Introduction to payroll in Gambia

If you want to attract and retain top talent in Gambia, you need to adhere to the country’s local labor laws that cover everything from onboarding to payroll processing. Ensuring smooth payroll in Gambia is a focal aspect of running remote teams in the country. Accurate, timely payments guarantee excellent employee experiences for your remote workers, and compliance with local labor laws lets you avoid potentially costly legal fees and penalties. However, shouldering the in-house cost of securing in-country expertise for compliance is challenging for many companies, regardless of size.

Let Skuad navigate the complex local labor laws of Gambia for you so that you stay compliant with every aspect of labor practices. We handle salary requirements for employees, taxation specifics and other deductions, benefits administration, and more:

• Income, regional, or corporate taxes
• Social security, health insurance, unemployment benefits, and pension
• Different types of leaves and holiday compensation
• Other taxes and employee deductions

Payroll process in Gambia

The payroll process consists of three phases, each dealing with due diligence, salary computation, and disbursement and reporting.

Pre-payroll phase

The stage that deals with due diligence is called the pre-payroll phase, where you need to standardize and streamline all the policies and processes that go into payroll.

Setting up the organization

Every business is unique with its own approach to policies and processes, which in turn impact payroll processing directly or indirectly. The first step in pre-payroll is setting clear standards for the foundational aspects of your business, including the following:

Business profile

This is a unique set of registered business numbers and identifications you need for the eventual submission of required supporting documentation. You’ll need these numbers and designations for submitting documents like tax forms and invoices down the road.

Work location

It’s best practice to customize your work policies specific to a location, especially if you have multiple small locations in a larger locale.

Leave policy

The different types of leaves and their locally mandated guidelines directly impact wage calculation. You need to be clear on how you structure internal policy on leaves, all the while staying compliant with local labor laws.

Attendance policy

In the same vein, your attendance policy will be a balance between locally mandated rules and internal company policy. It also needs to integrate tools used to track attendance and should incorporate adjustments for overtime, reduced hours, and other issues.

Statutory components

The local labor laws of Gambia dictate specific details of statutory components. Always work with your compliance experts on how to properly incorporate them into your due diligence.

Salary components

Generally, a compensation package includes the base rate as well as deductions and benefits. The local employment laws in Gambia will dictate minimums and maximums for various parts of a compensation package, so be sure to stay compliant.

Pay schedule

Employees in Gambia will expect to be paid monthly — incorporate local work culture norms into your internal policy.

Employee information

The pre-payroll phase has much to do with input collection and validation, so the majority of the data that will be collected is related to employee information that impacts wage calculation.

Payroll calculation phase

This phase is devoted to one task: the actual calculation of wages. If all required due diligence during the pre-payroll phase has been performed, salary calculation shouldn't be a problem. Of course, software systems and platforms that offer features like automation and integration with the tools you use for pre-payroll can greatly speed up this phase.

Post-payroll phase

Salary payments

This is the part where you send out an invoice to your payment processor to go ahead with salary disbursement. Some software systems and tools can make this step more efficient through features like direct deposit.

Payroll accounting

For internal auditing purposes, you need to account for all paid wages since they form a significant portion of business expenses.

Payroll reporting and compliance

For compliance purposes, you need to submit any relevant invoices, tax forms, and any other supporting documentation relevant to payroll to local authorities.

Book a demo and our experts at Skuad can show you how to smoothly implement all the phases of payroll.

Payroll processing in Gambia

With the detailed steps involved in payroll processing as well as the comprehensive requirements of local labor law, running payroll in Gambia for remote workers through in-house resources can be challenging, to say the least. Partnering with a trusted payroll processing company such as Skuad is a highly recommended alternative.

Payroll processing company in Gambia

Running payroll in Gambia doesn’t have to be difficult. Skuad can provide not only the in-country legal expertise but also the software platform to use to run payroll seamlessly and compliantly.

Payroll management in Gambia

The practice of maintaining financial records and other supporting documentation relating to payroll is payroll management. Skuad’s services include payroll management in Gambia, so everything regarding payroll is managed under one platform.

