in the screening, not the cooking: English assessed honestly, documents you can actually read, a written contract, and salary bands so you neither underpay nor distort the local market.
- Aadhaar & reference checked
- English level stated, not promised
- Written employment contract
- Bangalore city limits
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Quick answer
What does household staff placement for an expat or NRI family in Bangalore cost?
The placement fee is ₹40,000 plus 18% GST, which is ₹47,200 including tax, and the ₹1,499 registration fee applies as well. That is a one-time fee paid to EzyHelpers and it does not include the staff member’s salary, which you pay to her directly every month. It covers the search, English assessment, identity and reference checks, the document set you receive before confirming, the written contract and the first-fortnight briefing. Placements run on 1-month, 3-month and 11-month plans. Free replacements are capped at one within 30 days, two within 90 days and three within 330 days respectively, as set out in our terms.
Two situations, handled differently
Both groups end up hiring the same roles. What they need explained is not the same, so the consultation is not the same either.
You have been posted to Bangalore
You arrived for a corporate assignment, you are in Whitefield, Indiranagar, HSR Layout, Koramangala or off Sarjapur Road, you speak neither Kannada nor Hindi, and you have no one to ask what is normal. The questions we get most are about background checks, what a fair salary is, and whether something you did or asked for was culturally wrong. We answer those before we send profiles, because hiring while guessing is how the first placement fails.
You are a returning NRI family
You lived in the US, the UK, the UAE or Singapore for years and you are setting up a household in Bangalore again. You know how India works. What has moved on is the salary band, what staff now expect in writing, and the fact that your children grew up somewhere else and speak to a helper in English by default. The gap is usually the current market and the paperwork, not the culture. We start there. If your parents are the reason you are back, our home care for NRI families covers that side separately.
What you can staff, and what each role actually covers
Full-time and live-in placements. Each role has its own page with the detail, hours and trade-offs.
Live-in or full-time maid
Cleaning, laundry, everyday cooking and the running of the house. Live-in means she sleeps at your home and needs her own room. Full-time means eight to ten hours and she goes home at night.
- Daily cleaning, laundry and kitchen work
- Simple Indian cooking if you want it in the same hire
- Live-in needs private sleeping space and a food plan
- Full-time suits apartments with no spare room
Good to know: Most expat households start here and add a cook or nanny later once the routine settles.
Live-in maid details →Cook
A cook who handles your family’s daily meals. We match on the food you actually eat, whether that is South Indian, North Indian, continental, or a mix that changes on weekends.
- Daily breakfast, lunch and dinner to an agreed menu
- Vegetarian, vegan, Jain and no onion or garlic households
- Children’s food kept separate from the adult spice level
- Grocery lists and kitchen hygiene as part of the role
Good to know: A cook confident in continental food is a smaller group than a cook confident in Indian food. Expect a longer search.
Cook placement details →Nanny or babysitter
Care for children whose schooling and home language are in English. If English fluency is the deciding factor, our English-speaking babysitter page covers that hire in more depth.
- School runs, homework help, meals and bedtime routines
- Live-in, full-time or part-time hours
- Matched to the age of the child and to your daily routine
- References checked with the households she worked in before
Good to know: Read the babysitter page first if English is your main requirement, then come back for the wider household.
English-speaking babysitters →Driver
A driver for the school run, the office commute, airport trips and weekend travel. Licence validity and city route knowledge are checked before you meet anyone.
- Licence checked along with identity and address
- Familiar with the routes around your locality
- Live-in, full-time or fixed-hours arrangements
- Vehicle care and servicing reminders if you want that included
Good to know: If the car is a high-value automatic, say so at the start. That narrows the shortlist considerably.
Driver placement details →House manager
Someone who runs the staff rather than doing the housework. This earns its cost only in a large home already employing several people, or a family running two properties.
- Schedules and supervises the other staff
- Handles vendors, repairs and the maintenance calendar
- Keeps to a household budget you review
- Acts as your single point of contact at home
Good to know: In an apartment with one helper this role adds cost without saving you much. We will say so.
House manager details →Domestic couple
Two live-in staff in complementary roles, usually cooking and housekeeping, or housekeeping and driving. Suited to villas and second homes rather than apartments.
