Hire a Remote Team in Jordan: A Comprehensive Guide for 2026

Introduction

Hiring employees in Jordan requires compliance with Labour Law No. 8 of 1996, registration of every worker with the Social Security Corporation (SSC), and income tax withholding through the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD).

Foreign companies without a local entity usually hire by setting up a subsidiary or by working with an Employer of Record (EOR) that holds the legal employment relationship.

The minimum wage is JOD 290 a month, and employers add 14.25% of gross salary to social security. The detail where it gets tricky is that contracts must be written; the Arabic version is the one that holds up in court, and each one must be registered with the Ministry of Labour within 15 days.

Social security starts on day one, and misclassifying a contractor can result in penalties and fines.

In this guide, we cover how to hire in Jordan, employment laws, payroll and taxes, leave, compliance risks, and how much it will cost you to hire in Jordan.

How to hire in Jordan?

If you are planning to hire employees in Jordan, you can choose from the following alternatives:

Option 1: Set up a subsidiary

Setting up a subsidiary in Jordan allows companies to establish a direct local presence, gaining more control over operations and recruitment.

Setting up a subsidiary is advantageous as it enables operational control and autonomy in recruitment.

However, this option is expensive and time-consuming.

Option 2: Hire as a contractor

Instead of hiring full-time employees, companies can engage professionals on a contractual basis, providing flexibility and potential cost savings.

An AOR or agent of record is usually one of the most sought-after options when hiring and managing international contractors.

They deal with all legal and compliance matters, including payouts and classifications, and help you stay compliant with local labor laws.

Keep contractor and employee classification in mind, because if a contractor is treated like an employee in practice, the relationship can be reclassified as employment.

Penalties may also apply, including back payments, fines, and other statutory liabilities, depending on the breach.

Option 3: Collaborate with an EOR

An EOR, or Employer of Record, acts as a legal employer on your behalf and provides the local knowledge and expertise to navigate the local employment regulations in Jordan.

You can partner with an EOR provider to help you with global hiring. This eliminates the need for a local entity.

Setting up a subsidiary in Jordan means registering a company with the Companies Control Department, preparing and notarizing the incorporation documents, completing trade and tax registration, and depositing your capital in a local bank account.

This process typically takes two to six months before you can legally employ anyone.

Whether you bring someone on full-time or engage them as a contractor, Skuad supports both from a single platform, so you can move between the two without switching your EOR providers.

EOR for full-time employees

• Acts as the legal employer across 160+ countries, so you can hire without setting up a local entity
• Supports employment contract generation aligned with local labor laws across supported markets
• Facilitates statutory contribution workflows covering applicable social insurance and pension obligations
• Supports payroll processing in 70+ currencies with tax withholding and year-end reconciliation
• Helps administer statutory benefits, paid leave, and parental entitlements in line with local requirements
• Assists with termination and offboarding, including notice periods and severance as required locally

Contractor management (AOR)

• Helps onboard contractors with locally compliant agreements that reduce misclassification exposure
• Supports invoice generation, approval workflows, and payment processing
• Flags classification risk early with built-in worker classification checks, which matters given the Scheinselbstständigkeit exposure covered above
• Facilitates payouts across 70+ currencies with no manual reconciliation
• Helps manage contractor records, contracts, and payment history from one dashboard alongside full-time employees

See pricing for full-time employees and contractors.

What are the employment laws in Jordan?

Employment in Jordan is governed by Labour Law No. 8 of 1996 and its amendments, enforced by the Ministry of Labour, with labour courts handling dismissal and dispute claims.

Contracts with name, job title, wage, working hours, contract type, and notice terms must be written in Arabic (bilingual is fine).

What are the payroll and taxes in Jordan?

Running payroll in Jordan means paying employees monthly in Jordanian dinars, withholding income tax, and paying into the Social Security Corporation (SSC) each month.

Salaries must be paid by the last working day of the month, and payslips are usually issued in Arabic or in a bilingual format.

Minimum wage in Jordan

Jordan's private-sector minimum wage is JOD 290 per month, roughly USD 409. The rate applies to every worker covered by Labour Law No. 8 of 1996, whether they are paid monthly, weekly, daily, or hourly, and it covers both Jordanian and non-Jordanian employees.

Part-time staff are paid the minimum on a pro-rata basis. The one carve-out is the garment sector, where wages are set by a separate collective agreement.

The minimum wage tells you the legal floor, not what it takes to land skilled people. Roles in tech, finance, and engineering go for well above JOD 290, and the rate moves with the role and experience level.

Skuad's Salary Insights Tool pulls real market benchmarks for Jordan, so you can price a role properly before you make an offer.

Check real salary benchmarks for Jordan by role and seniority.

Social security contributions

Both the employer and the employee pay into the SSC, which covers old-age pensions, disability, death, work injury, maternity, and unemployment.

The total contribution is 21.75% of the monthly wage, split as follows.

