How to hire remote employees in

Namibia

Namibia 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

Namibian Dollar

EMPLOYER TAXES

0.9%

PAYROLL FREQUENCY

Monthly

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

English

Why hire independent contractors in Namibia

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 Namibia.

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 Namibia 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 Namibia

Found somebody in Namibia you want to hire? Below, we’ll teach you how to bring that person onto your team—even if your company isn’t based in Namibia.

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

Hire talent as contractors

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

If you’re hiring contractors in Namibia, 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 Namibia

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

Taxes in Namibia

Employer tax

Social Security

Leave

Paid Time Off (PTO)

In Namibia, annual leave is calculated by multiplying an employee’s contracted number of working days per week by four.

Employees are entitled to 4 to 24 days of vacation leave depending on their service period.

Public Holidays

There are 13 public holidays.

Sick Days

In Namibia, Employees who do not work longer than five days a week are entitled to 30 working days of sick leave.

Employees who work longer than five days a week are entitled to 36 days. During the first year of work, employees receive one day of sick leave for every 26 days worked.

Maternity Leave

Female employee would be entitled to:

four (4) weeks of paid maternity leave before the child’s birth; and
eight (8) weeks after the child’s birth bringing it to a total of twelve (12) weeks of paid maternity leave.

The employer is liable to pay the employees’ remuneration except for the basic wage, which will be paid by social security.

Paternity Leave

There is no statutory paternity leave.

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

Termination of the contract has been terminated by the employer when:

If an employer wishes to terminate an employee’s contract then as per Namibian law, due process should be followed and a fair reason must be provided.
Fair reason includes employee’s misconduct, incapacity of the employee to perform the work allotted, employee incompatibility, etc

Unfair termination of an employment contract would take place if the said termination has taken place on grounds such

refusal to do anything unlawful;
if the employee exercises his rights under the law;
if the employee exercises his rights under the contract; and
if the employee discloses information that he is legally required to.

Notice Period

Notice period in Mauritius can be made only when the following:

The employee has received a minimum of seven days’ notice to answer the allegations made on them
The employer has exhausted every possible option other than termination of the employee
Within 10 days of learning about an employee’s alleged misconduct, the employer has informed the employee about it
The employee has been given seven days’ notice to answer the allegations made on them
The employer has tried every other course of action possible

Severance Pay

In Mauritius, an employee is entitled to severance pay only after 12 months of continuous uninterrupted service.

This severance pay is equivalent to one week’s remuneration for each year of service.

Probation Period

The probation period is 3 months.

Employee requirements in Namibia

Working Hours

The standard working hours in Namibia is 45 hours a week and 9 hours per day for five days a week.

Overtime

In Namibia, overtime is limited to three hours a day or 10 hours a week and paid at least one and half times (150%) of the employee’s hourly wage or double (200%) on Sunday or a public holiday.

There is an additional 6% over the employee’s hourly salary, excluding overtime, for work performed between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.

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