International Contractors
Mozambique
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
Varies by sector
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
Annual leave
30 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
15-30 days (by tenure)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Nov 2026
The default and legally preferred contract type under the Labour Law (Law No. 23/2007). No end date; may only be terminated for just cause, objective grounds, or mutual agreement.
Permitted only for temporary, non-permanent needs, must state objective justification in writing. Maximum total duration including renewals is generally 2 years; improper use converts to indefinite by operation of law.
Standard workweek is 48 hours. Overtime capped at 2 hrs/day, 8 hrs/week, 200 hrs/year, paid at 150% weekday and 200% on weekly rest days/holidays, plus 25% night premium (8pm-6am).
Probation length must be stated in the written contract, up to 90 days general staff, 180 days senior/managerial. Either party may terminate during probation without giving a reason, subject to 7-15 days' written notice.
Mozambican law does not require a 13th or 14th month salary. An extra month's salary around Christmas is a common voluntary practice but not statutory.
Employers must obtain Ministry of Labour work authorization for foreign nationals, with quotas restricting the proportion of foreign staff (commonly 5-15% depending on company size/sector).
Employer INSS contribution: 4% of gross monthly payroll, funding pension, disability, sickness, maternity/paternity, injury and unemployment benefits. Employers must also take out separate mandatory private work-accident insurance, not included in this 4%.
Employee INSS contribution: 3% of gross monthly salary, withheld and remitted by the employer by the 15th of the following month, deductible from IRPS income tax base.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Mozambique's INSS is funded by a combined statutory contribution of 7% of gross monthly salary.
Covers old-age pension, disability/survivors' pensions, sickness benefit, maternity/paternity benefits, work-injury, and unemployment benefit. Eligibility for most cash benefits requires at least 6 months of contributions within the preceding 12 months.
Mozambique requires mandatory work-accident insurance (Seguro Obrigatório de Acidentes de Trabalho e Doenças Profissionais), entirely employer-funded.
Severance is owed on termination without just cause, redundancy, or unjust early termination of a fixed-term contract, tiered by salary multiple of minimum wage:
Mozambique does not have a statutory 13th (or 14th) month salary requirement. An extra month's salary around Christmas is a common voluntary practice, not a legal entitlement.
P.S. our team speaks multiple languages and we'd love to chat in your preferred language if requested.
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
