Dar Es Salaam - Post Report Question and Answers
What is the availability and cost of household help, and what types of help are typically employed by expatriates?
Household help is very affordable. $300-ish a month. People commonly have drivers, house keepers, Nannies, cooks, athletic trainers. - Nov 2022
Plentiful and cheap. People employ nannies, housekeepers, drivers, gardeners, pet walkers, cooks. Usually you can employ someone full time and pay around $250 a month. - Jul 2022
Available and cheap. Some have maids, cooks, drivers and gardeners. - Jan 2022
Very available and reasonable rates. - Oct 2021
Widely available & cheap. Housekeepers are US$2 an hour or less. I have a part time housekeeper and a part time gardener and I pay less than US$200 per month. Be warned - around Christmas, it seems they will ask you for a huge loan and pay it off thru reduced pay. My gardener requested a five year repayment timeframe. - May 2020
Ubiquitous and affordable. Though don't expect great English skills for most. - Jun 2017
I paid about US$100 a month for part -ime help and she was wonderful. There are tons of domestic workers looking for work at all times of year. - Dec 2015
Widely available. Cost for a full-time housekeeper is about US$150-200/month; plus annual one-month bonus; plus severance pay at end. Full-time gardener earns US$100/month. Nannies and cooks earn about same or a little more than housekeepers. Guards are paid by Embassy, but some families provide one meal per shift, though RSO discouraged this when the contract changed. - Jul 2015
Lots of availability, but I have no idea how much the wages are. - Mar 2014
They are everywhere and relatively cheap. Although there are tough laws for insuring them. - Feb 2013
Very reasonable. We had a FT housekeeper/nanny that we paid about US$185/month. This was on the higher end as embassy employees, but people generally had a gardener, maid, and sometimes nanny as well. - Feb 2013
Cheap and available, although English can be a problem. Tanzania has some pretty strict labor laws regarding time off and pay, so sometimes expats feel their staff is taking advantage of them (by never coming into work). - Aug 2011
Domestic help is common and inexpensive ,but watch out for theft. - Jun 2010
