Employer of Record (EOR) Services in Turkmenistan

Employer of Record

From
$249/month

Contractor  Management

$49/month

Talent Sourcing

2% of gross salary / month

Start hiring in Turkmenistan

Simple, compliant hiring with Horizons EOR & PEO

Hire in Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a large Central Asian country bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. This country was a part of the former Soviet Union until it declared its independence in 1991. It possesses vast natural gas reserves, the exploitation of which funds utilities and social programs for all of its 6.598 million citizens. These reserves, as well as oil and agricultural production, continue to power the Turkmen economy. The country’s GDP has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1990s and, in 2023, reached $77.11 billion. This growth is expected to continue at 2.3% in 2024. With unemployment expected at just 4.9% in 2024 and a labor force of 2.09 million people, Turkmen workers can be valuable assets. If your company wants to hire these workers now, an EOR is your best choice to get them on board quickly and easily.

Facts & Stats

hire employees in Turkmenistan

What Is a Turkmenistan EOR?

A Turkmenistan EOR or employer of record is a service provider working in Turkmenistan to help other countries hire local workers. This type of provider can also be referred to as a PEO or professional employment organization, and these terms can be used interchangeably.

Companies partner with EORs because EORs can hire workers on their behalf, becoming their legal employers in Turkmenistan. They also handle many of the human resources (HR) functions related to these workers for their clients. These services include recruitment, contract management, payroll, benefits administration, leave scheduling, and even termination. In exchange, client companies pay a fee to the EOR for each employee it recruits and manages.

Save Money And Time with A Turkmenistan EOR

What Are the Benefits of a Turkmenistan EOR?

Working with an EOR in Turkmenistan can be highly advantageous for client companies. Some of the benefits they receive from this relationship include:

Not needing an entity: If you wanted to hire Turkmen workers directly, you’d need to set up and register an entity there like a corporation or limited liability company. This can take a lot of time, effort, and money, and you’d also need to hire accountants and lawyers there to help you manage your business legally. With an EOR, however, you don’t need an entity. The EOR uses its entity in Turkmenistan to hire workers directly, becoming their sole legal employer while contracting them to provide work for your company.
Language skills: The official language of Turkmenistan is the Turkish language Turkmen. While this language is spoken by over 70% of the population, people also speak a wide range of languages, including Russian, Uzbek, and other regional languages. These skills can be highly valuable for any employer looking to do business in the greater region and internationally.
Fast recruitment and onboarding: An EOR can recruit Turkmen workers quickly because of their labor pools and extensive local networks. Most EORS are able to hire and onboard workers in a matter of days or a few weeks versus the months it might take a foreign-based company to hire on its own.
Affordability: Turkmenistan is an upper-middle-income country where salaries are still relatively low. While employers pay 20% of contributions to social programs, Turkmen workers can still be quite affordable for most companies.
Constant compliance: As the legal employer of your workers, the EOR takes on the responsibility of complying with all local tax and employment laws. It creates legal contracts, monitors working conditions, and handles tax and social security payments to ensure your workers are treated fairly and equitably at all times.

Horizons is Best IN Class

Why Choose Horizons?

Horizons stands out as a Turkmenistan EOR through:

A strong regional presence in the Asia-Pacific region, meaning senior management are on the ground to deal with any issues.
Client-focused infrastructure. Horizons won’t oversell you on products and services you don’t need. Horizons offers the easiest platform to compliantly hire and pay people worldwide.
Cost-effective solutions. At $499 per employee, per month, no EOR in Turkmenistan is more affordable. The cost is 100% transparent (onboarding, offboarding, deposit, no extra charges).
A customer-first culture. Horizons is an efficient bootstrapped company. It is not an externally-funded company burning investor cash to aggressively acquire new clients. Horizons is the only EOR that grows with its customer, reflecting the level of care and personal attention provided to each customer. Horizons will carefully advise on the best setup in each country: the type of contract needed, how to structure your benefits, and how to offboard a person while minimizing the risk of conflicts and extra cost
A long-term partnership. Horizons is the only EOR platform with a recruitment arm — a direct response to client demand. If any employee is leaving, or if our clients want to explore a new country, Horizons can recruit new candidates directly for the client. Horizons is:
- The only EOR doing this in-house — no subcontracting
- The only EOR doing this without a retainer — clients are only charged upon success
- The only EOR charging just a 2% fee per month.

Step-by-step Turkmenistan EOR

How Does a Turkmenistan EOR Work?

When you partner with a Turkmenistan EOR, this organization will typically provide your company with the following services:

Hiring your employees: You’ll need to let the EOR know how many employees you want to hire, what positions are available, and what requirements you have for workers who could fill them. Based on this information, the EOR recruits workers from its labor pool or through its networks and job advertisements. If you accept the candidates It puts forth, the EOR will hire them and become their sole legal employer in Turkmenistan.
Managing employment contracts and onboarding: The EOR will normally create a contract for each worker based on the working conditions and compensation they’ve negotiated with your company. It will enter into these contracts with the workers directly while stipulating that they provide work for your company. Once it has hired them, the EOR will collect their personal and payment details, enter them into its database, and register them with the local tax and social security authorities as required by law.
Processing payroll and handling employment taxes: The EOR will invoice you regularly for their fees but also for the funds to pay your workers. Each pay period, it will calculate worker’s salaries, tax withholdings, and social security contributions and distributes funds accordingly. It will also provide workers with detailed pay slips and you with all records of its payroll activities.
Administering benefits: The EOR you work with will administer all mandatory benefits on your behalf, including overtime hours, leaves, and public holidays. If you choose to offer additional benefits like private insurance or pensions, it can administer these for you as well by signing workers up for programs and making regular contributions to them.
Taking care of exit procedures: If you need to terminate workers for individual reasons or to wind down operations, the EOR will do this for you. It will assess the legality of your reasons for termination and calculate notice periods and severance pay as necessary, according to the law.

stay compliant with Turkmenistan labor laws

Labor Laws

Turkmenistan has extensive laws designed to protect the rights of both employers and employees in labor contracts. These statutes are spread among several legal instruments, including the Labor Code of 2009, the Turkmenistan Constitution of 2008 (revised 2016), and multiple other laws and acts. This legal framework can be difficult to follow and is best left in the capable hands of an EOR’s legal experts. However, as an employer, it’s beneficial for you to learn these main points of law so you’ll be aware of what you need to provide for your Turkmen employees.

