Looking to grow your company? Hiring international employees can be a good way to source diverse, skilled talent that will benefit your team.
With an idyllic Caribbean location, the Bahamas are home to an excellent talent pool. However, budgeting for global hires can be tricky. As an employer, you’ll need to get familiar with how benefits, bonuses, payroll, and taxation work in the Bahamas.
In this article, we’ll break down the cost of hiring talent from the Bahamas and look at what you will need to consider financially for each hire.
Bahamian Hiring Costs
To start, as an employer, you’ll need to fulfill a few basic payment obligations. These include:
- Payroll (gross salaries)
- Tax payments and withholding
- Statutory benefits
- Paid leave
- Overtime
- Severance pay
You can also make your hiring offers more attractive to prospective employees by including bonuses and benefits. This may include pay-in retirement plans, health insurance plans, meal subsidies, or other extras that go above and beyond an employee’s basic salary.
Required Costs of Hiring an Employee in the Bahamas
Bahamian Gross Salary
The Bahamian minimum wage was recently increased from $210 to $260 per week.
Bahamian Work Bonuses
13th-month bonuses are not required by law in the Bahamas, but they are frequently offered and considered a best practice.
Bahamian Government Fees and Taxes
There is no personal income tax, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax or Gift Tax in the Bahamas, so some consider the Bahamas a tax haven.
But this term can be misleading. Tax haven doesn’t mean no tax at all, it generally indicates a lack of personal income tax only.
The Bahamian government still requires citizens to contribute to:
- Social Security
- Stamp Taxes on Real Estate
- Property Taxes
In the Bahamas, both employers and employees need to pay into social security, which is calculated as a percentage of salary. Employees pay 3.9% and employers pay 5.9%. Employers are also responsible for withholding 9.8% for national insurance, which employees need to pay.
Benefits
There are several types of statutory benefits in the Bahamas that you must pay as an employer. These include:
- Paid annual leave
- Parental leave
- Sick leave
- Workers’ compensation insurance
Overtime Pay
Standard Bahamian working hours are 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. Overtime pay is calculated at 1.5 times the employee's regular wage and double an employee’s wage for overtime work on public holidays.
Severance Pay
Employees in managerial roles who have worked for up to 12 years receive a severance amounting to four weeks’ salary for every year of employment.
Non-managerial employees who have been employed for:
- Over six months but less than one year receive one week's severance pay on a pro-rata basis.
- One year or more are entitled to two weeks of severance pay for every year of employment. The maximum severance is 24 weeks of pay on a pro-rata basis.
Paid Leave
Bahamian employees can be granted compassionate or bereavement leave in case of accidents, death, or serious illness of immediate family members as well as emergencies as a result of fire or flooding. This leave can be taken for up to 8 days per year.
Bahamian employees may be granted a maximum of 20 working days (four weeks) of sick leave per calendar year at full salary. Vacation leave is extended by one day per public holiday during the period of vacation. Employees may receive days off in lieu of holidays if they work shifts that fall on public holidays.
Remote or Office Working Costs
Does your remote Bahamian team need digital hardware or software set up? If you are bringing on team members remotely, you may have added costs like high-speed Internet service, upgraded electronics, printers, or higher-volume servers.
Consider how many Bahamian workers you’re looking to hire. If there’s a significant team, it could be worth investing in an office or coworking space. This will allow your team to access the technologies they need while building connections with their coworkers.
How Borderless Can Help
Borderless makes hiring a breeze. We make sure that you compliantly pay and manage your Bahamian employees, no matter where you are.
At Borderless, we help you hire employees from the Bahamas and over 150 different countries. Book a demo to see how our global EOR solutions will we’ll help you hire top global talent quickly and compliantly.
Disclaimer
Borderless does not provide legal services or legal advice to anyone. This includes customers, contractors, employees, partners, and the general public. We are not lawyers or paralegals. Please read our full disclaimer here.
