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How to hire remote employees in
Hiring in Malta can be confusing, but it’s easier when you know what you’re doing. If you want to hire remote talent in Malta, you have two options: Hire people as contractors, or hire them as employees.
If you want to successfully hire in
Malta
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Malta
. 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
Malta
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
Malta
.
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
Malta
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
Malta
, 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 Malta 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 Malta.
PTO is calculated by the:
There are 14 public holidays.
The duration of sick leave entitlement provided to workers is dependent on how long they have been employed by their employer:
Maternity leave in Malta is 18 weeks and starts 4 weeks before the expected due date. At least 6 weeks after the birth must be taken.
The employer is responsible for paying 100% of wages for the first 14 weeks.
There are no provisions in the law regarding paternity leave.
Parents are entitled to 4 months paid leave for the birth of a child, adoption, fostering, or general care until the child reaches the age of 8.
To be eligible, the employee must have been employed for at least 12 consecutive months.
None.
In Malta, 1 working day for employees not covered by the Wage Regulation Order.
2 working days for employees not covered by the Wage Regulation Order.
In Malta, an employee can be terminated for just cause, redundancy, or due to reaching the age of retirement.
If requested by an employee who has completed at least 1 month of employment, the employer is obligated to provide an employment certificate stating dates employed and a description of duties. If the employee requests, the reason for termination must also be included.
The notice period in Malta is:
It is possible to pay the employee in lieu of notice. However, if an employee is on notice and chooses not to work during this period or resigns without giving notice, they are obligated to pay the employer 50% of the wages that would have been earned during the notice period.
There are no statutory laws on severance pay.
The probation period is 12 months. During this time, an employee may be dismissed with 1 weeks’ notice if they have completed at least 1 month of employment.
An employee and employer can agree on a shorter probation period; however, the agreement is binding and must be upheld.
A standard full-time work week is 40 hours or 8 hours per day.
Overtime is regulated by the Wage Regulation Order (WRO) which outlines different overtime rules by industry.
If an employee is not covered by the WRO, overtime is 150% of the regular pay rate of work over 40 hours per week and averaged over 4 weeks.
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