Ghana
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
₵19.97 /day
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
Annual leave
15 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
2 weeks-1 month (by tenure)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Sep 2026
The default and most common employment arrangement in Ghana, with no fixed end date. Termination requires a fair reason under Section 62 of the Labour Act (incompetence, misconduct, redundancy, or legal incapacity) plus statutory notice or pay in lieu.
Used for a defined project, task, or period. The Labour Act does not impose a maximum duration or renewal cap. However, successive/rolling fixed-term contracts for effectively permanent work risk being found to have created a legitimate expectation of indefinite employment.
8 hours/day, 5 days/week (40 hrs/week), minimum 30-minute break after 5 continuous hours, at least 24 consecutive hours weekly rest. Overtime capped at ~2 extra hrs/day, paid at least 150% ordinary rate, 200% for rest days/holidays.
The Labour Act does not fix a mandatory probation length; duration set in contract, commonly 1-3 months, up to 6 months for senior positions. Either party may end during probation with the contractual notice; anti-discrimination protections still apply.
Ghana's Labour Act does not mandate a 13th or 14th month payment; discretionary, based on employer policy or CBA.
None — the Labour Act does not regulate or restrict specific job titles.
Employers contribute 13% of the employee's basic salary to SSNIT, pooled with the employee's 5.5% into a combined 18.5% mandatory pension contribution, allocated 13.5% to Tier 1 (state-run basic pension, of which 2.5pp passes to NHIA) and 5% to Tier 2 (mandatory, privately managed occupational pension).
Employees contribute 5.5% of basic salary, withheld and remitted with the employer's 13% as part of the combined 18.5% mandatory SSNIT contribution.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Ghana's mandatory social security system is administered by SSNIT under the three-tier pension framework (National Pensions Act, 2008, Act 766). Combined contributions total 18.5% of basic salary.
Workplace injury, illness, and death arising from employment are governed by the Workmen's Compensation Law, 1987 (PNDCL 187), which remains in force. Rather than a state fund, it imposes direct employer liability for medical costs and compensation.
Many employers purchase private employers' liability/workmen's compensation insurance to cover this exposure, since the law places the burden on the employer directly. This sits alongside the Labour Act 2003's general health and safety obligations.
Ghana's Labour Act 2003 (Act 651) addresses severance primarily in the redundancy context (Section 65). Where employment is terminated due to redundancy, the employer must give required notice (or pay in lieu) and negotiate a redundancy/severance package with the worker or union.
There is no statutory formula prescribing the amount — it is determined through negotiation based on length of service, salary level, applicable CBA, and circumstances. Accrued but untaken annual leave must also be settled in cash upon termination regardless of reason.
A 13th month payment is not a legal requirement in Ghana. Where paid, it is a discretionary and customary practice governed by company policy, individual contract, or CBA — not a statutory 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.