- Two roles agreed in writing so duties do not blur
- Each person identity-checked and reference-checked separately
- Needs accommodation for two, not a shared corner
- Two placements, so two placement fees
Good to know: A couple only works when the property has real staff quarters. Check that before you plan around it.
Domestic couple details →Shorter daily hours are also possible. See full-time maids for eight to ten hour days, or nanny and babysitter services if English fluency is not your deciding factor.
English fluency, described honestly
There is a real gap between a helper who understands household English and one who is conversationally fluent. Knowing which you are getting decides whether the placement holds.
Household English
She understands and follows instructions about the house. Cleaning, laundry, the fridge, the school bag, timings, groceries. She will answer in short sentences and sometimes ask you to repeat. Most of the candidates we place sit here, and for a maid or cook role it is usually enough.
Conversational English
She can hold a two-way conversation, explain what happened during the day without prompting, take a phone message and speak to a child in English through play and reading. This group is small. It takes longer to fill and the salary expectation is higher, because these candidates have offers from several households.
A spoken interview, not a claim on a form
Every candidate has an in-person interview at one of our offices where we assess language and communication directly. We tell you which of the two levels above the person actually sits at. You then speak to her yourself by video call before you decide, so you are judging her English with your own ears.
What we will not tell you
We will not describe our whole pool as fluent in English, because it is not. If you need Level 2 for a nanny and Level 1 is acceptable for the maid, say that at the start. Being specific about which role needs which level is the fastest way to a shortlist that is worth your time.
What we check, and what you get to read
The checks matter less than whether you can see the result of them. You get the file before you confirm.
Aadhaar and identity, before you meet anyone
Every candidate’s Aadhaar identity is confirmed and the local address is checked where it is available. Address mismatches are flagged for review rather than passed on to you quietly.
A second government ID
PAN, voter ID or driving licence as a second government-issued document, so identity does not rest on a single card. For a driver, licence validity is checked as part of this.
An in-person interview at our office
A structured interview lasting roughly 45 to 60 minutes covering language, demeanour, willingness for the work, and any inconsistency in the experience the candidate claims.
References with previous employers
Telephone reference checks with previous households, asking what the person actually did, how long she stayed and why she left. Anything we cannot verify is reported to you as unverified rather than dressed up.
Background check on request
Police verification and a medical check-up can be arranged on request at extra cost. For families who need a formal police-issued character certificate, we can support the application.
A document set you can read
Before you confirm, you receive a masked Aadhaar copy, the second government ID, our verification summary and the reference notes. If you have been in India two weeks, this is the part that lets you make a decision instead of guessing.
Verification confirms identity and history. It does not tell you whether you and the person will work well together, so meet her before you decide and ask about her last two households in her own words.
What goes in the contract
Most household disputes we are called into come from something that was assumed rather than written down. This is the part expat employers most often get wrong, and it is the easiest to fix.
- Duties written out room by room and task by task, not a job title.
- Daily hours with a start time, an end time and a rest break.
- The weekly off, and whether it is a fixed day or rotates.
- Paid leave for the year and how much notice she gives to take it.
- Notice period on both sides, and what happens in the first month.
- Monthly salary, the date it is paid, and the method of payment.
- Overtime: what counts as extra hours and what you pay for them.
- Festival bonus, usually around Diwali, agreed as an amount or a formula.
- For live-in: the room, meals, and the hours she is genuinely off duty.
- Confidentiality, and rules about visitors and phone use if you want them.
We draft the agreement and go through it with both sides before anyone starts, in the language the staff member is most comfortable in. Signing a document she has not understood is worse than no document, because it gives you paperwork and her nothing.
Two clauses cause more trouble than the rest. Overtime, because an expat household that entertains on weekends will ask for extra hours and needs an agreed rate before the first time, not after. And notice, because families on fixed-term postings often leave faster than they expect. Set both at the start.
This is a private employment agreement between you and the person you hire. EzyHelpers drafts it and explains it. We are not acting as your lawyers and none of this is legal advice. Our own placement terms are separate and are set out in the terms and policies.
