Employer of Record in Ghana: 13 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in Ghana: key facts

Amounts are in Ghana cedi (GHS). The Labour Act 2003 (Act 651) is read from the GIPC-hosted PDF, checked 2026-10-26.

Minimum wage

One national daily rate (Labour Act s.113). No statutory monthly minimum for permanent workers was found.

The figure comes from allAfrica’s report of the Finance Minister’s announcement; no committee communique was found.

Employer contributions

The only payroll charge we found is SSNIT under the National Pensions Act 2008 (Act 766). Not recoverable from the worker.

• The total SSNIT rate is 18.5% (employer 13% plus worker 5.5%); the maximum Tier 1 contribution is GHS 9,315/month. The base is basic salary in SSNIT practice; remitted by the 14th of the following month.
• The 13% rate and its 8%/5% split come from Act 766 excerpts and SSNIT FAQ wording, not the Act’s text; the ceiling and floor are from the SSNIT notice.
• Employer-paid work-injury insurance exists; its rate was not confirmed and is left out of the cost examples. No other payroll tax or levy was found.

Working hours and overtime

• Maximum 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week (s.33). (Labour Act, checked 2026-10-26).
• Overtime is hours beyond those fixed by the undertaking’s rules; it cannot be required unless overtime pay rates are fixed (s.35).
• The Act sets no overtime multiplier for permanent workers; multipliers in vendor guides are practice or contract terms.

Annual leave and public holidays

• At least 15 working days with full pay per calendar year of continuous service (s.20); public holidays and certified sick or maternity absence do not reduce it (s.22) (Labour Act, checked 2026-10-26).
• 14 statutory public holidays in 2026 on the Ministry of the Interior list, including Independence Day (6 Mar), Republic Day (1 Jul, observed Fri 3 Jul), Founders’ Day (21 Sep), Farmers’ Day (first Friday of December) and three Islamic holidays set by the Chief Imam’s office. (mint.gov.gh, checked 2026-10-26).
• The Ministry page was reached only through a search result; the Eid-ul-Adha 2026 date is not confirmed.

Notice and severance

• Contract of 3 years or more: one month’s notice or one month’s pay in lieu. Under 3 years: two weeks. Week-to-week contract: 7 days. Notice must be in writing (s.17).
• No statutory severance formula: redundancy pay is negotiated with the worker or union (s.65(4)), with disputes going to the National Labour Commission.
• Unfair termination: the Commission may order reinstatement, re-employment or compensation (s.64).
• Fixed-term and specified-work contracts, casuals and workers on a reasonable, pre-agreed probation are outside those rules (s.66). The Act sets no maximum probation length (Labour Act, checked 2026-10-26).

13th salary and bonuses

Not mandatory. Act 651 has no 13th-month or statutory bonus provision; this is inferred from its absence in the full text. Any bonus is contractual (Labour Act, checked 2026-10-26).

Mandatory benefits

• SSNIT Tier 1 and Tier 2 pension contributions, above; NHIS is funded from inside Tier 1.
• Maternity leave of at least 12 weeks on full pay and benefits, plus at least 2 more weeks for abnormal confinement or multiple births; one paid nursing hour a day (s.57) (ecoi.net copy of the Act, checked 2026-10-26).
• No statutory paternity leave; a 2024 Labour Bill would add it, but no enactment was found.
• The Act sets no sick-pay amount or duration.
• A written statement of particulars is due within 2 months of the start (s.13).

Work permits

• A non-Ghanaian needs a work permit from the Ghana Immigration Service under an expatriate quota held by the employing Ghana-registered company, not the individual (EY, checked 2026-10-26).
• Under Act 1173 (in force 2026-07-15), applications of foreign-participated enterprises go through GIPA before the Immigration Service. The cap of four expatriates gives way to a capital-based scale, from 2 at USD 50,000-500,000 to 12 above USD 10 million, per law-firm and press summaries that differ on a workforce condition.
• Whether an EOR can sponsor a permit for a client’s hire was not confirmed.

