Domestic work levels: which one is yours, and why it changes your pay
The level written on your payslip decides what you are owed. There are four, each with a «super» version: here are the jobs in each, and the two words — self-sufficient and trained — that are worth almost three hundred euros a month.
Redazione Bahay 5 min read
In this article
In domestic work, pay does not depend on how good you are: it depends on the level you have been graded at. It is a letter written in your hiring letter and on your payslip, and that letter tells you the minimum you are owed.
There are four levels — A, B, C, D — and each has two slots: the ordinary one and the super one. Eight in all. Which one is yours is not for your employer to pick freely: it follows from the work you actually do, as described in article 9 of the CCNL Colf e Badanti 2025–2028 — the agreement signed on 28 October 2025 by FIDALDO and DOMINA — the employers' associations — with FILCAMS CGIL, FISASCAT CISL, UILTUCS and FEDERCOLF. The full name matters: more than one collective agreement exists for domestic work and they look alike. The official text is in the CNEL contract archive.
Level A and A super
Level A is for people who do not care for anyone and work under the direct supervision of the person who hired them: cleaner, laundry worker, kitchen assistant, stable hand, someone looking after pets, someone tending and watering green areas, general labourer.
Level A super holds a single profile: companionship, meaning someone who exclusively keeps a self-sufficient adult company, with no other duties at all. If you also clean or cook, it is no longer A super.
Level B and B super
Level B is for those who work with specific competence. It is the most crowded level: the general multi-purpose assistant (a bit of everything — cleaning, tidying, cooking, laundry, pets), private house caretaker, ironing worker, table and room waiter, gardener, skilled labourer, driver, and whoever makes up the rooms and serves breakfast to guests.
Level B super is for the family assistant caring for self-sufficient people and for the baby sitter. In both cases, if asked, the work connected to meals and to cleaning the house where the assisted people live is included: doing it does not move you down a level.
Level C and C super
Level C holds a single profile: the cook, who prepares meals and also takes care of buying what is needed. The contract requires basic theoretical and technical knowledge and full autonomy.
Level C super is for the family assistant caring for non-self-sufficient people who is not trained. Keep this one in mind: it is where most badanti end up, and it is not always the right slot.
Level D and D super
Level D is for those with responsibility, decision-making autonomy or coordination of other people: family estate administrator, butler, housekeeper, head cook, head gardener, tutor.
Level D super holds the family assistant caring for non-self-sufficient people who is trained, the house manager and the trained family assistant educator.
Levels D and D super always get a separate amount, the function allowance, worth € 207.69 a month.
«Self-sufficient» and «trained»: the two words that move the pay
For a live-in worker, more than € 280 a month separates C super from D super. The whole distance between the two slots sits in one word: trained.
The contract says when a person counts as trained: when they hold a diploma in the specific field of their duties, obtained in Italy or abroad provided it is equivalent, or a training course of the minimum length set by regional law and in any case no shorter than 500 hours.
And it adds something worth knowing: to get level D super, it is the worker who must give written notice to the employer and hand over a copy of the diploma — including when the qualification is obtained after the job has started. If you hold the qualification but never handed it in, the level does not apply by itself.
The other word is self-sufficient, and it too is defined: a person able to carry out the most important activities of personal care and social life. Someone caring for a person who cannot is not at level B super: they are at least at C super.
If you do several jobs at once
It happens nearly always: you care for an elderly person, and meanwhile you cook, iron and walk the dog. The contract has a single, clear rule: whoever performs multiple duties is entitled to the level matching the prevailing duties — the ones that weigh most.
So it is not true that cleaning makes you a colf: if most of your time goes to assisting a non-self-sufficient person, that is where the level is read from.
How a level is changed
There is no form to send to an office: the level lives in an agreement between two people, and it changes by talking about it and putting it in writing. What you can do, in order:
- Look at what it says now, in the hiring letter and on the payslip. Very often the written level and the real work do not match, and nobody has noticed.
- Write down what you actually do in a typical day: do you help the person wash, eat, move? Do you cook? Do you clean? How long for each?
- If you have a diploma or a course, hand in a copy in writing: without that step, D super does not arrive.
- Get help from a patronato or a trade union to ask for the change. It is free, and they know how to write the request without breaking the relationship.
Bahay Italia does not decide your level and cannot certify it: here you find how the scale is built, so that when you talk about it you know what you are talking about.
Not sure which level applies to you? Describe what your day looks like in the Work section of the community: it is the right question to ask out loud.
