Malawi
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
Varies by sector
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
Annual leave
15 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
1 day-1 month (by pay frequency)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Sep 2026
The default and most common employment relationship is a contract of unspecified duration ('indefinite'/permanent), which continues until lawfully terminated by either party with proper notice and, where applicable, cause. Carries full statutory protections including notice, severance, and unfair-dismissal safeguards.
The Employment Act recognizes contracts of unspecified duration, specified-period contracts, and task/undertaking contracts. A specified-period or task contract used in substance to fill a permanent post converts to indefinite duration. No explicit maximum length or numerical renewal cap for genuine fixed-term work, but repeated renewals for the same ongoing role carry conversion risk. Termination at a genuine specified-period contract's natural end date does not attract severance; early termination without cause does.
Ordinary hours capped at 48/week. Overtime paid at not less than: 1.5x ordinary hourly wage for ordinary overtime; 2x for work on a scheduled rest/day-off; 2x for public holiday work. Overtime is generally voluntary with no strict numerical ceiling in the Act.
Employers and skilled employees may agree a probationary period not exceeding 12 months, during which either party may generally terminate without standard notice obligations. Less explicit for unskilled/other worker categories, so shorter probation (often 3 months, extendable) is commonly used in practice. Dismissal must not be for a prohibited discriminatory reason even during probation.
Malawi's Employment Act does not require a 13th or 14th month salary/bonus. Some employers voluntarily pay a Christmas bonus or gratuity, particularly larger/multinational organizations, but this is discretionary or governed by agreement, not statute.
No broad statutory regime regulating job titles generally, but foreign nationals require a valid Temporary Employment Permit (TEP)/work permit, and employers are generally expected to justify why a role cannot be filled by a Malawian citizen. Certain regulated professions (law, medicine, engineering, accounting) require registration/licensing regardless of internal job title.
Mandatory pension contribution: minimum 10% of gross pensionable earnings, paid by the employer into a licensed pension fund. In addition, employers must maintain Workers' Compensation insurance through a private insurer, risk-rated by industry/occupation (commonly cited range ~1-3% of payroll).
Mandatory pension contribution: minimum 5% of gross pensionable earnings, deducted from employee pay and remitted by the employer. Employees also have PAYE income tax withheld separately (progressive rates, commonly 0%/25%/30%/35% monthly bands as of 2026) - a tax, not a social-security contribution.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Malawi's principal mandatory social-security scheme is the contributory pension system under the Pension Act. There is no separate general social-security tax or state-run scheme covering sickness, unemployment, or family benefits - those risks are handled through employer liability instead.
Work-injury protection is provided under the Workers' Compensation Act but administered through private insurance rather than a state fund.
Severance is payable when an indefinite contract is terminated other than for the employee's own serious misconduct, with at least 1 year of service.
Note: several secondary EOR/payroll guides describe a three-tier scale instead (1-5/6-10/11+ years) - needs confirmation against the current First Schedule. Not payable for misconduct dismissal, probationers, or natural end of fixed-term contracts.
Malawi does not legally mandate a 13th (or 14th) month salary.
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.