What is fair to pay, and why we will not publish a table
The most awkward question a new arrival asks, and the one where a wrong answer costs the most.
We give you the current Bangalore band for the role, the hours and your locality during the consultation. We do not publish figures on this page because we do not have verified numbers we would stand behind for every role and area, and a stale table read six months from now would send you into a negotiation with the wrong anchor.
Underpaying is the more common mistake, and it does not read as a saving for long. A helper paid below the local band takes the next offer, and you spend a fortnight training a replacement who then learns your kitchen from scratch. Turnover is the real cost of a low salary.
Overpaying by a wide margin looks generous and causes its own problems. It pulls staff away from neighbouring households, resets what your building expects, and it does not buy better work. Families who pay far above the band usually report the same quality and a harder conversation the following year.
Pay inside the band, put the figure and the pay date in writing, agree the festival bonus in advance, and review the salary once a year. That combination holds placements together better than any single number.
The first two weeks in an Indian household
A briefing for both sides before the start date, then a check-in from your coordinator in the first week. Here is what that covers.
How instructions land
Show the task once, watch it done once, then correct it on the spot. Written lists on the fridge work better than a long verbal briefing on day one. Indirect phrasing such as "it would be good if the floors were done before lunch" is often heard as optional. Say the time you want it done.
What households normally provide
Tea and meals during working hours are standard for full-time and live-in staff. Many families provide a uniform or a set of work clothes, and a transport allowance where the person commutes daily. For a live-in, a private room with a lock and a real rest period are the baseline, not a favour.
Festival leave is expected
Staff usually ask for leave around their own major festivals and often travel to their home state once or twice a year, which can mean a week or more away. Plan for it in the contract rather than treating each request as a negotiation. Families who refuse festival leave tend to lose the person within the year.
The difference is bigger than it looks
A live-out helper leaves at the end of her hours and the day is finished. A live-in shares your home, which means her off-duty hours have to be real and protected, or the arrangement quietly becomes a 16-hour day and she leaves. Live-in works well in villas with staff quarters. In a three-bedroom apartment it needs a genuine spare room.
Western food, dietary rules and children’s meals
Be specific about what your family eats. Vague briefs produce cooks who make good Indian food you did not ask for.
A cook confident in continental food is a smaller group than a cook confident in Indian home cooking, and the search takes longer. Pasta, roasts, baked dishes, salads and western breakfasts are a different skill set, and a candidate who lists continental experience may in practice know a handful of dishes she learned in one household. We check what she has actually cooked and for whom, and tell you the range rather than the label.
Dietary work is usually easier to match than cuisine. Cooking without onion and garlic is well understood here and many cooks have run a Jain or satvik kitchen before. Vegetarian households are straightforward. Fully vegan households are less common and need the substitutions explained once, after which most cooks manage fine. Say at the start if the kitchen must be kept free of meat or beef, because that shapes the shortlist rather than the training.
Children’s food is worth treating as its own requirement. Most families want the adult food at Indian spice levels and the children’s food kept separate and mild, which is two menus a day. Agree that in the contract as part of the duties, not as a favour asked in week three.
The approach that works most often: hire for the daily cooking she is already good at, then teach four or five of your own recipes in the first month. Families who hold out for a cook who arrives knowing their exact menu tend to wait a long time and settle anyway. If you want a trained chef rather than a household cook, that is a different hire and a different fee. See private chef for home.
Postings end, and the exit needs planning too
Most expat assignments in Bangalore run for a fixed term. Handling the ending well is part of hiring well.
Tell us as soon as you know your end date rather than in the final fortnight. Give the notice your contract requires, in writing, and pay through it. If you can give more notice than the contract asks for, do. It lets her line up the next household without a gap in income, and it is the difference between a good reference and a bitter last month.
We can help her find the next placement and we can brief an incoming family on how your home ran, including the routines she already knows. We arrange those transfers case by case, and we will not promise one in advance. Whether it happens depends on who is hiring in your area at that moment, and the honest position is that it works more often in Whitefield, Indiranagar, HSR Layout, Koramangala and along Sarjapur Road than in quieter pockets of the city.
