UAE Domestic Worker Visa Sponsorship Transfer: Can You Change Employers?

Domestic workers in the UAE, employed as housekeepers, nannies, drivers, and similar household roles under the framework set out by Federal Decree-Law No. 9 of 2022, sometimes need or want to move from one sponsoring household to another, and the transfer process here works meaningfully differently from a standard employment visa transfer between two commercial employers.

Because domestic worker recruitment and sponsorship is generally required to go through MOHRE or an approved Tadbeer center rather than being arranged informally between households, a sponsorship transfer typically needs to route through the same official channel rather than the outgoing and incoming employer simply agreeing between themselves. The current sponsor generally needs to formally release the worker, confirming in writing that all owed wages and entitlements, including any accrued leave, have been settled, before a new sponsoring household can register the worker under a new contract.

A domestic worker cannot self-transfer sponsorship independently the way a freelancer or investor might cancel and re-sponsor their own visa; both the outgoing household's release and the incoming household's registration through Tadbeer or MOHRE are required steps, and skipping either side generally leaves the worker's status unresolved rather than cleanly transferred. Given the specific worker protections built into this framework, weekly rest periods, defined leave entitlements, and wage payment timing among them, a new sponsoring household also needs to register a fresh, compliant employment contract as part of the transfer rather than assuming the previous contract's terms simply carry over.

For situations involving a dispute between the worker and the outgoing employer, unpaid wages or disagreement over the circumstances of departure, for example, MOHRE's dedicated resolution process for domestic worker complaints generally needs to be resolved before a clean transfer can proceed, and given how much more protective and distinct this framework is from standard employment law, both households and the worker generally benefit from going through a Tadbeer center or an advisor experienced with domestic worker cases specifically, rather than assuming the standard employment visa transfer process applies here as well.