Uganda
In the next five minutes, you’ll learn how you can hire talent remotely in Uganda—without paying thousands in fees and wading through months of legal red tape.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Ugandan shilling
EMPLOYER TAXES
15%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Swahili/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.
Laws about hiring are complicated. Uganda’s no different. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Uganda, you have two real options when it comes to hiring. We’ll detail both below.
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 Uganda 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 Uganda.
Employer tax
National Social Security Fund(NSSF)
Paid Time Off (PTO)
A worker, working weekly for sixteen or more hours, is entitled to 21 working days paid annual leave at the rate of 7 days for each period of continuous 4 months of service on completion of 12 months of continuous service.
The time to take annual leave has to be agreed between the parties.
Public Holidays
There are 18 public holidays. Public holidays that occur on a weekend remain on that date.
Sick Days
An employee who has served at least one month of continuous service is entitled to sick leave
- Two months in any one calendar year one month on full pay and one month with no pay.
- The employer may require a medical certificate from a qualified medical practitioner before granting sick leave or at the earliest opportunity but the sick must be supported a sick off certificate issued by a qualified medical doctor.
- For the first month’s absence from work he or she is entitled to full wages and every other benefit for the first month and nil salary and benefits in the second month.
- If at the expiration of the first month the sickness of the employee still continues, the employer is entitled to terminate the contract of service on complying with all the terms of the contract of service
Maternity Leave
A female employee who has a valid contract of service is entitled to maternity leave. The law does not provide a minimum period of service to qualify for maternity leave.
The female employee Shall have the right to a period of sixty working days leave from work of which at least four weeks shall follow the childbirth or miscarriage. A female employee shall be entitled to full pay during maternity leave.
Paternity Leave
Private sector employees are not entitled to receive paternity leave.
Parental Leave
A male employee whose official spouse gives birth shall be entitled to paternity leave.
The employee shall be entitled to four (4)working days Leave yearly.
Other Leave
No Info.
Marriage Leave
Marriage Leave - 14 days
Bereavement Leave
A worker can receive a maximum of 14 days’ leave per year for bereavement due to death in the family, illness of family.
Termination Process
An employment contract can be terminated at the end of the contract term (if for a fixed period), by the employer with notice, or by the employee with or without notice.
An employer can dismiss an employee without notice if the employee has fundamentally broken their obligations under the employment contract. Otherwise, the employer must provide the employee with notice.
Notice Period
The notice period is between two week and three months depending on the employee’s length of service.
The employer shall pay severance allowance where an employee has been in his or her continuous service for a period of 1 year or more and the severance allowance shall be paid to the employee within twenty-one days from the date of expiry or termination of the contract of service.
Severance Pay
Severance pay shall be at the minimum the employee's one-month gross salary at the date of termination per year worked.
Probation Period
The maximum period of probation in Uganda is 6 months but which can be extended in writing to one year giving reasons for the extension.
Working Hours
Normal working hours are 8 per day and 48 per week.
Overtime
Workers may be required to work overtime, provided that total working hours, inclusive of overtime, must not exceed 10 hours per day or fifty-six hours per week except when persons are employed in shifts.
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