A handover works best when the outgoing helper overlaps with the new family for a few days and explains the household herself. If you are handing the flat to colleagues from the same company, that overlap is usually easy to arrange and worth asking for. Write her a reference letter with dates, duties and your contact details before you fly. It is the most useful thing you can leave her with.
₹40,000 plus 18% GST, which is ₹47,200
A one-time placement fee paid to EzyHelpers. The ₹1,499 registration fee applies as well. Your staff member’s salary is separate and you pay it to her directly.
The fee covers the search itself, the English assessment, identity and address checks, the second government ID, reference calls to previous households, the document set you receive before you confirm, drafting the written contract and going through it with both sides, and the briefing in the first fortnight. Police verification and a medical check-up are arranged on request at extra cost and sit outside this fee.
It does not include the staff member’s monthly salary, her festival bonus, her meals, uniform or transport allowance, or anything you agree with her directly. You pay her yourself, every month, and we take no share of it.
Placements run on the same three plans as the rest of our service: 1 month, 3 months and 11 months. The 3-month and 11-month plans include free replacements, and live-in placements carry a 7-day cooling-off period. The exact replacement counts and the conditions attached to each plan are set out in the terms and policies.
Why this costs more than the standard ₹25,000 placement
Four reasons, and none of them is that the helper is better at cleaning. The candidate pool is smaller, because we are filtering for English and for people who have worked with foreign or returning families before. English is assessed and reported at a stated level instead of ticked on a form. Verification is packaged into a document set a family who arrived last month can read and understand. And the contract is drafted and explained rather than left for you to improvise.
When the standard placement is the better buy
If you speak Hindi or Kannada, already know the local salary band and are comfortable writing your own terms, you do not need this. The standard placement at ₹25,000 plus 18% GST covers the same roles with the same identity and reference checks. Start at live-in maids or full-time maids and we will place from the same network.
Where we can actually staff a household
Bangalore city limits. We would rather turn down an enquiry than take one we cannot fill.
We place household staff inside Bangalore city limits, meaning 560xxx PIN codes. Bangalore Rural, the 562xxx PIN codes including Anekal, is outside what we serve, so if your address falls there we will tell you on the first call rather than take the enquiry.
Most requests from expat and returning NRI families come from Whitefield, Indiranagar, HSR Layout, Koramangala and along Sarjapur Road, which is why those areas appear throughout this page. That is where the demand is, not the limit of where we work. We place across the city, and candidate travel time is the practical constraint for a full-time hire rather than the locality name.
Outside Bangalore we also serve Bareilly. For any other city, a placement at this level is handled case by case and we will be straight with you on the call about whether we can fill it.
Household staffing available in:
Questions expat and NRI families ask us
Safety, salary, English, the weekly off, the contract, and what happens at both ends of the placement.
How do I know the household staff you send are safe?
Every candidate’s Aadhaar identity is confirmed and the local address is checked where it is available, with a second government ID such as PAN, voter ID or driving licence. Each person sits a structured in-person interview at one of our offices lasting roughly 45 to 60 minutes, and we make telephone reference checks with previous households. Police verification and a medical check-up can be arranged on request at extra cost. Before you confirm the placement you receive a masked Aadhaar copy, the second ID, our verification summary and the reference notes, so you can read the file yourself rather than take our word for it. Anything we could not verify is reported to you as unverified.
What should I pay a maid, cook or nanny in Bangalore?
We give you the current Bangalore band for the exact role, hours and locality during the consultation, because published tables go stale and vary by area. We do not publish figures here for that reason. Two things are worth knowing before that call. Underpaying looks like a saving and usually costs you a rehire within a few months, along with the disruption of training someone new. Overpaying well above the local band pulls staff away from neighbouring households and pushes up what everyone in your building pays, and it does not buy you better work. Both are avoidable if you set the salary inside the band and put the number in writing.
Do your household staff speak English?
Some do, at different levels, and we tell you which. Most candidates understand household English, meaning instructions about cleaning, cooking, timings, the children’s routine and groceries, and reply in short sentences. A smaller group is conversationally fluent and can hold a two-way conversation, take a phone message and read to a child. That second group takes longer to find and expects a higher salary. We assess language in the in-person interview and tell you honestly where the person sits, and you speak to her by video call before deciding.
