How to hire remote employees in

Eritrea

There’s some great remote talent in Eritrea. Want to know how you can hire there, 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

Eritrean Nakfa

EMPLOYER TAXES

PAYROLL FREQUENCY

Monthly

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

Tigrinya

Why hire independent contractors in Eritrea

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 Eritrea.

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 Eritrea 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 Eritrea

Hiring in Eritrea? That’s excellent. But if your company’s HQ isn’t already in Eritrea, things can get complicated—though they don’t need to. Here’s the deal: You can hire your talent as employees, or you can hire them as contractors. Because of Eritrea’s labor law structure, there are benefits and disadvantages to each approach.

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

Hire talent as contractors

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

If you’re hiring contractors in Eritrea, 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 Eritrea

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

Taxes in Eritrea

Employer tax

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Leave

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Employees in Eritrea receive 14 days of paid annual leave after one year of service.

This increases by one day for each year of service up to 35 working days. Employers are required to pay any accrued but unused days upon separation of service.

Public Holidays

There are 13 public holidays.

Sick Days

Employees receive full or partial payments for the first two months and no pay in months three to six.

Employees may need to provide a medical certificate validating their illness.

Maternity Leave

The maternity leave generally starts after the birth, but a portion may be taken prior to the birth. Female employees receive 60 consecutive days of fully paid maternity leave. An employer cannot terminate the employment of a woman on maternity leave.

Paternity Leave

Male employees receive three days of paid paternity leave after the child’s birth.

Parental Leave

There are no statutory provisions for parental leave.

Other Leave

No Info.

Marriage Leave

No Info.

Bereavement Leave

No Info.

Termination

Termination Process

Employers in Eritrea can dismiss employees without providing notice at the end of a fixed-term contract, during the probation period, due to the death of the employee, failure of the employee to perform or for misconduct.

Misconduct includes falsifying documents, theft or breach of trust, missing work for five consecutive days or 10 days in one year without justification, disclosure of confidential information or violating the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

Notice Period

Article 12 under clause 6, it is provided that an employee on probation can terminate their employment without notice.

Severance Pay

Employees upon the termination of his employment, be paid severance pay by the employer as follows:

two weeks' wages for each of the first five years of employment; and
three weeks' wages for each year of employment after the fifth year up

Probation Period

The probation period in Eritrea cannot exceed 90 days.

Employee requirements in Eritrea

Working Hours

The standard working hours in Eritrea is 48 hours for 8 hours a day.

Overtime

Overtime work may not exceed two hours unless there is written consent of the employee.

Employees are entitled to at least one day, 24 hours, of rest per week. This is generally a Sunday but can be a different day.

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