Bahamas
So you’re interested in The Bahamas, and not just for vacation—you want to hire someone who’s located there. No problem. On this page, you’ll learn exactly what you need to know before making hires in The Bahamas: Legal obligations, risks, and the easiest path to hiring great talent overseas.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Bahamian dollar
EMPLOYER TAXES
5.9%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
English
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
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.
Sure, the lifestyle in The Bahamas may be laid back. But that doesn’t mean the labor laws are. Before you hire, you’ll need to know your options, and there are two: Hire employees, or hire contractors. Here are the differences:
Hire talent as contractors
Hire talent as employees
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in The Bahamas 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 The Bahamas
Employer tax
National Insurance
Individual tax
National Insurance - 3.9%
Paid Time Off (PTO)
In Bahamas, employees with 12 months of consecutive employment are entitled to a minimum of two weeks’ paid leave:
- When employees have completed six months of work, they can get one week of paid leaves.
- The paid leaves are over and above the public holidays.
- When employees complete a year of work, they are entitled to two weeks of paid leaves.
- Employees that complete seven-plus years get three weeks of paid leaves.
- It is also mandatory that the pay for the paid leaves is paid before the start of vacation.
Public Holidays
There are 10 public holidays.
Sick Days
Employees with six months of consecutive employment are entitled to one week’s sick leave per year.
Maternity Leave
Female employees receive 60 days of maternity leave. The maternity benefits are paid for the 60 days of the maternity leave, half of each can be taken before the birth.
Paternity Leave
Female workers with more than 12 weeks of employment are entitled to nine weeks of maternity leave.
Parental Leave
Other than the mentioned terms for maternity leave, there are no comprehensive provisions in the Bahamas law regarding paternity leave.
Other Leave
No Info.
Marriage Leave
No Info.
Bereavement Leave
According to General Orders 1621, Compassionate leave may be granted by a Permanent Secretary on the grounds of urgent personal affairs, such as accident, death and serious illness of immediate family, and emergencies caused by fire or flooding, up to a maximum of 8 days per annum.
Termination Process
Employers in the Bahamas can terminate employees provided they offer them the required notice or severance compensation.
The employee can build a wrongful dismissal case if the employer does not meet the above statutory clauses.
Employers have the right to termination when employees breach the terms of the employment contract or work against the organizational interest of the employer. In such cases, the employer is not statutorily required to give any notice to the employee or pay him severance compensation.
Also called summary dismissal, these happen on the following grounds:
- Dishonest activities
- Theft
- Indecency
- Insolence or insubordination
- Offenses
- Negligence
- Misconduct
- Incompetence
- Breach of confidentiality
Notice Period
The notice period in Bahamas is:
- 6 to 12 months - A week's notice or pay
- More than 12 months - Two weeks' pay or notice
Severance Pay
The Severance Pay in Bahamas;
- 4 weeks' notice OR pay en lieu of notice, AND.
- 4 weeks' salary for every year of employment, up to 12 years.
Probation Period
There is no statutory probation period in the Bahamas. However;
- The Collective Agreements may contain clauses for the probation period.
- It is usually a year or twelve months from the start of work.
Working Hours
The standard work week in Bahamas is 40 hours per week.
Employees in the industrial, construction, manufacturing, transportation, law enforcement, and vital services industries may be required to work longer hours.
Overtime
By law, any employee working for more than 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day is entitled to overtime pay.
This should be one and a half times their regular pay or twice their normal pay rate if they are working overtime on a public holiday.
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