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, Barbados is 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 Barbados.
In this article, we’ll break down the cost of hiring talent from Barbados and look at how much you can expect to spend per hire.
Barbadian 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 Barbados
Barbadian Gross Salary
The minimum wage in Barbados varies by profession.
Barbadian Work Bonuses
There are no mandatory work bonuses in Barbados. Still, it’s a good idea to set yourself apart as an employer by offering competitive perks to your Barbadian team that incentivize good work.
Barbadian Government Fees and Taxes
Employment income is taxed at a rate of 12.5% for the first 50,000 Barbados Dollars (BBD) and at 28.5% thereafter. As an employer, it is your responsibility to deduct the required tax from your employees’ paychecks.
Barbados also has a social security program called the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). Workers in Barbados are required to pay into this program, which covers things like employment injuries, training levies, and a catastrophe fund that helps lower-income earners in case of property destruction.
Employers pay in at a rate of 12.75% and employees pay 11.1%. As the employer, you are also responsible for deducting tax related to the NIS.
Benefits
There are a few types of statutory benefits in Barbados that you must pay as an employer. These include:
- Paid annual leave
- Parental leave
- Sick leave
- Workers compensation insurance
Overtime Pay
Overtime pay is not mandatory, but it is frequently given to employees in Barbados. Overtime is calculated at 1.5 times an employee’s regular pay.
Severance Pay
Employees receive 2.5 weeks of pay for every year worked within their first ten years of employment. From year eleven to twenty, they receive 3 weeks of pay for every year of service.
Remote or Office Working Costs
Does your remote Barbadian 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 Barbadian 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 Barbados and over 150 different countries. Book a demo to see how 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.