Currency and payroll

Ghana cedi (GHS). Rate used: 1 USD = 11.65 GHS, the Bank of Ghana interbank mid of 2026-10-23 (Bank of Ghana, checked 2026-10-26). No statutory minimum pay frequency for permanent staff was found.

Is Employer of Record legal in Ghana?

Grey area. Ghana has no statute or regulator guidance written for the employer-of-record model. The only licensing hook found is the Labour Act’s private employment agency regime; no source settles whether an EOR that is the contractual employer falls inside it. See the Employer of Record glossary entry.

The rules that matter (Labour Act, checked 2026-10-26):

• s.7. No one may run a private employment agency unless it is a corporate body with a licence from the Minister, valid 12 months and renewable. Section 175 defines the agency as a body corporate acting as intermediary to procure employment for a worker or recruit one for an employer.
• s.5. An employer may employ through a Public Employment Centre or a private employment agency. No provision was found on supplying a worker’s labour to a third party who directs the work: no labour-only-contracting ban or co-employment rule appears in Act 651.
• Registered employer. An EOR must itself be a Ghana-registered employer to hold SSNIT and PAYE obligations. Act 1173 removed most blanket minimum capital for foreign-owned enterprises, except trading enterprises (Clyde & Co, checked 2026-10-26; a law-firm summary, not the gazetted text).
• ss.12-13. Written contract for 6 months or more; termination, leave and hours rules cannot be contracted below the statutory floor.

Risks the client carries:

• Licensing. If the arrangement is treated as an unlicensed agency under s.7, the EOR operates without the Minister’s licence. The penalty and any reach to the client were not located.
• Remittances and classification. SSNIT, Tier 2 and PAYE are employer duties due on the 14th and 15th of the following month. A Gloroots hiring guide warns that misclassifying staff as contractors can bring back contributions and reclassification claims; it is a vendor guide, not a legal source. Exposure of a client treated as the real employer was not found in a primary source. See contractor misclassification.
• Termination claims. Unfair-termination (s.63) and redundancy (s.65) claims go to the National Labour Commission; the legal employer is the respondent.

Who actually employs your hire in Ghana

We read the pages and documents of the 13 providers that appear to operate in Ghana. The Registrar of Companies has no open name search we could use, so no entity was checked in a registry; every “own entity” below rests on the vendor’s own statement or document.

All checked 2026-10-26. Prices are monthly and as shown on the vendor’s Ghana page. Remote, Oyster, Rippling, Native Teams, RemotePass, Rise, Kleos, Remozo, Boundless and Justworks are not in the table: we could not confirm they offer EOR in Ghana (Remote’s Ghana page lists only Contractor Management; Boundless’s is a placeholder).

Eight of the 13 don’t name the Ghanaian company that employs, and two point to a partner. In a grey area your exposure runs through the employer on the contract. Before signing, ask: “Which Ghanaian company signs my employee’s contract, and how do you handle the private employment agency licence?”

How to choose an EOR in Ghana

Want a named employer? Safeguard Global’s own list names Global CS (Ghana) Ltd; Borderless AI and Atlas say they own an entity but name none. Ask each for the company name and registration number.

Need a work permit for a foreign hire? The quota sits with the Ghana-registered employer, and no source confirms an EOR can be that sponsor. Remote People says a permit adds 4-8 weeks on top of 1-2 weeks for a Ghanaian hire. That is a vendor claim; ask in writing who would apply.

Price against completeness? Only Skuad ($349), Borderless AI ($579) and Deel ($599) publish a Ghana figure, and Skuad’s needs a 12-month commitment. Vendor onboarding claims run from 1-5 days (Playroll) to one to two weeks (Safeguard Global, Remote People).

Uneasy about the licensing question? Every provider here carries it; your own Ghanaian entity removes it.

What it costs to employ someone in Ghana through an EOR

The EOR is the legal employer and a large payroll employer, so neither salary below gets any small-employer relief; none exists for these contributions.

