Caregiver Salary Abroad: What Governments Publish
Cross-agency · employment
Quick answer
Four destinations publish caregiver pay officially: Canada at a CAD 20.50 hourly median, Japan at 338,200 yen a month, the United States at USD 35,800 a year and Australia at an award floor of A$1,307.80 a week for a direct carer. Taiwan and Israel publish nothing comparable.
Every figure on this page is from official published documents: Government of Canada, Job Bank, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan and 2 more.
Last verified 4 sources, listed below
Government of Canada, Job Bank | Home Support Worker in Canada, Wages1 · Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan | Reiwa 6 Survey on the Status of Treatment of Care Service Workers2 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Occupational Outlook Handbook, Home Health and Personal Care Aides3 · Fair Work Ombudsman | Aged Care Award [MA000018]4. PHGuides is independent and not affiliated with any agency.
Caregiving is the OFW job with the widest gap between what is claimed online and what any government actually publishes. Four destinations publish a real figure. The rest do not, and this page says so rather than filling the gap with a recruiter’s estimate.
What each government publishes
| Destination | Headline figure | What it measures | As at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | CAD 20.50 an hour | Prevailing median, NOC 44101 | Nov 2025 |
| Japan | ¥338,200 a month | Average, including allowances and bonus | Sep 2024 |
| United States | USD 35,800 a year, USD 17.21 an hour | Median across the occupation | May 2025 |
| Australia | A$1,307.80 a week | Award minimum for a direct carer | 1 Jul 2026 |
The Australian floor, level by level
Australia is the only one of the four that publishes a legal minimum rather than a statistic. The Aged Care Award sets it by classification.
| Aged care employee, direct care | Weekly minimum |
|---|---|
| Level 1, Introductory | A$1,239.00 |
| Level 2, Direct Carer | A$1,307.80 |
| Level 3, Qualified | A$1,376.70 |
| Level 4, Senior | A$1,431.80 |
| Level 5, Specialist | A$1,486.80 |
| Level 6, Team Leader | A$1,541.90 |
From introductory to team leader is A$302.90 a week. The award notes that hourly rates are derived by dividing the weekly rate by 38 ordinary hours, which puts a direct carer at about A$34.42 an hour. Both are arithmetic on the published rates.
One thing to watch: from 1 January 2025 the Nurses Award stopped covering nursing assistants who provide care to older people in residential aged care or home care. Those workers moved to this award and to the Social and Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award.
Four different kinds of number
| Kind | Destinations | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Median across everyone in the job | Canada, United States | Half earn more, half earn less |
| Average, including allowances and bonus | Japan | The middle, inflated by extras a median would not show |
| Legal minimum | Australia | The floor, not the offer |
Japan’s number needs the most care. Its ¥338,200 is basic pay plus allowances plus a bonus component, and the basic pay inside it is only ¥192,660, or 57 percent. A Japanese offer quoting basic pay alone is not comparable to a Canadian median.
Where the demand is
| Jobs now | Projected growth | |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 4,677,100 in 2025 | 18 percent to 2035, change of 847,300 |
| All US occupations | 3 percent |
BLS calls that much faster than average. It is 6 times the all-occupations rate. The United States publishes the lowest wage of the four relative to its own economy and by far the largest demand, and both of those are worth knowing together.
Caregiving against nursing, where the source is the same
These two comparisons are like for like: same publisher, same date, same basis.
| Nurse | Caregiver | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada, hourly median | CAD 43.27 | CAD 20.50 | CAD 22.77 |
| United States, annual median | USD 97,550 | USD 35,800 | USD 61,750 |
Nursing is more than double in Canada and 2.7 times in the United States. The nurse salary abroad comparison covers seven destinations on the nursing side.
The markets with no published figure
This is the honest part, and it covers some of the biggest destinations for Filipino caregivers.
No official wage figure was found for caregivers in Taiwan, Israel or the Gulf while researching this page. Every number in circulation for those markets traces to recruitment agencies or salary websites. This site does not carry those, so it carries nothing for them.
