A plate gets broken. A phone goes missing. The car comes back scratched.
The near-universal belief is that you may take it off their wage, provided they agree, and provided you do not take too much at once. That belief is wrong for domestic workers, and it is wrong in a way that consent does not fix.
The closed list
Clause 8 of Sectoral Determination 7 sets out what may be deducted from a domestic worker's wage. It is a closed list. If a deduction is not on it, it may not be made at all, with or without their agreement, in writing or otherwise.
What is on it, in substance:
- Deductions required or permitted by law: UIF, and PAYE where tax is actually owed
- Amounts an employee has agreed in writing to have paid to a third party on their behalf, such as a savings or funeral scheme
- Accommodation, capped at 10 percent of the wage, and only if the room meets the standard in clause 8(b)
- Repayment of an advance the employer has made to them, limited to one-tenth of the wage due on that payday
Damage, loss and breakages are not on that list.
Why the usual advice is wrong here
If you search for this, you will find the BCEA section 34(2) route: written consent, a fair procedure, the loss occurred in the course of employment, and a cap of 25 percent of remuneration. That is real law, and it applies to employees generally.
It does not reach a domestic worker. Clause 1(4) of SD7 says the BCEA applies only to matters SD7 does not regulate, and SD7 clause 8 regulates deductions. So the consent-and-25-percent route is displaced, and what remains is the closed list, which does not include damage.
This is the single most consequential difference between the business answer and the household answer, and almost every article you will read on the subject gives you the business one.
Two more things you may not do
You may not withhold pay for the tools of the job. Clause 7(1) says an employer may not require an employee to pay for their training, work equipment or tools, work clothing, or any food supplied while they are working or at the workplace.
So the uniform is yours to provide. So are the gloves, the cleaning products and the lunch, if you supply it. Charging for them, or docking the wage to recover them, is not permitted.
You may not fine them. Clause 7(3) prohibits fining an employee. Late three times, R50 a time, is not a disciplinary measure available to you. Lateness is a discipline matter, handled as discipline.
The accommodation deduction, in detail
If they live on the property, you may deduct for accommodation, but only up to 10 percent of the wage, and only if the room meets a real standard set in clause 8(b):
- weatherproof and generally kept in good condition
- has at least one window and a door that can be locked
- has a toilet and a bath or shower, either in the room or within reasonable access
If the room does not meet that, the deduction is not available. The cap and the conditions travel together.
Advances, and the one-tenth limit
An advance against wages is allowed and is often genuinely useful, but recovery is capped at one-tenth of the wage due on that payday under clause 8(d).
That is a real constraint on how fast you can be repaid. An advance of a month's wage takes ten paydays to recover, not one. Recovering the whole amount from the next wage is a deduction beyond what clause 8(d) permits, even where they asked for the advance and agreed to repay it that way.
It is worth naming what an employer advance is and is not. It is money you have given their early against wages they will earn. You are not lending to them, there is no interest, and it is not credit in the sense the National Credit Act deals with.
Every deduction goes on the payslip
Clause 6(1) requires a statement on every pay day, and it must show the deductions. A deduction that does not appear on the payslip is a deduction they cannot see, cannot check and cannot question.
That is also, practically, how disputes start. The wage you agreed and the money that arrived are different numbers, nothing explains the gap, and by the time anyone asks, neither of you remembers which month it related to. What a payslip must show goes through the full list.
If they have genuinely damaged something
You are not without options. You just do not have the deduction.
- Address it as a discipline matter, with a fair process
- Agree a repayment separately, understanding that you cannot enforce it by deducting from the wage
- For a serious or deliberate act, the ordinary legal routes are open to you
What you cannot do is decide the amount yourself and take it off the wage at the end of the month.
A note for small businesses
If you employ someone in a business rather than a household, SD7 does not apply to that employee and the BCEA does. Section 34 is then the right place to look, including the written-consent route and the 25 percent cap for loss or damage. Several answers on this page flip.
Knowing which of the two you are is the first question, not a detail.
WageDesk records deductions as separate, named lines on the payslip and prices an advance repayment against the wage for that period, so what came off is visible to both of you on the day rather than reconstructed later.
This article explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. A specific deduction dispute needs proper advice.