Employee benefitsin Afghanistan

The 2007 Labour Law includes medical services for employees and family members among social-protection benefits, linked to implementing rules and the employer’s financial capacity. It does not establish that every private employee holds an identical health-insurance policy or that all care is free at point of use. Local healthcare access also depends on current service availability and restrictions affecting women.

Under the 2007 Labour Law, employers arrange first aid, transfer and treatment after work accidents or unexpected disease, including treatment abroad when unavailable domestically. The employer budget covers the worker and accompanying person’s necessary travel. The law requires compensation for work-related medical harm, while detailed compensation amounts follow separate instruments.

The 2007 Labour Law requires safe workplaces, continuous safety and first-aid training and protective equipment without employee charge for qualifying hazards. Specified hazardous, driving, food, water and care roles require periodic medical checks. Workplace medical centers and family first-aid arrangements depend on staffing and the relevant standards; these duties are distinct from a universal private health-insurance policy.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes health insurance for the employment period. The vacancy is a non-family assignment; it does not establish dependant cover for locally hired employees.

A 2024 leadership order stopped pension deductions from civil and military salaries from the start of the 1403 fiscal year. This concerns the public personnel named in the order. Subsequent public-pension reimbursement measures are separate from private employment, and the order does not establish that every private employer’s social or contractual benefits were abolished.

The 2007 Labour Law provides assistance for specified work-cessation, dissolution or redundancy, conviction and refusal-after-reassignment grounds. It provides two months of last-grade salary plus allowances for the one-to-five-year service band, four months for five to ten years and six months for service over ten years. Assistance is conditional on the stated termination grounds.

The 2007 Labour Law lists food, transport, housing assistance, medical care and childbirth assistance within social protection, subject to relevant implementing rules. These forms of assistance are funded from the employer’s budget, while pensions have a separate fund basis. The list does not itself establish a single payroll contribution rate or identical cash allowances for every worker.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes life insurance for the employment period. This is part of that humanitarian employer’s assignment package.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes travel insurance for the employment period. Insurance terms follow the employer’s assignment arrangement.

The 2007 Labour Law provides twenty days of paid recreational leave yearly. Workers under eighteen receive twenty-five days and qualifying underground or health-harming workers thirty. Leave is separate from public holidays, sickness and urgent leave. Private, non-government and foreign-organization contracts set the terms and manner of implementation under the law’s leave chapter.

Under the 2007 Labour Law, recreational leave follows an agreed schedule. Urgent organizational need can justify agreed transfer to the following year or a split into ten days each half-year. A new recruit qualifies for first-year recreational leave after eleven months; seasonal contracts lasting at least three months receive proportionate leave. Leave salary and allowances are paid in advance, with proportionate unused leave settlement on departure.

The 2007 Labour Law provides twenty days of sick leave with salary and allowances yearly. Prior notice supports up to five days; longer consecutive illness needs a health practitioner’s certificate, or a village-council certificate where no doctor is available. Insured workers can use their insurance doctor’s certificate. Additional absence can use other legal leave, and further certified paid sickness leave depends on the relevant rules.

The 2007 Labour Law allows the full annual sickness and urgent-leave entitlements for recruitment in the first half of the year and half for recruitment in the second half. This is distinct from the recreational-leave service qualification. Private and non-government contracts specify the leave chapter’s implementation arrangements.

The 2007 Labour Law provides ten days of urgent leave with salary and allowances annually. Up to three days can be taken by notice; longer ordinary urgent leave needs a written request and employer agreement. Marriage, childbirth and deaths among the specified relatives permit the ten-day urgent leave by notice. Childbirth support therefore exists within urgent leave even though the law has no separately named paternity-leave schedule.