Payroll compliance in Gambia

Employment regulation in Gambia is mostly governed by the country’s Labor Act of 2007, as well as collective agreements and of course specific contract details. Gambia’s local labor laws provide guidance on nearly all aspects of employment practice, including:

• General labor market trends
• Statutory employment protections
• Business protections
• Employee privacy
• Worker consultations

Payroll components in Gambia

If you want to stay compliant with Gambia’s local labor laws, you need to understand its various components and how legislation impacts them. Payroll is generally subdivided into a base rate of compensation and then either increases or decreases based on such factors like overtime and contributions. These are all governed by various parts of Gambian labor law.

Compensation

The minimum wage in Gambia is currently set at 50 Gambian Dalasi or GMD ($0.92) per day, which works out to 6.25 GMD (approximately $0.15) an hour. If that seems particularly low, a more useful metric may be the average salary in the country, which is GMD 15,900 ($293.63) per month.

Working hours

A working week in Gambia typically lasts 36.5 hours. The official working hours per day are between 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM from Monday to Thursday, and the remaining hours are worked on Friday.

Overtime laws

There are no nationally mandated limitations on overtime, and the contract details typically identify overtime rates and max caps.

Social security

Contributions to social insurance and a national provident fund are made by both employer and employee. Employees do not contribute to social insurance but rather contribute 5% of their monthly basic salary to the provident fund. Employers contribute to both: 15% of gross payroll to social insurance and 10% of monthly basic payroll to the provident fund.

Sick leave

Employees are entitled to 90 days of sick leave. Only the first 30 are fully paid.

Parental leave

New mothers who have been with their employer for two years are entitled to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, six of which are taken before the estimated due date and six weeks after. While Gambia does not have provisions for paternity leave, new fathers may make use of up to four days of paid leave for compassionate reasons.

Public holidays

Below are the public holidays in Gambia:

• New Years Day - January 1st
• Independence Day - February 18th
• Good Friday, Easter Monday - March/April
• Labor Day - May 1st
• African Liberation Day - May 25
• Revolution July 22nd
• Feast of The Assumption - August 15th
• Christmas Day - December 25th
• Islamic Feast - Date depends on the Lunar Calendar
• Ashura Prophet’s Birthday (Eid Ul Mawlud) - date depends on the Lunar Calendar
• Revelation of the Qur’an (Eid Ul Adha) - date depends on the Lunar Calendar
• End of Ramadan (Koriteh) - date depends on the Lunar Calendar
• Feast of the Sacrifice (Tobaski) - date depends on the Lunar Calendar

Payroll taxes

Personal income in Gambia is taxed in progressive rates dictated by income brackets either annually or monthly, with the following structure:

• First GMD 7,500 annually or GMD 625.00 monthly is exempt
• Next GMD 10,000 annually or GMD 833.33 monthly is taxed at 10%
• Next GMD 10,000 annually or GMD 833.33 monthly is taxed at 15%
• Next GMD 10,000 annually or GMD 833.33 monthly is taxed at 20%
• Next GMD 10,000 annually or GMD 833.33 monthly is taxed at 25%
• Next GMD 10,000 annually or GMD 833.33 monthly is taxed at 30%
• Exceeding GMD 47,500 annually or GMD 3,958.33 monthly is taxed at 35%

Other laws

Other important laws deal with the details of termination and probationary periods. In Gambia, probation periods cannot exceed 12 months. Notice periods for termination depend on the contract type:

• Fixed-term contracts require fourteen days’ notice
• Notice for employees on indefinite contract depends on tenure and salary payment interval

Want to learn more? Request a demo and Skuad’s experts can discuss all the details you need.

Outsourcing Gambia payroll processing

Evidently, the labor laws pertaining to payroll in Gambia can be quite complex to navigate. And to properly attract and retain top talent in Gambia, your payroll processing should be accurate, on time, and compliant with the country’s local labor laws. You can try to do this on your own, but you'll likely find that this is a labor-intensive process.

Let Skuad take over payroll in Gambia for your organization. As a trusted global HR and payroll processing partner, we guarantee compliance with local labor laws so that you can focus your resources on other business matters. Better yet, you can flexibly expand the services you require from just payroll to remote HR management when you need it.

Find out how Skuad can help you grow your business internationally now.

Gambia’s exchange rate currently stands at $1 for every GMD 54.15.