If someone cleans your home, tends your garden, watches your children, or cares for an elderly family member — you are an employer under South African law. That means COIDA applies to you. Most South African households don’t know this, and the consequences of not knowing can be severe.
Why households are now included under COIDA
For most of its history, COIDA — the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act— explicitly excluded domestic workers from its definition of “employee.” That changed in November 2020 when the Constitutional Court ruled, in the case of Mahlangu v Minister of Labour, that this exclusion was unconstitutional.
In plain English: the court found that it was unfair for a domestic worker to have no legal protection if she was injured doing exactly the kind of physical work — cleaning, carrying, gardening, childcare — that carries real injury risk every day.
From 10 March 2021, the Compensation Fund opened its registration system to household employers. Every South African household that employs a domestic worker, gardener, nanny, caregiver, or similar worker became legally required to register. The 2026 COIDA Amendment Acttightened this further by introducing immediate administrative fines for non-compliance — replacing the previously slow criminal prosecution process with penalties the Department can issue on the spot, including during unannounced inspections at private homes.
If you employ someone in or around your home and you have never registered with the Compensation Fund, this article is for you.
Who counts as a domestic worker?
COIDA as a household employer applies to anyone who performs work in or around your private home on a regular basis. This includes:
- Your domestic cleaner or housekeeper — whether she comes every day or twice a week
- Your gardener or groundsperson
- Your nanny, au pair, or childminder
- A caregiver for an elderly parent or family member with a disability
- A household driver
- A security guard you employ directly at your home
The 24-hour threshold matters for UIF but notfor COIDA domestic worker registration. Under COIDA, if a person works for you and you pay them — in cash or otherwise — you are a household employer and the obligation applies.
What are your obligations as a household employer?
There are three obligations, and they follow in sequence.
Register with the Compensation Fund.This must be done within seven days of your domestic worker starting employment. Most households register long after this — the Fund treats late registration as a regularisation rather than a criminal matter, provided no injury claim has been made. Register as soon as possible if you have not done so.
Submit a Return of Earnings annually.The Return of Earnings — known as the ROE — is a short annual declaration of what you paid your domestic worker during the year. It is used by the Compensation Fund to calculate your annual contribution. The ROE window opens in April each year and closes at the end of June. For most household employers, the ROE takes under 15 minutes to complete. For full details on the process and deadline, see our COIDA Return of Earnings guide.
Pay the assessed contribution. After you submit the ROE, the Compensation Fund issues a Notice of Assessment showing what you owe for the year. Payment is due within 30 days of the notice. Once paid, your Letter of Good Standing is issued.
What does it actually cost?
The minimum domestic employer COIDA assessment for 2025/2026 is R560.
Your exact assessment depends on what you paid your domestic worker during the year. Domestic employers fall under Class Mof the COIDA tariff schedule — the rate is approximately 1.04% of total annual earningspaid to the worker. The earnings ceiling for 2025/2026 is R633,168 per employee, but your domestic worker’s earnings are unlikely to approach that figure.
For a domestic worker earning R4,000 per month — R48,000 per year — the calculated assessment at the Class M tariff is approximately R499. Since this falls below the R560 minimum, the minimum applies. You would pay R560 for the year.
For a domestic worker earning R6,000 per month — R72,000 per year — the assessment is approximately R749. Above the minimum, so you pay R749.
To put this in perspective: R560 to R750 per year is less than a week’s wages for the person who works in your home. It is also the only protection standing between you and an unlimited personal liability if she is ever injured at work.
What happens if you don’t register?
This is where the consequences become serious — though not in the dramatic way you might expect. The Compensation Fund is not primarily a punitive body. What it is, is a recovery body.
If your domestic worker is injured at work and you are not registered with the Fund, she can still claim. The Compensation Fund will assess her injury, pay her medical costs, compensate her for lost income, and cover any disability or rehabilitation she needs. The Fund does not leave injured workers without support simply because their employer failed to register.
What the Fund does do is recover the full cost from you.
There is no cap on this recovery. A domestic worker who slips on a wet kitchen floor and fractures her hip, requiring surgery, hospitalisation, physiotherapy, and several months of reduced capacity, could generate a claim of tens of thousands of rands. All of it comes to you personally. There is no insurance buffer and no limit.
The 2026 COIDA Amendment Act also allows the Department of Employment and Labour to conduct unannounced inspections at private homesand issue immediate administrative fines for unregistered household employers. This is new — and it means the risk of enforcement is no longer theoretical.
How to register — step by step
Registration is done online and takes approximately 30 minutes for a first-time household employer.
- Go to cfportal.labour.gov.za— the Compensation Fund’s online portal
- Create a new employer account. You will need your personal income tax number. Household employers use their personal tax number, not a company registration number.
- Complete the registration form. Enter your home address as the workplace address and describe the nature of the work your domestic worker performs.
- Submit and wait for your employer reference number— this usually arrives within a few days by email.
- When the ROE window opens (April to June each year), log in and submit your Return of Earnings — the total amount you paid your domestic worker during the year.
- Pay the assessment within 30 days of receiving your Notice of Assessment.
- Download your Letter of Good Standing from the portal once payment clears.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of the ROE process itself, see our COIDA registration and Letter of Good Standing guide.
What if you have never registered?
The honest answer: most South African households haven’t. The Mahlangu ruling and the formal extension of COIDA to household employers only happened in 2021. Many households only became aware of the obligation in 2023 or later when the 2026 amendments started being reported on.
If your domestic worker has been with you for years and you have never registered, you can still register now. The Compensation Fund will not penalise you for prior years in which no claim was made. You register, you submit your current-year ROE, you pay the current assessment, and you move forward.
The one situation where retroactive liability applies is if a claim has already been made — or is made in the future — for an injury that occurred during a period you were unregistered. In that case, the Fund can recover costs for that period regardless of when you eventually registered.
The safest path is to register immediately. The process is straightforward and the cost is modest.
The R560 minimum annual COIDA domestic worker contribution is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy against an injury claim that could cost you hundreds of thousands of rands.