Domestic and care work is one of the largest job categories in the world, and one of the least served by mainstream career sites. The International Labour Organization estimates 67.1 million domestic workers globally, more than 11.5 million of them international migrants, and roughly three in four are women. Aging populations across Europe, East Asia, and North America mean the category is growing, not shrinking. It is also a sector where recruitment can be genuinely exploitative, so this directory pays close attention to fees, verification, and who actually holds the power in each platform’s model, not only what each site does.
General Childcare and Household Platforms
GreatAuPair has operated since 2001 and covers au pairs, nannies, babysitters, tutors, personal assistants, and senior care providers across more than 150 countries. Workers create a free profile; families pay for access to search and contact candidates, which means the platform’s fee structure does not extract money from the worker side, a meaningful distinction in this sector. GreatAuPair also maintains visa information by destination country, useful for anyone considering an international au pair placement, though workers should still independently verify visa requirements with the destination country’s official immigration source rather than relying solely on a private platform’s summary.
Care.com is the largest general caregiving marketplace, covering childcare, senior care, pet care, and housekeeping, primarily in the US. It is worth knowing that Care.com settled with the FTC for $8.5 million in 2024 over deceptive practices, including inadequate background check claims, misleading earnings estimates for caregivers, and subscription cancellation practices designed to be difficult to complete. The company has since made changes required by the settlement. Workers using the platform should treat any background check badge or verification claim as a starting point rather than a guarantee, and should independently confirm details of any position before accepting.
AuPair.com is a European-founded platform focused specifically on au pair placements, connecting young adults with host families for cultural exchange stays that typically include language learning as part of the arrangement. It operates across a wide range of European and non-European destinations and is a reasonable starting point for younger workers specifically interested in the au pair model rather than longer-term domestic employment.
UAE and Gulf Domestic Worker Platforms
MaidFinder has operated in the UAE since roughly 2012 and lists housekeepers, nannies, cooks, and drivers, filterable by nationality, visa status, and work arrangement. Its fee model charges the hiring family a subscription, typically in the range of AED 199 to 350 for a set access period, rather than charging the worker, which again is the more ethical direction for fees to flow in this sector. MaidFinder states affiliation with Tadbeer, the UAE’s official licensing body for domestic worker recruitment under the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization, which is worth confirming directly with Tadbeer before relying on any specific placement, since third-party claims of official affiliation should always be independently checked rather than taken at face value.
Workers considering domestic work in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere in the Gulf should read this alongside the site’s guide to how recent Gulf labor reforms affect worker mobility, since domestic workers are consistently the group left out of, or covered later by, the kafala reforms that have extended more protection to other private-sector employees. This is the single most important thing to understand before accepting a domestic work placement anywhere in the Gulf region.
High-End Household Staffing Agencies
Morgan & Mallet is a household staffing agency operating in the UAE and several other markets, placing staff in private homes, embassies, and family offices. It is worth being direct about what this kind of agency actually is: it is not a self-service job board a worker browses and applies through. It is an employer-facing recruitment service, and workers typically register interest and go through a vetting and interview process managed by the agency rather than applying directly to postings. This model can offer higher-end placements with more formal contracts, but workers should ask directly about fee structure, since some agencies in this space charge candidates placement fees while others do not, and that distinction matters considerably for take-home pay in the first months of a placement.
What to Check Before Accepting Any Placement
Fee direction is the clearest signal available to a job seeker evaluating any platform or agency in this sector. Legitimate platforms and agencies generally charge the hiring family, not the worker, for access, matching, or verification services. Any platform, agency, or individual recruiter asking a domestic or care worker to pay a placement fee, a visa processing fee, or a “training deposit” before starting work should be treated with serious caution, and workers should independently verify such requests against guidance from a recognized labor rights organization before paying anything.
Contract clarity matters more in this sector than almost any other, because domestic work often happens inside a private home without co-workers, a manager, or witnesses to working conditions. A written contract specifying hours, pay, days off, and living arrangements, if the role is live-in, is the baseline protection every worker should insist on having before travel or relocation, not after arrival.
For rights information independent of any hiring platform, the International Domestic Workers Federation is a global union federation representing domestic workers across dozens of countries, and it maintains resources in multiple languages on ILO Convention 189, the main international labor standard covering domestic work. It is not a job board, but it is a credible independent source for understanding what protections should apply in a given country before accepting a position.