Assumptions: salary is entirely basic salary, the SSNIT base, so no allowance carve-out applies; 12 equal monthly payments and no 13th salary. Monthly pay of GHS 48,333 and GHS 96,667 is under the ceiling. USD figures use 1 USD = 11.65 GHS (Bank of Ghana, 2026-10-23, bog.gov.gh, checked 2026-10-26). If part of pay is non-basic allowances, the SSNIT cost falls.

The EOR’s own fee is on top. Per month, the three providers that publish a Ghana figure show $349 (Skuad, discounted from $449), $579 (Borderless AI) and $599 (Deel, management fee from). The others quote on request or publish nothing for Ghana.

Hidden costs, where published: Skuad’s discounted monthly rate comes with a 12-month commitment. No provider in our set publishes a setup fee, deposit or termination fee for Ghana. Where the table is blank, treat it as unpublished, not zero.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. If the person sets their own hours and tools and can serve other clients, a contractor relationship is closer to the real one. See how to pay contractors in Ghana and our hiring guide. If the work reads as employment, misclassification can bring back contributions.
• Your own Ghanaian entity. Act 1173, in force since 2026-07-15, removed most blanket minimum capital for wholly foreign-owned and joint-venture enterprises, except trading enterprises (reported USD 500,000). An entity employing its own staff sidesteps the s.7 question, though you would hold SSNIT and PAYE obligations yourself and a work-permit quota for foreign hires. Registration with GIPA reportedly must be renewed annually (KPMG).

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01 — National daily minimum wage raised 9% from GHS 19.97 to GHS 21.77 for calendar 2026.
• 2026-01-01 — SSNIT maximum insurable earnings raised from GHS 61,000 to GHS 69,000 a month; the minimum from GHS 539.19 to GHS 587.80; maximum Tier 1 contribution GHS 9,315 and minimum GHS 79.40 a month (public notice of 2026-01-13).
• 2026-07-03 — Republic Day (1 July), restored as a holiday by Act 1142 of 2025, observed on Friday 3 July 2026; Founders’ Day on Monday 21 September (Citi Newsroom, seen as a search excerpt).
• 2026-07-15 — Ghana Investment Promotion Authority Act 2026 (Act 1173) in force: removes most blanket minimum capital for foreign investors (trading enterprises excepted), replaces the cap of four expatriates with a capital-based scale, introduces time-bound work permits and routes permit applications of foreign-participated enterprises through GIPA (EY).
• 2026-09-01 — Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2026 (Act 1178): new monthly PAYE bands, with the first GHS 588 at 0% (up from GHS 490), then 5%, 10%, 17.5%, 25%, 30% and 35% above GHS 50,000 a month (GRA notice). One commentator argues commencement depends on gazetting; GRA states 1 September 2026.

All checked 2026-10-26.

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

• Minimum wage. Remote’s Ghana page shows GHS 18.15 a day, the 2024 rate, and RemoFirst’s Ghana guide shows GHS 490.05 a month. The rate for 2026 is GHS 21.77 a day (allAfrica, checked 2026-10-26).
• Public holidays. Playroll, Rivermate and G-P give 13. Our count of the 2026 list is 14, which includes Republic Day and Founders’ Day, restored by Act 1142 of 2025. The count comes from search excerpts and press (mint.gov.gh, checked 2026-10-26).
• Employer cost. Deel’s widget shows an estimated employer cost of 14.10% of salary. The SSNIT employer share is 13% (SSNIT notice and Act 766 excerpts); the page doesn’t break down the difference.

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-10-26 against the Labour Act 2003, SSNIT and Bank of Ghana publications, with law-firm and press summaries where no primary text could be opened; those are marked in the text. Vendor entities could not be checked in the Ghanaian company registry, which has no open public search, so they rest on vendor pages and documents; where a vendor names no Ghanaian entity we recorded it as not disclosed. The order puts providers that say they have an own Ghanaian entity first, then partner models, then those that don’t disclose, with a published Ghana price and fuller data moving a provider up within each group. Nobody pays for placement on this page.