Zambia
In the next five minutes, you’ll learn how you can hire talent remotely in Zambia—without paying thousands in fees and wading through months of legal red tape.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Zambian kwacha (ZMK)
EMPLOYER TAXES
35%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Bemba/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. Zambia’s no different. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Zambia, 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 Zambia 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 Zambia.
Employer tax
Social Security
National Health Insurance
Paid Time Off (PTO)
All employees, except temporary or casual employees, contracted to work for 12 months or more are entitled to annual paid leave calculated at a rate of two days per month or 24 days per year.
Public Holidays
There are 14 public holidays.
Sick Days
The duration of sick leave entitlement is based on the following:
- In order to avail fully paid leave, the worker must provide a valid medical certificate.
- The length of paid sick leave depends on the type of employment contract.
- An employee on the short-term contract is paid full pay for the first 26 working days of the sick leave and thereafter, half pay (50%) for the next 26 working days of the sick leave.
- An employee on the long-term contract is paid full pay during the first three months of the sick leave and thereafter, half pay for the next three months of the sick leave.
- Long term contracts are all such contracts with duration in excess of 12 months.
- If an employee does not recover from illness after six months from the date of accident/illness, employer may discharge such an employee on the recommendation of a registered medical doctor.
Maternity Leave
In Zambia, under the Employment Code Act, under the provisions of section 41, if the female employee with at least two years of continuous service is entitled for 14 weeks' maternity leave with full pay.
Paternity Leave
Fathers who have one year of continuous service with their employers are entitled to 5 days of paternity leave, to be taken within 7 days of the birth of the child.
Parental Leave
There is no provision in the law on paid or unpaid parental leave.
Other Leave
Family Responsibility Leave - Employees with at least six months of service are entitled to seven working days of paid leave.
Marriage Leave
Employees are entitled to seven days of leave.
Bereavement Leave
Employees are entitled to 12 days of paid compassionate leave for the death of a spouse, child, parent or dependent.
Termination Process
A worker who is re-hired by the same employer for the same job within two years from the contract termination date is not required to go through probation again, provided that the termination was not performance-related.
The employee is also entitled:
- Termination of the employment contract of a fixed duration - at least 25% of the employee’s basic pay.
- Termination of employment due to redundancy - 2 months’ basic pay for each completed year of service.
- Employee’s death - 2 months’ basic pay for each completed year of service.
- Termination on medical grounds: at least three months’ basic pay for each completed year of service.
Notice Period
The notice period in Zambia is:
- 14 days of employment of more than one month but not exceeding three months;
- 30 days for a contract of employment of more than three months, except that notice to terminate a contract of employment of more than six months shall be in writing; and
- Twenty-four hours for a contract of employment for less than 30 days.
Severance Pay
Severance is not payable to employees working under a fixed-term contract or so-called long-term contract (defined as a contract for service exceeding 12 months, renewable for a further term or for a specific task/project with a predefined end date).
Instead, they are entitled to an end-of-service lump sum gratuity equal to 25% of the employee’s base pay over the term of the agreement.
Probation Period
Provisions were created for probationary employment of up to three months, which may be extended one time.
Working Hours
The standard workweek is 8 hours per day and these should not be more than 48 hours per week.
By including the lunch and prayer time in hours of work, working hours should not be greater than 9 hours a day.
Overtime
Work that is performed in excess of 48 hours a week is to be paid overtime at one and-a-half times the worker’s hourly rate of pay.
Work performed on paid public holidays or on a Sunday(where Sunday is not part of the normal working week) should be paid at double the worker’s hourly rate of pay.
Time off may be substituted for overtime pay.
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