The 2007 Labour Law provides forty-five paid days once during employment for Hajj or pilgrimage to sacred places. Extra days can use recreational and urgent leave. Payment of salary and allowances requires certification by the religious-affairs department. This is a once-in-service entitlement rather than an annual additional vacation allowance.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package provides twenty-five paid working days of annual leave, accrued at 2.08 days monthly. This is the total employer policy entitlement rather than twenty-five extra days added to the earlier statutory baseline.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package provides five paid working days of rest and recuperation after eight weeks of continuous stay in Afghanistan, excluding weekends and public holidays. It also covers the associated travel and accommodation expenses up to USD 1,400 under the assignment policy.

The 2007 Labour Law provides ninety days of paid maternity leave, with thirty before delivery and sixty after. Abnormal delivery or multiple births adds fifteen paid days. Salary and allowances depend on hospital certification, and the text requires return within five days after leave ends. These are provisions of the earlier framework; current workplace access for Afghan women depends on sector and administrative restrictions.

The 2007 Labour Law gives nursing mothers a paid half-hour breastfeeding break every three hours in addition to ordinary breaks, arranged through workplace rules. A medically certified pregnant worker is assigned lighter work with full pay. The earlier prohibition on refusal or pay reduction for pregnancy and nursing should be read alongside current restrictions on women’s access to workplaces.

The 2007 Labour Law requires workplace kindergartens and nurseries for employees’ children, with admission and operation governed by separate instruments. The earlier provision should be distinguished from actual available childcare, which varies with employer facilities and current access conditions.

The 2007 Labour Law permits specified urgent and continuous-service work on public holidays with agreement and employer approval. Its holiday provisions include compensating time off or additional remuneration. The separate ordinary overtime premium does not describe the entire holiday-work entitlement; the contractual arrangement should reconcile the applicable holiday and overtime provisions.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package lists ten public-holiday days per year. This is its assignment-calendar allowance rather than the national calendar, and it does not establish an extra ten days in addition to every national holiday.

Discretionary bonuses are a commonly reported employer addition in Afghanistan. Amounts, eligibility and timing follow the employment terms or employer policy rather than a universal thirteenth-month formula.

The 2007 Labour Law describes a food allowance for fixed day or night hours, based on a daily rate and normally paid monthly unless the contract provides otherwise. The contract and applicable instrument determine the actual allowance; it is distinct from an employer choosing to provide workplace meals.

The 2007 Labour Law provides in-service technical and vocational training and requires the employer to pay relevant training-provider costs. Work-time training retains salary and allowances. Employer-sponsored higher education can preserve pay and service credit on successful completion, with an agreed return-service obligation or reimbursement if the employee declines that service.

The 2007 Labour Law provides fares and travel allowances, including daily subsistence and accommodation, for official missions, transfers, secondments and assignments elsewhere. Detailed conditions follow the relevant instrument and assignment terms; an expatriate home-leave package can add separate support.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes lunch without employee charge on weekdays. The benefit is tied to the workplace and assignment arrangement.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes pick-up and drop-off transport to work. This is an employer-provided commuting service for the assignment.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package reimburses excess baggage costs for up to twenty kilograms on arrival and departure, against receipts. This supports the named non-family assignment rather than a general employee cash allowance.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes furnished shared accommodation and utilities, with civilian guards and accommodation on field travel. Expatriate positions are non-family assignments. This is housing support for the named assignment rather than unrestricted cash housing support for all employees.

Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR)’s September 2025 Kabul expatriate coordinator package includes return air travel between the home address and Kabul at the beginning and end of the assignment. This is distinct from the separate rest-and-recuperation expense policy.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs continues to host the earlier Labour Law. Its April 2026 report describes a revised law as submitted for approval. The 2007 framework covers employment in government, private and non-government organizations, with separate rules for particular groups. Current decrees and administrative restrictions affect practical application, so the earlier rights should be read with each worker’s sector and contract.

Restrictions on Afghan women’s employment and movement affect access to work and employer benefits. UN Women reported in September 2026 that Afghan women staff and contractors remained barred from entering United Nations premises, while continuing essential work through constrained arrangements. Other restrictions affect civil-service and non-government-organization work. The scope differs by sector and arrangement; an older equality provision does not establish unrestricted current access.

