BUSINESS

China Unveils Sweeping Measures to Upgrade Domestic Service Sector

Published: Jul. 22, 2026 1:16 a.m. GMT+8

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A domestic worker performs cleaning duties in a home. Photo: VCG

Nine Chinese government departments, led by the Ministry of Commerce, on Monday unveiled 19 measures to upgrade the country’s domestic service industry.

The policies are the first concerted effort to professionalize a vast but fragmented sector that employs more than 30 million people. They aim to address a widening mismatch between fast-growing urban demand for higher-quality care and a shrinking, low-skilled migrant workforce.

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What Happened When

2021：: Start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period; enrollment of flexible workers in the basic medical insurance program for urban employees began at a lower count.

2024：: China's domestic service sector was worth more than 1.2 trillion yuan ($180 billion); microenterprises with annual revenue below 1 million yuan account for 79% of the market, while firms with revenue above 5 million yuan make up just 1%, according to an industry report from 2024.

2025：: 69.82 million flexible workers were enrolled in the basic medical insurance program for urban employees, up by more than 20 million from 2021.

2026：: Implementation of multiple measures, including cultivating branded domestic service companies, encouraging insurers to develop tailored products, urging platform companies to subsidize workers' insurance enrollment, easing household-registration restrictions for flexible workers, extending maternity insurance, establishing community-level medical insurance service stations, offering tax breaks and social security subsidies, building labor matching platforms, updating national occupational standards, and incorporating domestic service skills into national vocational competitions.

January 2026：: State Council issued an action plan to foster new areas of service consumption.

By 2026：: The Ministry of Commerce's industry credit system platform collected data on more than 20,000 companies and over 900,000 domestic workers.

Monday (As of article context, likely in 2026)：: Nine Chinese government departments, led by the Ministry of Commerce, unveiled 19 measures to upgrade the country's domestic service industry in 2026.