Hire Employees in Venezuela

Two routes exist. Registering a Venezuelan entity gives you direct employment, followed by registration with the IVSS, the housing fund and the tax authority.

An Employer of Record removes that setup. The EOR is the legal employer, runs payroll, applies the statutory deductions and classifies pay correctly, while day-to-day direction stays with you.

The classification question is the real work here. Whether a payment is salary or bonus determines whether it feeds severance, holiday pay, profit share and pension, and the consequences of getting it wrong surface at termination, sometimes decades later.

Venezuela runs a two-tier income structure that has no real parallel elsewhere. The legal minimum wage has been Bs. 130 a month since March 2022, less than US$0.27 at the official Banco Central rate. Increases are delivered instead as bonuses.

The government describes a minimum integral income of US$240, made up of US$200 from the bono contra la guerra económica and US$40 from the cestaticket. In May 2026 that was raised from US$190, but explicitly not through salary. The Labour Minister put it plainly: raising salary would push inflation up.

For context, US$240 covers about 43.6% of the food basket at roughly US$550 a month, and under 15% of the full family basket estimated above US$1,600. Year-on-year inflation was 611.9% in April, down from 649.5% in March.

Break-even rule of thumb: EOR fees begin to exceed the running cost of a Venezuelan entity somewhere between 15 and 25 employees, though the compliance burden argues for a provider well beyond that. Model both, see EOR vs Entity.

Employee deductions are precisely defined. IVSS takes 4% of salario normal, capped at five minimum wages under article 66 of the Ley del Seguro Social. FAOV takes 1% of salario integral under article 31 of the housing law. RPE takes 0.5% of salario normal for unemployment cover under article 46.

Employer contribution rates were not reproduced in the sources consulted. Employers also contribute to the IVSS, the housing fund, the employment regime and INCES, but the applicable percentages should be confirmed locally before quoting a total cost.

Article 105 of the LOTTT sets an exhaustive list of what is not salary: the cestaticket, justified travel expenses, tool costs, and employer contributions to the IVSS and BANAVIH. Anything not on that list, if regular and permanent, is salary regardless of what it is called.

Article 104 defines salario normal as regular and permanent remuneration whatever its name, excluding accidental perceptions. Article 122 defines salario integral as daily normal salary plus the profit share and holiday bonus proportions, and that is the mandatory base for severance.

Indicative monthly packages. The split between salary and bonus matters more than the total, because only the salary element drives statutory entitlements.

Benchmarks below are indicative monthly packages. Because base salary and bonuses are treated differently in law, the split matters more than the headline figure.

Payroll runs twice monthly. Alongside the three employee deductions, income tax is withheld monthly under Tarifa 1 of article 50 of the income tax law, but only where annual income exceeds 1,000 tax units.

Overtime premiums are set by statute. Daytime overtime carries a 50% surcharge under article 118, night overtime 80% under articles 117 and 118, and the night bonus 30% under article 117. Holidays and Sundays are governed by article 120.

Unpaid wages are expensive. Article 128 provides for interest on arrears at the Banco Central active rate plus monetary correction, which in an environment of 611.9% inflation makes delay extremely costly.

A well-constructed payslip separates each element rather than merging them into a single line. For every bonus, record the amount, date, payment method and the legal basis relied on.

Monthly withholding under Tarifa 1 applies only where annual income exceeds 1,000 tax units. Confirm the current unit value before configuring payroll.

The Ley Orgánica del Trabajo, los Trabajadores y las Trabajadoras governs employment.

Article 129 requires the minimum wage to be fixed each year, provides that no lower salary may be agreed, and applies it equally across the national territory without discrimination. In practice it has been frozen at Bs. 130 since March 2022, a direct tension between the statute and the position on the ground.

A minimum wage decree was suspended by the Consejo de Estado pending review of whether it met the legal parameters on inflation and productivity. As at 23 February 2026 the Bs. 130 figure remained in force.

Reports of a large increase have circulated periodically. Treat them cautiously, several carry internal errors, and only a published decree changes the position.

Contracts should record pay, hours, leave, notice and termination terms, and should classify each element of remuneration explicitly.

Decide the salary and bonus split deliberately. A recurring payment classified as a bonus suppresses the base for severance, holiday pay, profit share and pension, and misclassification is a common source of dispute at termination.

Register the employee with the IVSS and the housing fund before the first payroll run.

Overtime attracts a 50% surcharge during the day and 80% at night, with a separate 30% night bonus. Holiday and Sunday work is governed by article 120.

Commissions form part of salary. Bonuses, prizes and surcharges classified as salary also enter the base for deductions.

Because the deductions apply to salario normal or salario integral rather than total income, the classification of each element changes both employee take-home and employer liability.

Venezuela observes national and Catholic public holidays, including Carnival and several dates tied to independence and Bolívar.

Venezuela observes national and Catholic public holidays, including Carnival and several dates tied to independence and Bolívar. Dates and any substitution rules are set out below.

The IVSS provides pension and social insurance; the housing fund provides access to housing finance; the employment regime provides unemployment cover.

This is where the salary and bonus distinction bites hardest. Because the IVSS pension is calculated on contributions, and contributions are calculated on salary rather than total income, an employee receiving most of their money as bonuses accrues a pension based on very little.

One published illustration makes the point starkly: a worker receiving around US$160 a month in real income, of which US$0.33 is salary, will after twenty years have severance and pension calculated on that US$0.33 monthly base.

Profit share and holiday bonus feed into salario integral under article 122, so they raise the severance base, but only to the extent that base salary is meaningful in the first place.

Severance is calculated on salario integral, not base salary, under the dual system in article 142 of the LOTTT, the statute requires whichever calculation is more favourable to the employee.

Salario integral means daily normal salary plus the proportions of profit share and holiday bonus, under article 122.

Getting the base wrong is the expensive error. Where recurring payments have been classified as non-salary bonuses, an employee may challenge that classification at termination, and a successful challenge recalculates years of accrual.

Unpaid amounts attract interest at the Banco Central active rate plus monetary correction under article 128.

Article 105 of the LOTTT is an exhaustive list, which matters because it means anything outside it that is regular and permanent counts as salary. The listed items are the cestaticket, justified travel expenses, tool and equipment costs, and employer contributions to the IVSS and BANAVIH.

The cestaticket may form part of monthly income without behaving as salary for all labour calculations. That is precisely why it appears on the article 105 list.

Bonuses can be treated differently according to origin, periodicity, salary character and payment method. A recurring payment that is poorly classified or poorly documented generates disputes at termination or when calculating linked entitlements.

For payroll purposes, the prudent course is to document the amount, the date, the payment method and the normative basis for every element.

Paying recurring amounts as non-salary bonuses is the dominant structural risk. It suppresses the base for severance, holiday pay, profit share and pension, and the exposure accrues silently for years before surfacing at termination.

Article 105 is exhaustive. If a regular, permanent payment is not on that list, it is salary whatever it is called, article 104 says so expressly.

Severance runs on salario integral under the article 142 dual system, not on base salary. Provisioning on base alone understates the liability.

Note also that unpaid wages carry BCV active-rate interest plus monetary correction; that the minimum wage has been frozen since 2022 despite article 129; and that exchange rates move fast enough to make any dollar-denominated figure time-sensitive.

Work backwards from the start date. An EOR hire takes three to six weeks; entity formation runs three to six months.

Settle the salary and bonus classification before you contract, and document the legal basis for each element.

Confirm employer contribution rates locally, provision severance on salario integral, register with the IVSS and housing fund, and revisit dollar-denominated figures frequently given the rate of inflation.