Best Employer of Record · AfricaBest EOR for Africa: six countries priced

Six ledgers, and the ceiling decides

The country table prices one employee at each country’s example salary through the three picks. On these six ledgers the statutory rate a guide quotes and the rate an employer pays are two different numbers, and what separates them is whether the country caps the base.

Four of the six cap it. Egypt applies all five of its employer lines to a contributory wage capped at EGP 16,700 a month, so a headline of 18.75% prices at 3.7% on an $18,000 salary. South Africa stops its unemployment insurance at R17,712 of monthly pay and its Compensation Fund assessment at R668,000 a year, which leaves the 1% skills levy as the only uncapped line and the total at 1.5%. Kenya caps its 6% NSSF contribution at the Year 4 limit in force since February 2026 and runs the 1.5% housing levy on all pay, for 4.5%. Morocco caps two of its five lines at MAD 6,000 a month and leaves family allowances, compulsory health insurance and the vocational training tax uncapped, which is why it reaches 15.1% despite the ceiling.

The other two do not cap it at any salary this page prices. Nigeria’s 10% pension, 1% to the Employees’ Compensation Fund and 1% training levy have no ceiling, so the on-cost is the same share of pay at $20,000 as at $100,000. Ghana has a ceiling, GHS 69,000 of monthly insurable earnings for 2026, but it sits so far above a software salary that the 13% applies in full.

Where the fee sits in the invoice

Set the statutory charge against the fee and the six split three ways. In South Africa, Kenya and Egypt the country adds $45 to $75 a month on the example salary, and the lowest published fee is between 2.6 and 4.4 times that. In Nigeria and Ghana the country adds about $195 to $200, level with a $199 fee. In Morocco it adds about $277, roughly 1.4 times the same fee. The practical reading: in the first group the choice of provider moves the total more than the choice of country does, and the gap between a $199 and a $699 fee, $500 a month, is several times the whole statutory charge of any of the three.

Two bases to settle, three dates to watch

Nigeria and Ghana are written as ceilings because both charge on basic salary and the page models basic at 100% of pay. A provider whose Nigerian contracts split pay into basic, housing and transport lowers the pension line, never below the three together; a Ghanaian package split into basic plus allowances lowers SSNIT in proportion. Ask each provider what split its contracts use.

The dates belong on the quote. Kenya’s NSSF limit rises again to its Year 5 level in February 2027. Ghana’s SSNIT ceiling is revised each January. Egypt’s rate steps from 18.75% to 19.25% on 1 January 2027, and its contributory ceiling is revised the same day. A provider quoting a fixed monthly total for 2027 is either absorbing those changes or has not priced them.

What no percentage here captures

Several African employer costs are premiums or flat fees rather than shares of pay, and they are listed on each country page but not added to its total: Nigeria’s compulsory group life cover of three times annual emoluments, Kenya’s work-injury insurance under WIBA and its NITA levy, Morocco’s private work-accident policy, South Africa’s COIDA minimum assessment, and the per-head fixed fees an Egyptian payroll can carry. Morocco’s five CNSS lines rest on a labelled secondary source dated 1 January 2024, corroborated line by line by a provider page; its MAD 6,000 ceiling is overdue for a fresh official reading. Egypt and Morocco are also where searches for MENA land; the Gulf, Israel and Turkey are priced on the Middle East page.