Zimbabwe
In the next five minutes, you’ll learn how you can hire talent remotely in Zimbabwe—without paying thousands in fees and wading through months of legal red tape.
Country snapshot
CURRENCY
Zimbabwe Dollar (ZWD)
EMPLOYER TAXES
3.5% -7%
PAYROLL FREQUENCY
Monthly
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
Shona/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. Zimbabwe’s no different. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Zimbabwe, 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 Zimbabwe 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 Zimbabwe.
Employer tax
National Social Security Authority (NSSA, the National Pension Scheme)
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Employees are entitled to a rate of 30 days or one-month leave after a continuous employment period of one year. Weekends and public holidays are counted as part of the vacation leave days.
Public Holidays
There are 17 public holidays.
Sick Days
Sick leave is only granted by a duly registered medical practitioner.
An employee may enjoy 90 days of sick leave in a year on full pay (before the employer can consider medical termination)
If the employee has exhausted the 90 days of sick leave in any one-year period of service, they may request a further 90 days of sick leave at half pay. Again the request needs to be accompanied by a signed certificate from a registered medical practitioner.
During any one-year period of service, if the sick leave exceeds 90 days of full pay and 180 days of full and half pay, the employer may terminate the employment of the employee concerned.
Maternity Leave
Female employees are protected under law and are entitled to 98 working days’ leave on full earnings. (There is a compulsory entitlement of 21 days before confinement included in the 98 days.)
A female employee may proceed on maternity leave not earlier than the forty-fifth day and not later than the twenty-first day prior to the expected date of delivery.
Paternity Leave
There is no paternity leave.
Parental Leave
There is no parental leave.
Other Leave
In Zimbabwe it is managed under Section 14B of the Labour Act 28:01
The maximum number of days each employee MAY proceed on this type of leave is twelve (12) days per year.
These days cannot be demanded or enjoyed unless the following circumstances obtain:
-when an employee has been authorized by a registered medical practitioner to be away from work due to an infectious disease.
-when an employee has been subpoenaed to attend court proceedings ONLY as a witness.
-when an appointed employee is attending trade union meetings.
-when an employee has been detained by the police ONLY for the purposes of questioning.
Marriage Leave
None.
Bereavement Leave
In Zimbabwe it is managed under Section 14B of the Labour Act 28:01, the employer may grant the special leave when an employee has lost a spouse, parent, child or legal dependent. The duty to prove the existence of the circumstances rests on the affected employee.
Termination Process
According to the Code of Conduct, a contract of employment can be terminated if the employer and employee mutually agree to it in writing.
This is also the case if an employee is engaged in a fixed-term contract or for performance of a specific task and the
contract has expired after the mandated period or the task is completed.
Employers CAN terminate contracts on the following grounds:
If an employee:
- Is guilty of theft or fraud.
- Willfully destroys employer’s property.
- Is absent for a period of five days or more working days without giving a reasonable excuse.
- Lacks a skill that he or she implicitly said they was capable of.
- Is substantially negligent in his or her duties.
- Is drunk to the extent that it makes him/her fail to perform their duties.
Notice Period
The notice period in Zimbabwe is:
Notice of termination of the contract of employment to be given by either party shall be:
- Three months in the case of a contract without limit of time or a contract for a period of two years or more.
- Two months in the case of a contract for a period of one year or more but less than two years.
- One month in the case of a contract for a period of six months or more but less than one year.
- Two weeks in the case of a contract for a period of three months or more but less than six months.
- One day in the case of a contract for a period of less than three months or in the case of casual work or seasonal work.
Severance Pay
Employers may be required to pay severance pursuant to a collective agreement or employees dismissed due to redundancy. Severance generally is one month of salary for every two years of service to the employer.
Probation Period
In Zimbabwe, the contract includes a probationary period, it may not last longer than three months, except for casual or seasonal work, for which the probationary period may be only one day.
Working Hours
The standards working hours are 8.5 hours a day and 44 hours a week.
Overtime
Overtime may be regulated under Collective Bargaining Agreement. No such regulation could be located. In accordance with the Labour Act, Minister for Labour may issue regulations regarding overtime, shift work and night work.
The minimum overtime rate is 150% of the normal salary/wage rate when employees are required to work beyond the normal working hours. When an employee works on a public holiday, then a premium of 200% of the normal salary/wage is normally paid.
For breakdown, continuous work, emergency and for every hour or part thereof worked by an employee in excess of his/her ordinary hours of work, the employer shall pay the employee not less than one and a half times his/her ordinary rate.
For every hour or part thereof worked by an employee between midnight on Saturday and midnight on Sunday, or midnight of the day before their day off, the employer shall pay the employee not less than twice their ordinary rate.
An employee can only be required to work a maximum of 10 hours per day.
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