Can you find a cook who makes western food?
Yes, though the pool is smaller than for Indian cooking and the search takes longer. Tell us specifically what you eat. Pasta, roasts, salads and baked dishes are a different skill set from Indian home cooking, and a cook who lists continental experience may have learned three dishes. We also place cooks for vegetarian and vegan households, for families cooking without onion and garlic, and for children’s food kept separate from the adult spice level. A practical option many families use is to hire for the daily Indian cooking and teach four or five of your own recipes in the first month, which usually works better than waiting for a rare match.
What is a normal weekly off in India?
One day a week is the common arrangement for full-time and live-in staff, most often Sunday, though many households agree a different fixed day or alternate Sundays with a half day. Fix the day in the contract rather than leaving it to be arranged week by week. Separately from the weekly off, expect requests for leave around major festivals and a longer trip home once or twice a year, which can mean a week or more away. Households that plan for this keep staff. Households that treat every request as a negotiation tend to lose the person within the year.
What happens when my posting ends and I leave Bangalore?
Give the notice period in your contract, in writing, and pay through the notice. If you can, give more than the contract requires, because it lets her line up the next household without a gap in income. We can help her find the next placement and we can brief an incoming family on how your home ran, but we arrange transfers case by case rather than guaranteeing one. Whether it works depends on who is hiring in your area at that moment. Tell us as soon as you know your end date instead of in the final fortnight. A handover works best when the outgoing helper overlaps with the new family for a few days and hands over the routine herself.
Can you help with the employment contract?
Yes. Drafting the written agreement is part of this placement. It sets out duties, daily hours, the weekly off, annual leave, notice on both sides, monthly salary and the pay date, overtime, festival bonus, and for a live-in the room, meals and genuine off-duty hours. We go through it with both sides so the terms are understood before anyone signs. This is the single most useful thing on this page for a family new to India, because most disputes we see come from something that was assumed rather than written down. It is a private employment agreement between you and the staff member. We are not your lawyers and this is not legal advice, so have it reviewed if your situation needs that.
Do you handle visa or work permit paperwork for the helper?
No, and in most cases none is needed. The household staff we place are Indian citizens working in India, so they do not require a visa or a work permit. Your own visa, FRRO registration and employment paperwork are matters for you and your employer, and we do not give immigration advice or file anything on your behalf. What we do provide is the staff member’s identity and verification document set, which is what apartment associations and building security usually ask for when you register domestic help. If you want to take a helper with you when you leave India, the visa for that is entirely your own and her matter to arrange.
What happens if it does not work out?
Tell your coordinator early rather than waiting for it to become unworkable. Many problems in the first month are instruction and expectation problems that a conversation fixes. If the match is genuinely wrong, we help you replace the person. Live-in placements carry a 7-day cooling-off period, and the 3-month and 11-month plans include free replacements. The exact replacement counts and conditions for each plan are set out in our terms and policies. A replacement is a new search, so allow the same 24 to 72 hours for first profiles and a further period for the interview and handover.
Other placements families here ask for
Households usually staff in stages. These are the pages worth reading next.
English-speaking babysitters
The childcare hire where English fluency is the deciding factor, covered in depth
Learn more →Larger homesHouse manager
Someone to run the staff, vendors and household budget once you employ several people
Learn more →Live-in pairDomestic couple
Two live-in staff in complementary roles for villas and second properties
Learn more →Parents in IndiaHome care for NRI families
Care for ageing parents in Bangalore with updates that work across time zones
Learn more →ScreeningHow we verify people
The screening steps in full, and what the verification report contains
Learn more →TravelPremium chauffeur service
Drivers for high-value cars, with luxury vehicle handling assessed separately
Learn more →Nest by EzyHelpers
India’s first women-only hostel for domestic helpers. A reliable stay for your helper when you travel, removing last-minute stress on both sides.
Tell us how your household needs to run
Share the roles, the hours, your locality and how much English the job genuinely needs. We will give you the current Bangalore salary band on the call, say honestly how long each role will take to fill, and send profiles you can interview.