How to hire remote employees in

Albania

Albania is home to some great remote talent. Want to know how you can hire that talent, legally, without wading into months of paperwork and thousands of dollars in fees? In the next few minutes, we’ll teach you.

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Employment requirements

Country snapshot

CURRENCY

Albanian Lek (ALL)

EMPLOYER TAXES

31.64%

PAYROLL FREQUENCY

Monthly

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

Albanian

Why hire independent contractors in Albania

Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in Albania.

It’s the fastest way to hire globally

Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.

It’s a lot cheaper

It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

It’s more flexible for you & your team

HHiring contractors in Albania means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.

Can be less risky than hiring employees

Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.

Some people want to be employees

The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.

You might not have as much control over your talent

Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.

What to know before you hire in Albania

Hiring in Albania? That’s excellent. There are two options: You can hire your talent as employees, or you can hire them as contractors. Because of Albania’s labor law structure, there are benefits and disadvantages to each approach.

If you want to successfully hire in Albania, you have two options:

Hire talent as contractors

Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in Albania. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.

Hire talent as employees

This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in Albania is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.

Hire contractors in a couple clicks with Thera

How can I pay people in Albania

If you’re hiring contractors in Albania, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.

If you want to hire employees in Albania

If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Albania than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Albania.

Taxes in Albania

Employer tax

Employer Contributions

31.64%

Leave

Paid Time Off (PTO)

An employee who has worked a full year is entitled to 4 weeks (28 days) of paid leave. If the employee has been employed for less than one year, leave is calculated on a prorated basis.

Public Holidays

There are 15 public holidays.

Sick Days

An employee can claim sick leave for the entire time of their illness until their doctor confirms that the employee is able to return. For the first 14 days of sick leave, the employer is obligated to pay 80% of the employee’s salary. From the 15th day onward, Social Insurance compensates the employee for 70% of their average salary of the past 6 months.

Maternity Leave

Women are entitled to 12 consecutive months of maternity leave. This includes a minimum of 35 days of leave before the child is born and 63 days after the birth of the child. Women who carry more than one child are entitled to 390 days of maternity leave.

During maternity leave the Social Insurance compensates the employee for 80% of the average monthly salary from the last 12 months for the first 6 months and 50% for the following 6 months.

Paternity Leave

There are no statutory laws regarding paternity leave.

Parental Leave

An employee is entitled to 15 days of paid leave a year for a child under the age of 3 and 12 days for a child over the age of 3. In addition, an employee can take an additional 30 days of unpaid leave a year.

Bereavement Leave

In the event of the death of a spouse or a member of your immediate family, the employee is entitled to 10 days leave.

Termination

Termination Process

For fixed-term contracts that are expiring, there are no obligations from the employee or employer to undergo any sort of termination process.

If an employer wishes to dismiss an employee, the employer is obligated to deliver prior notice to the employee and within 72 hours must have a meeting with the employee to discuss the reason for termination and allow the employee to present their counterarguments. Should the employer fail to meet within 72 hours, the employee may be entitled to compensation.

Notice Period

1 months’ notice during the 2 first years of employment
2 months’ notice during 2 to 5 years of employment
3 months’ notice after 5 years of employment

Severance Pay

If the employee has worked more than 3 years, they are entitled to 15 days of severance pay.

Probation Period

3 months

Employee requirements in Albania

Working Hours

A full-time work week is 40 hours.

Overtime

Overtime is work in excess of 40 hours a week and is paid at the rate of 125% of the regular pay. Alternatively, the employer can compensate the employee with time off instead of additional pay.

For work on weekends and public holidays, the employee is entitled to pay at a rate of 150% of the regular pay.

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