How to hire remote employees in

Botswana

Want to know how you can hire in Botswana, 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

Botswana pula

EMPLOYER TAXES

5% -10%

PAYROLL FREQUENCY

Monthly

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

English

Why hire independent contractors in Botswana

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 Botswana.

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 Botswana 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 Botswana

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

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

Hire talent as contractors

Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in Botswana. 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 Botswana 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 Botswana

If you’re hiring contractors in Botswana, 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 Botswana

If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Botswana 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 Botswana.

Taxes in Botswana

Employer tax

Contributory salary

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Leave

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Employees must take eight vacation days within six months of accrual. The remaining days can be accumulated for up to three years.

Employees receive 15 days of paid leave each year.

An employee is entitled to receive annual leave pay of a minimum of 1.25 days for every month. Annual leave does not increase with the employment length with the employer.

Public Holidays

There are 10 public holidays. If a public holidays falls on Sunday, it will be observed the following Monday.

Sick Days

The employee must inform the employer as soon as possible if they are absent from work for more than 24 hours. Employees receive up to 14 days of paid sick leave with a doctor’s certificate.

Maternity Leave

In Botswana, six weeks of maternity leave is taken before the expected due date and the remaining is taken after the birth. Female employees are entitled to 12 weeks of maternity leave.

Paternity Leave

There is no statutory paternity leave.

Parental Leave

There is no statutory paternity leave.

Other Leave

No Info.

Marriage Leave

No Info.

Bereavement Leave

No Info.

Termination

Termination Process

Employers generally can terminate an employment contract by providing written notice to the employee.

Notice Period

The notice period is equivalent to the pay period of the employee. If the employee is paid monthly, then the notice period is one month. If the employee is paid weekly, then the notice period is one week.

No notice is required if the employee is dismissed for misconduct or poor performance.

Severance Pay

Severance pay after 60 consecutive months of employment. This is calculated as a day of pay for each month served up to 60 months, and then two days for every further month.

Probation Period

Probation period is 3 months for unskilled workers and may extend up to 12 months.

Employee requirements in Botswana

Working Hours

The standard working hours in Botswana is 40 hours over 5 or 6 days.

Overtime

In Botswana , any work beyond 48 hours is considered overtime for which employees receive extra pay.

For work over public holidays or weekends, rest time accounts for 200% of the normal pay.

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