The occupational injury rate can rise for higher-risk sectors, and an extra 1% applies for hazardous occupations, both paid by the employer.

A monthly salary ceiling caps the contribution base, and the SSC revises it each year. Contributions are due within the first 15 days of the following month, and late payment carries 1% interest per month.

Income tax

Employers withhold personal income tax from salaries and remit it to the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD). Tax is progressive, so each slice of annual taxable income is taxed at its own rate.

A 1% national contribution applies on annual taxable income above JOD 200,000. Before tax is calculated, employees get a personal allowance of JOD 9,000, plus another JOD 9,000 for dependents, capped at JOD 23,000 per household.

Filing and deadlines

Monthly income tax withholding, together with the employer's SSC contributions, is declared and paid within 30 days of the salary payment date.

The annual income tax return is filed after the tax year ends. New hires should be registered with the Ministry of Labour within 15 days and enrolled with the SSC when they start.

Keeping a Jordan payroll compliant in-house means juggling monthly SSC filings, income tax withholding to the ISTD, the annual reconciliation, and a contribution ceiling that shifts every year, with interest and penalties waiting on every missed deadline.

Skuad supports global payroll on a single platform, so your team can pay people in Jordan accurately without setting up local payroll infrastructure or chasing filing dates.

What are the leave benefits for employees in Jordan?

Employees in Jordan get paid annual leave, sick leave, maternity and bereavement leave, and public holidays. Here is what each leave covers.

How many public holidays are there in Jordan?

Jordan observes eight main public holidays in 2026. The Religious holidays depend on the Muslim Lunar Calendar. It may differ by a few days from the dates mentioned below.

What are the compliance risks of hiring in Jordan?

The biggest challenge of hiring in Jordan is that the legal responsibility sits with you as the employer, and the rules are specific, locally administered, and still changing.

Get a filing, a contract clause, or a worker classification wrong, and the penalties, back payments, and disputes are yours to sort out.

Here are the risks that catch foreign employers most often.

Misclassifying employees as contractors

Hiring someone as an independent contractor to skip payroll and benefits is the quickest way into trouble.

Jordanian law draws a clear line between an employee and a contractor, and if a "contractor" works like a full-time employee, the authorities can reclassify them. That leaves you back-paying social security, taxes, and benefits, plus fines.

Getting the employment contract wrong

Contracts should be in writing, and the Arabic version is the one that holds up before Jordanian authorities and courts, so a bilingual contract is the safe route.

Labour Law No. 8 of 1996 sets out the clauses a contract has to include, and the contract needs to be registered with the Ministry of Labour within 15 days of the start date.

Skip that step, and you are exposed to fines and a weaker position in any wage dispute.

Slipping on social security and tax filings

Every employee must be registered with the Social Security Corporation (SSC) from day one, with the employer paying 14.25% of gross salary and the employee 7.5%.

Contributions are due within the first 15 days of the following month, and late payment adds 1% interest a month. Income tax is withheld from salaries and remitted to the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD) each month.

Unregistered workers, late filings, and incorrect withholding all carry fines, and unpaid social security can hold up work permit renewals.

Paying below the minimum wage

The minimum wage is JOD 290 a month for private-sector workers. Falling under it, even by accident through how you structure allowances, can trigger fines and an order to pay the shortfall as back wages, with penalties rising for repeat breaches.

Termination that turns into an unfair dismissal claim

You cannot end an indefinite contract without a valid reason and one month of written notice.

Jordanian courts have historically read terminations in the employee's favor, so a dismissal that looks arbitrary can become a compensation claim. Ending a fixed-term contract early usually means paying out the rest of the term.

Falling behind as the law changes

Jordan amended its Labour Law in 2023, and again under the 2024 amendments, with changes to maternity leave, sick leave, bereavement leave, and protection against dismissing pregnant employees. HR policies written a year or two ago may already be out of date, and a rule being new does not make non-compliance any cheaper.

Work permit missteps for foreign hires

Employing a foreign national needs a work permit through the Ministry of Labour, with employer sponsorship, and in many cases proof that no qualified Jordanian is available for the role. The process can take several weeks and is subject to sector quotas, so a hire that skips it can stall or fall through entirely.

Every one of these risks, from misclassification to late Social Security Corporation filings, an unregistered contract, or a termination a court later calls unfair, sits with you as the employer. Jordan also keeps changing the rules, with fresh Labour Law amendments landing in 2023 and 2024.

Skuad Shield helps you stay on the right side of Jordanian employment law through local EOR infrastructure, so your team is not tracking regulatory changes or chasing filing dates on its own.

Here is what Skuad helps with:

• Locally compliant employment contracts generated across 160+ countries, aligned with local labor laws and statutory requirements
• Worker classification checks that flag misclassification risk before it turns into back pay and fines
• Statutory contribution and filing workflows across supported markets, covering applicable social security and tax obligations
• Ongoing monitoring of regulatory changes, so your contracts and policies stay current as the law shifts
• Termination and offboarding support aligned with local notice and severance requirements across supported markets
• Intellectual property and data protection safeguards built into every employment relationship

For a company bringing on one or two people in Jordan, that moves the compliance load off your plate, and you are not the one exposed when a rule changes mid-year.

