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How to hire remote employees in
Hiring in Italy can be confusing, but it’s easier when you know what you’re doing. If you want to hire remote talent in Italy, you have two options: Hire people as contractors, or hire them as employees.
If you want to successfully hire in
Italy
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Italy
. 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.
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
Italy
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
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
Italy
.
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 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.
Hiring contractors in
Italy
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Italy
, 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’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Italy 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 Italy.
The mandatory minimum number of paid leave is 26 days and employees can carry over the unused days to the following year, however, they must be used by June 31st. Any remaining unused PTO will be cashed out.
Employers can decide when the vacation is taken. Also, permission to carry over holidays should be stated in the contract. The employee is to take leave in the following way:
There are 11 national holidays and 1 regional holiday.
If a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the day is carried over to Monday or paid in lieu.
For the first three days, the employee is entitled to a 100% payment which is covered by the employer. This applies to the first two illnesses of the year; for the third illness 66% is covered and for the fourth illness 50% is covered. After that, the employee is not covered for the first three days of illness.
From the 4th to the 21st day of the illness the employee is entitled to 75% of the salary of which 50% is covered by the government and 50% by the employer.
From the 21st day onward, the employee is entitled to 100%, of which 66% is covered by the government and the rest by the employer.
Mothers are entitled to 5 months of maternity leave. Two months must be taken before birth. The employee will receive a 100% pay. Employers make the payment and can later ask for reimbursement of 80% from the INPS.
Within the first 5 months of the child’s birth fathers receive 10 days of compulsory leave and a paid 100% of their salary. An extra optional day of leave as an alternative to the mother.
New fathers must notify the employer 15 days prior to taking leave.
If the mother does not take maternity leave (due to death, infirmity, or the father having exclusive custody), the father is entitled to three months’ paternity leave after the birth of the child. These rules also apply if the mother is self-employed.
In Italy, an employee is able to take up to 10 months of unpaid parental leave:
If a mother chooses to not take parental leave after maternity leave, she is entitled to work 6 hours a day until the child is 12 months old.
Paid permits, aka “Permessi Retribuiti”, are a special amount of paid leave out of which paid permits can be used only for specific reasons stated in each CCNL, the most common are the following:
During the first 2 years of employment: 32 hours per year (only “festivita’ soppresse”)
Third and fourth years of employment: 68 hours per year (36 hours for permits + 32 for “festivita’ soppresse”)
None.
In Italy, under “Permessi Retribuiti”, the employee entitled to have a special amount of paid leave.
In Italy, written notice must be given to the employee.
If a labor court deems the termination unfair, the employer must either reinstate the employee or pay additional compensation.
Employers must provide notice of termination regarding all types of termination unless it is dismissal due to serious disciplinary reasons. Notice periods can be set in the collective agreement or payment in lieu of the notice period.
A contract of employment may be terminated in any of the following ways:
The notice period in Italy is:
From Employer:
From Employee:
In Italy, employers must set aside funds for severance (TFR) for the employee and is to be paid out to them within 6 months of leaving the company.
TFR is calculated by:
Based on an additional percentage by the National Statistical Institute, the final TFR amount is increased.
Probation period is until 6 months for managerial level up to 2 months of probation for below managerial level.
A normal workweek is 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.
Overtime is limited to 2 hours a day and must be approve by the company.
There is no set overtime pay, however, overtime pay must be more than the regular rate.
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