Hiring in Sudan: the contract, leave and end-of-service pay, step by step

Move someone who is already in Sudan

An employee moving to you from another employer in Sudan works out the notice their current contract sets. For monthly-paid staff it is at least a month, given in writing.

Where the person is not Sudanese, the permit for the new role is arranged too.

Check the role is open to the person you want

The Labour Act 1997 sets no list of jobs closed to non-Sudanese and no quota of Sudanese staff. Its rule is on how a job is filled. Whether someone who is not Sudanese can fill it turns on the work permit, which is arranged where the role needs one.

An advertisement for a job needs the employment office's written permission, and carries that permission's serial number. An employer with ten or more staff asks the office for candidates before appointing, and appoints from those it puts forward.

Where the office has no suitable candidate within two weeks, the employer can advertise the job itself. It then tells the office within a week whom it chose, with their qualifications.

Among the exceptions to the rule are occasional work that takes less than three months, the employer's own family and dependants, and the senior posts the Minister names as the employer's deputies.

Set the contract up right

A contract for longer than three months is written by the employer, in three copies signed by both sides. The employer can rely on it only once the employee has read and signed it.

It states the employer and the workplace, the employee's details and qualifications, the job, its start date and place, the pay and when it is paid, the notice period, and the end date of a fixed-term contract. A term less favourable to the employee than the Act is void.

A fixed-term contract runs for up to two years, and can be renewed once with the same employer. An employee kept on after the renewal ends is on an open-ended contract. So is one whose written contract states no term, no set task and no one they are replacing. A trial period lasts up to three months, not counting a training period.

Pay is in cash, by the day, the week or the month, as agreed. It is paid at the workplace in working hours, within three days of falling due. Pensions and social insurance fall under the Pensions and Social Insurance Act 2016.

The normal week is 48 hours, or 8 a day, with a paid break for a meal or rest. Outside an emergency, overtime is by agreement, up to 4 hours a day and 12 a week. It is paid at one and a half times the basic hourly rate on a normal working day, and twice the rate on an official holiday. Fasting employees work one hour less each day in Ramadan, on full pay.

Know the employee test before you engage a contractor

Sudan's Labour Act 1997 treats as a worker anyone aged sixteen or over who works for pay of any kind, in an employer's service and under its management or supervision. The contract can be written or unwritten, express or implied. The trial period and training are covered too.

The Act does not cover casual workers, domestic workers, most agricultural workers, or family members who live with the employer and depend on them. Its terms are the least an employee is owed, and a contract can only improve on them.

Someone who works under your direction in Sudan for pay is a worker under the Act, whatever their contract calls them. A role like that goes through employer of record.

Know the leave your people are entitled to

End employment on the law's terms

A contract ends with notice only on the grounds the Labour Act lists. They include resignation, written agreement between the two sides, the end of a fixed term or a task, dismissal during the trial period, incapacity the medical board confirms, the dissolution or liquidation of the business, and retirement at 60.

Notice is a month in writing for monthly-paid staff, unless the contract gives more, and six months before retirement. The side that gives no notice pays the wages for it. Annual leave due is not counted within the notice. Once half the notice has run, the employee can leave to look for other work, and is paid in full for the rest of it.

Either side can appeal a termination to the labour authority within two weeks of being told of it. If the authority does not uphold it, the employee goes back with back pay. An employer that does not take them back pays everything owed and six months' pay on top.

A dismissal without notice is allowed only for the misconduct the Act lists, such as forged papers, gross negligence causing serious loss, or violence at work. It needs the labour authority's approval first, which it decides within two weeks. Where it approves, the employee is still owed at least 75% of their end-of-service pay. A dismissal made before it decides means taking the employee back with back pay, or paying six months' basic pay on top of everything owed.

A reduction in staff for economic or technical reasons needs the authority's approval, which it decides within three weeks. The employer can go ahead after four weeks without an answer. Notice is owed either way.

End-of-service pay is owed after three years' continuous service: a month's basic pay for each year up to ten, a month and a half's for each of the next five years, and a month and three quarters' for each year after fifteen. It is worked out on the last basic monthly pay. It comes to no more than 36 months' basic pay. An employee who resigns after three years is owed part of it: a quarter from three years' service, half from five, three quarters from fifteen and all of it from twenty.

Everything owed is paid within a week of the end. Within seven days, the employer returns the employee to the place they were hired from, or pays for the journey. A certificate of service is owed. It states no reason for leaving.

See what changed this year, and what is next

The figures in this guide are the Labour Act 1997's, checked against its text in October 2026. No change to them in the last twelve months was found in a published text. No scheduled change was found either.