Kosovo
Found someone you’d like to hire in Kosovo? Great news. In the next few minutes, you’ll learn exactly how you can hire remote talent in Kosovo—without paying thousands in fees and spending months talking to lawyers about labor laws.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Euro
EMPLOYER TAXES
15%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Albanian/Serbian
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.
Hiring in Kosovo can be confusing, but it’s easier when you know what you’re doing. If you want to hire remote talent in Kosovo, you have two options: Hire people as contractors, or hire them as employees.
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 Kosovo 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 Kosovo.
Employer tax
Pension
Compulsory contribution
Paid Time Off (PTO)
In Kosovo, employees benefit from 4 weeks of annual leave irrespective of whether they are full-time or part-time.
The employer schedules leave but is required to take the employees’ preferences into account.
The employee requests leave a minimum of 15 days in advance and the employer provides a decision no later than five days before the first day of the requested leave.
Public Holidays
There are 11 public holidays.
Sick Days
Employees in Kosovo are entitled to 20 days of paid sick leave per year at full salary, paid by the employer.
The employee must notify the employer of their intent to take sick leave as soon as possible, and the employer may require a medical certificate if the employee misses more than three days of work.
Maternity Leave
Female employees are entitled to:
- 12 months of maternity leave, of which a minimum of 28 days (up to 45) need to be taken before birth; and
- For the first 6 months, the employer pays 70% of the basic salary, whereas the following months’ pay is provided by the government.
The final three months of maternity leave, if the mother chooses to take them, are unpaid. The mother may also transfer her right to maternity leave after the first six months to the father.
Paternity Leave
The father in Kosovo is entitled to three days of paid leave for the birth or adoption of his child and two weeks of unpaid leave, which he is entitled to take at any time before the child turns three years old.
Parental Leave
No Info.
Other Leave
No Info.
Marriage Leave
No Info.
Bereavement Leave
No Info.
Termination Process
Employers may terminate a fixed-term contract with 15 days of written notice and an indefinite contract with 30 days of written notice.
An employer may terminate a contract only when the termination is justified for economic, technical or organizational reasons, or if the employee is no longer able to perform their job and there is no practical way to transfer the employee to another job or retrain them for a different job.
Notice Period
The employer may terminate a fixed-term contract within 30 days of written notice, and must also provide 30 days of written notice of intent not to renew a fixed-term contract.
Severance Pay
The Severance pay is only required in the case of collective dismissals in which a minimum of 20 employees, constituting 10% or more of all employees, are being terminated in more than six months.
Probation Period
Probation period is shall not exceed 6 months.
Working Hours
The standard working week in Kosovo is 40 hours. Employees under the age of 18 may not work more than 30 hours per week.
Overtime
In Kosovo, employee who works a shift beyond their usual hours is paid 120% of their standard rate for the extra hours.
The rate for hours beyond 40 hours per week and for night work is 130% of the employee’s standard hourly rate.
Employees receive 150% of their standard rate for work on weekends and national holidays.
Moreover, the overtime is permitted only when there is an urgent need for the employees to work beyond normal hours and is capped at eight hours per week.
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