Under the 2007 Labour Law, employment uses a written agreement describing the job, remuneration, hours, leave, workplace, date and duration. Three signed copies go to the employee, employer and labour ministry. A fixed contract lasts one year and can be extended by agreement; if neither party acts within one month of expiry, it renews on the same terms. Longer duration alone does not create the conversion rule sometimes assumed for fixed contracts.

The 2007 Labour Law permits monthly, fortnightly, weekly or output-based remuneration. Salary is paid during the month and cannot be delayed without employee agreement; weekend pay and allowances match ordinary days. Salary, regular allowances and supplements have distinct roles in the employment terms. Lawful deductions require a legal basis, with a general twenty-percent monthly wage limit unless another law provides otherwise.

The 2007 Labour Law states that salary cannot fall below government-determined minima. Private and non-government remuneration is agreed between the parties, subject to the text’s government-floor reference. Occupational terms and current administrative directions need to be matched to the worker’s role before fixing payroll.

The 2007 Labour Law provides a one-hour prayer and lunch break outside official working hours and identifies Friday as the weekly paid rest day. Continuous-service workplaces can arrange rotational holidays. A Sunday-to-Thursday office timetable is an employer schedule rather than a universal legal working week.

The 2007 Labour Law generally shortens night duty by one hour, subject to continuous-production and already-reduced-hours exceptions. Night is an eleven-hour consecutive period set through workplace rules. Administrative and service workers receive a 15% supplement to ordinary hourly salary and production workers 25%; mixed shifts receive the supplement for their night portion.

The 2007 Labour Law treats work outside normal hours as overtime, subject to the parties’ agreement and prescribed conditions. Ordinary overtime pays 25% above the normal hourly wage, rising to 50% above it for weekend or holiday overtime. Night workers, underground or health-harming workers and pregnant workers face specific restrictions; provisions also protect young workers and mothers of young children.

The 2007 Labour Law limits normal work to forty hours weekly on average over the year, with approved scheduling arrangements. It reduces weekly hours without reducing salary or allowances to thirty-five for workers aged fifteen to under eighteen and pregnant workers, and thirty for qualifying underground or health-harming work. Special professional and seasonal schedules have separate rules.

The 2007 Labour Law permits mutually agreed probation of at most three months. Either party can terminate by notifying the other during this period. Civil-service probation follows separate legislation. A private policy should state the agreed duration and notification process.

The 2007 Labour Law permits disciplinary termination for twenty consecutive days of absence without reasonable grounds, subject to its discipline provisions. This is separate from a temporary work stoppage or medical inability to work. Where an illegal dismissal is reversed by the competent commission or court, the law provides back pay and allowances using the preceding six-month average.

The 2007 Labour Law specifies grounds for termination, requires the employer to inform the worker within its one-month notification framework and generally considers transfer to a similar role first. An employee ending an indefinite contract gives one month’s written notice. Fixed-contract early exit has specific employer-breach or inability-to-work grounds. Paid legal leave normally protects against transfer, termination and resignation unless the organization dissolves completely.

The signed 2026 Ministry of Finance tax guide sets a monthly personal-income exemption through AFN 10,000. The next portion through AFN 100,000 is taxed at 10%. Above AFN 100,000, tax is AFN 9,000 plus 15% of the excess. These are progressive bands rather than a flat rate on the entire salary; specific exemptions and withholding obligations depend on the applicable rules.

The July 2026 official tax announcement raises the annual personal-income exemption to AFN 120,000. The announced next band runs through AFN 1.2 million at 10%, with 15% above that threshold. Payroll administration must apply the appropriate taxable-income and period rules; these progressive bands apply to the relevant portions of income rather than imposing one rate on the entire salary.

The 2007 Labour Law requires foreign workers to meet applicable work-permit and recruitment rules, with special treatment for diplomatic and international-organization personnel. Visa and work permission are distinct approvals. Current nationality, role, employer and immigration instructions determine the required documents and permission period.