Singapore is a near miss, and the same limitation applies to its nursing figures. Its Ministry of Manpower publishes S$3,000 median gross monthly for a nursing aide or assistant and S$2,432 for a healthcare assistant, but the dataset covers full-time residents only, and a Filipino caregiver in Singapore is normally a work permit holder outside that population. The figure is real and it is not about you.
Hong Kong publishes a minimum for domestic helpers rather than for caregivers, and the domestic helper salary in Hong Kong guide carries that instead.
An absence of a published source is not a claim that pay is low. It means nobody official has said, and a page that invented a figure would be worse than one that admits the gap.
What none of these tells you
No conversion. Nothing here is converted to pesos, because a rate today is not the rate on the day a source published.
No cost of living. A higher figure in a more expensive place is not more money in hand.
No entry rules. None of the four sources publishes visas, credential recognition, language testing or care qualifications, so none is stated here.
The Philippine side is the same everywhere
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| DMW processing, direct hire | USD 100, in peso equivalent |
| DMW processing, manual OEC through a landbased agency | ₱200.00 |
| OWWA membership | USD 25 |
| Pag-IBIG | ₱600.00 |
Charging above the allowable schedule is illegal recruitment under RA 10022, carrying 12 years and 1 day to 20 years and a fine of ₱1,000,000.00 to ₱2,000,000.00, and a placement fee loan may not bear interest above 8% per annum.
The recruitment agencies guide covers the DMW licence directory, the deployment bans and placement fees guide covers when no fee may be charged at all, and the OEC guide covers the exit certificate.
Related
The nurse salary abroad comparison covers the seven destinations that publish nursing pay, the domestic helper salary in Hong Kong guide covers the one market with a published household worker minimum, and the PEOS guide covers the free seminar to take before applying.
Frequently asked questions
- Which country pays caregivers the most?
- The four sources are not comparable, so no honest ranking is possible from them alone. Canada publishes an hourly median, Japan a monthly average, the United States an annual median and Australia a weekly legal floor, in four currencies with reference dates from September 2024 to July 2026.
- What does each source actually measure?
- Canada and the United States publish a median across everyone in the occupation. Japan publishes an average, including allowances and a bonus component. Australia publishes a minimum an employer may lawfully pay, which is not typical pay.
- Why is nothing converted to pesos?
- A conversion needs an exchange rate, and the rate on the day you read this is not the rate on the day a source published. Adding one would put a number on the page that no source stands behind.
- Which destination has the most demand?
- The United States on the published projections. BLS puts the occupation at 4,677,100 jobs in 2025 and projects 18 percent growth to 2035, an employment change of 847,300, against 3 percent across all occupations.
- What about Taiwan, Israel and Hong Kong?
- No official wage figure was found for caregivers in those markets while researching this page. Every figure in circulation for them traces to recruiters or salary sites, which this site does not carry. That is an absence of a published source, not a claim that pay is low.
- What about Singapore?
- Singapore's MOM dataset publishes S$3,000 median gross monthly for a nursing aide or assistant and S$2,432 for a healthcare assistant, but it covers full-time residents only. Filipino caregivers there are usually work permit holders, who are outside that population.
- How does caregiving compare with nursing?
- Where both come from the same source, nursing is far ahead. In Canada the medians are CAD 43.27 against CAD 20.50, and in the United States USD 97,550 against USD 35,800, which is 2.7 times.
- Does the Philippine side change by destination?
- No. The OEC, OWWA membership and the licensed agency or qualifying direct hire rule apply the same way everywhere, because they are Philippine exit requirements rather than destination entry requirements.
More Cross-agency guides
Sources
- Government of Canada, Job Bank | Home Support Worker in Canada, Wages, retrieved
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan | Reiwa 6 Survey on the Status of Treatment of Care Service Workers, retrieved
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | Occupational Outlook Handbook, Home Health and Personal Care Aides, retrieved
- Fair Work Ombudsman | Aged Care Award [MA000018], retrieved