Do I still have to provide meals if I pay my helper the food allowance?

The contract gives you two ways to feed her

Under the Standard Employment Contract, you either provide your foreign domestic helper with food free of charge, or you pay her a food allowance each month. The current allowance rate is HK$1,236 per month, unchanged in the October 2026 review. You pick one arrangement, and it is written into the contract at signing.

Paying the allowance is not a shortcut or a lesser option. It discharges the meal obligation in full. If the allowance is what suits your household, you are meeting the contract completely.

If you provide food instead

The contract does not dictate a menu. The Labour Department's guidance is that, in general, at least three suitable meals a day should be provided, and it encourages employers and helpers to discuss dietary needs openly so the arrangement works for both sides.

What the contract does not allow is neither: no food and no allowance. One of the two must be in place for every month of the employment.

Switching is allowed, and worth writing down

Households change their minds, and the arrangement can change with them. If you move from food to the allowance, or the other way round, put the change in writing with the date it takes effect. It matters beyond tidiness: the food allowance appears as its own line in the final payment when a contract ends, so a clear record of which arrangement applied, and from when, keeps the settlement clean.

When the family travels

Here is where employers most often tie themselves in knots. The Standard Employment Contract is a Hong Kong document: it fixes her duties at your Hong Kong address and her meals with your Hong Kong household. It does not script what happens on a family holiday abroad.

If she travels with you, meals on the trip are simply for the two of you to agree before you go, in writing if it matters to either of you. That is a household conversation, not a legal one, and our household rules template is a good place to have it.

One thing is worth saying plainly: not contractual is not the same as do nothing. She is away from her own kitchen and her own routine because you asked her to be. Covering her meals on a trip she joined for your family is ordinary decency, and most employers would not dream of doing otherwise.

The myth: the allowance is a top-up

Some employers believe the food allowance is extra pocket money owed on top of providing all her meals. It is not; the two are alternatives, not additions. Others assume the Hong Kong contract follows them onto the plane and dictates every meal abroad. It does not. It was written for the employment in Hong Kong.

Want the full monthly cost, start to finish?

GMA sets out everything you will pay each month before you commit: the wage, the allowances, and our own fee, with nothing added later. See our pricing, and if a contract is ending, our termination settlement calculator shows how the food allowance line is settled. Questions about your own arrangement? Contact us.