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How to hire remote employees in
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.
If you want to successfully hire in
Uganda
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Uganda
. 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
Uganda
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
Uganda
.
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
Uganda
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
Uganda
, 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 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.
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.
There are 18 public holidays. Public holidays that occur on a weekend remain on that date.
An employee who has served at least one month of continuous service is entitled to sick 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.
Private sector employees are not entitled to receive paternity 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.
No Info.
Marriage Leave - 14 days
A worker can receive a maximum of 14 days’ leave per year for bereavement due to death in the family, illness of family.
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.
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 shall be at the minimum the employee's one-month gross salary at the date of termination per year worked.
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.
Normal working hours are 8 per day and 48 per week.
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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