Book a demo to see how Skuad supports compliance for your Jordan hires as the rules change.

What is the cost of hiring in Jordan?

The cost of hiring in Jordan comes down to three things: the salary, the employer's social security contribution on top of it, and the route you use to employ the person.

The salary

The minimum salary that you need to pay is JOD 290 a month for private-sector workers, which is roughly USD 409. Skilled and professional roles in tech, finance, and engineering pay well above that, so base your budget on the market rate for the role.

The employer add-ons

On top of gross salary, you pay 14.25% to the Social Security Corporation. The employee pays another 7.5%, but that comes out of their pay, so it is not an extra cost to you.

The real statutory cost of a hire is therefore the gross salary plus about 14.25%. On a JOD 1,000 salary, that is roughly JOD 142.50 in social security, or about JOD 1,142.50 a month all in.

Jordan’s total employer cost is above gross salary once mandatory social security contributions and typical benefits are factored in. Employers add 14.25% of the employee’s monthly wage to the Social Security Corporation (SSC), on top of which they need to budget for paid leave, public holidays, and potential notice and severance at termination.

For many roles, that means the all‑in cost per employee is roughly 10–20% higher than gross salary, depending on the exact SSC base, sector risk (which can push the occupational injury rate up), and any additional allowances or benefits you choose to offer.

Skuad’s Employee Cost Calculator helps you estimate this total for Jordan and 160+ other countries in a single view, combining gross salary, employer SSC contributions, and core statutory obligations so you can budget accurately before making an offer.

Calculate the total cost of hiring in Jordan with Skuad’s Employee Cost Calculator.

Customer story: how RemoteLock built a distributed tech team with Skuad

RemoteLock, an access control software company, needed to hire technical staff across Europe, Africa, and South Asia, including Egypt, without opening an entity in each market. Skuad supported the hire of 26 full-time and contract tech professionals across six countries, with locally compliant onboarding, payroll in 70+ currencies, and protection against worker misclassification. The result was a distributed engineering team built without local incorporation in any of those markets.

"Partnering with Skuad has transformed our international hiring and onboarding processes. Their streamlined approach has enabled our tech team to scale effortlessly and efficiently."- Jon Santavy, Managing Partner, RemoteLock

Read the full case study

Start hiring in Jordan with Skuad

Hiring in Jordan means navigating local labor law, payroll withholding, social security contributions, minimum wage rules, contract requirements, and work permit steps for foreign hires.

It also means keeping up with filing deadlines, termination rules, and contractor classification risks, all of which can create compliance exposure if handled incorrectly.

Skuad supports the operational side of that: employment contracts, payroll processing in 70+ currencies, statutory benefits, work permits, and compliance support, so your team can focus on the work rather than the paperwork.

Book a demo to see how Skuad supports compliant hiring in Jordan.

FAQs

1. What is an employer of record in Jordan?

An employer of record in Jordan is a third party that legally employs your workers under Jordanian Labour Code No. 8 of 1996. It manages employment contracts, Social Security Corporation registration, payroll, and tax withholding, so you can hire local staff without registering your own entity.

2. How much does an EOR in Jordan cost?

EOR pricing in Jordan usually combines a per-employee monthly fee with the employee's gross salary and statutory costs. Employers typically budget around 14.25% of gross salary for Social Security Corporation contributions, plus income tax withholding on a progressive scale reaching 30%, on top of the platform fee.

3. Can a foreign company hire in Jordan without setting up a local entity?

Foreign companies can typically hire in Jordan through an EOR without registering a local entity, because the EOR holds the legal employment relationship. The provider handles Social Security Corporation registration, Labour Code-compliant contracts, and monthly payroll filings, while your team directs the employee's day-to-day work.

4. What compliance risks do employers face when hiring in Jordan?

Common risks include unregistered contracts, late Social Security Corporation filings, and worker misclassification. Under Jordanian law, unregistered employees and minimum wage breaches can trigger fines, and late SSC payments generally carry monthly interest. Misclassifying a contractor as exempt from statutory benefits can also create back-payment liability for employers.

5. What is the difference between an EOR and a PEO in Jordan?

An EOR acts as the legal employer in Jordan and can hire on your behalf without a local entity. A PEO co-employs your staff and shares HR responsibilities, but it generally requires you to already hold a registered entity in Jordan. Most small teams start with an EOR.

6. How long does it take to onboard an employee in Jordan through an EOR?

Onboarding through an EOR in Jordan usually takes one to two weeks, since the provider already holds a local entity and can register the hire with the Social Security Corporation. Timelines vary with document collection, and work permits for foreign nationals through the Ministry of Labour can add several weeks.