Employment contract types

Employment contracts in Turkmenistan can be either indefinite or fixed-term. However, there are limits imposed on the purposes for using fixed-term contracts and they should normally be used for non-durable work. Fixed-term contracts cannot be made for longer than five years.

Project-based

Fixed-term

Indefinite

Working hours in Turkmenistan

In Turkmenistan, normal working hours cannot exceed 40 hours per week. This is normally eight hours a day, five days a week, but these hours can also be spread over six days. In a six-day schedule, however, a worker cannot work more than seven hours per day and can only work five hours on the sixth day, the day before their rest day.

Any hours after the weekly 40 hours are overtime hours and employers must have written consent from employees to work these hours. These cannot exceed four hours in any two consecutive days or 120 hours per year. Pregnant women and employees under the age of 18 cannot work overtime.

Overtime must be compensated in the following way:

Holiday Schedule in Turkmenistan [2025]

Turkmenistan normally has 10 paid public holidays each year. These are a mixture of national days and religious observances.

Turkmenistan’s public holiday schedule for 2025 is:

Date	Holiday name
1 Jan 2025	New Year’s Day
8 Mar 2025	International Women’s Day
21 Mar to 22 Mar 2025	Nowruz Bayram (Spring Festival)
30 Mar – 31 Mar 2025	Oraza Bayram (Eid al-Fitr)
18 May 2025	Constitution and Magtymguly Day
6 Jun – 8 Jun 2025	Kurban Bayramy Holiday (Tentative Date)
27 Sep 2025	Independence Day of Turkmenistan
6 Oct 2025	Memorial Day
12 Dec 2025	International Neutrality Day

Paid time off

Employees are entitled to breaks of between one to two hours for rest and meals during the work day. Breaks should be given after four hours of work and do not represent paid working time. Employees must also be given at least one full day per week as a rest day, and this day should normally be on Sunday.

Sick leave in Turkmenistan

There is no mandated sick leave in Turkmenistan, so this leave will be agreed upon and written into contracts. Employees are, however, entitled to ten days of unpaid leave annually. This leave may be used for sickness or other justifiable reasons.

Less than 6 months of sick leave:

(percentage of regular wages owed to the employee)

Over 6 months of sick leave

In order for employees to receive the full wages due to them, workers must present a valid medical certificate from a certified doctor to their employer.

Maternity leave in Turkmenistan

Expecting mothers are entitled to 16 weeks of maternity leave divided into 56 days each before and after confinement. This leave is fully paid by the state. There is no mandated paternity leave in Turkmenistan. However, fathers can receive a leave entitlement equal to the maternity leave entitlement if a child’s month dies or abandons the child.

Annual leave in Turkmenistan

Most employees are entitled to 30 calendar days of paid annual leave. However, employees with disabilities as well as teaching staff and managers of educational institutions receive 45 days of leave per year. Employees must request their leave at least 15 days before they propose to take it and approval is at the discretion of the employer.

Termination & severance in Turkmenistan

Employers may terminate workers for serious misconduct with no notice or severance.

When enterprises close down, they must provide workers with two months of notice in writing. Otherwise, the notice period is two weeks for indefinite contracts. Two weeks’ notice should also be given before the end of a fixed-term contract.

Severance is normally paid at the rate of two weeks’ average wages. However, if workers are made redundant and dismissed as a group, either for economic reasons or the dissolution of the company, they must receive one month’s average salary.

Turkmenistan's compulsory social security contributions

The State Social Protection Fund oversees the collection and management of these contributions. The social security contributions are structured to support various social insurance programs including pensions, medical insurance, and other social benefits.

Contributions are made to the social insurance fund, which covers benefits such as maternity leave, sickness leave, and unemployment benefits.

Turkmenistan social security for foreigners

Foreign employees working in Turkmenistan are generally subject to the same social security contribution requirements as local employees. This ensures they are covered by the same social insurance programs, although specific agreements or exemptions might exist depending on bilateral agreements between Turkmenistan and the employee’s home country.

Individual income tax

Turkmenistan applies a flat income tax rate of 10% on individual income.

Both residents and non-residents are subject to income tax on income earned in Turkmenistan. However, the taxation rules for non-residents may differ slightly, particularly in terms of allowable deductions and the scope of taxable income.

Health insurance

Turkmenistan offers a universal healthcare system that is funded by the government. This means that healthcare services are generally provided to citizens at little or no cost. Employees and employers are required to make contributions to the state social security system, which includes healthcare coverage. These contributions are part of the broader social security contributions.

Private health insurance plays a limited role in Turkmenistan. While there may be some private health insurance providers, the majority of the population relies on the public healthcare system.

hassle-free Turkmen compensation & benefits

Compensation & Benefits

Turkmenistan compensation laws

As of 1 January 2024, the minimum wage in Turkmenistan is 1,260 TMT (Turkmenistani manat)/month (roughly 365 USD). The average monthly salary is about 2,500TMT/month (roughly 715 USD).

Overtime work must be paid at a rate of 200% of normal wages. Work on public holidays or rest days must be paid at 200% as well or compensated with other holidays.

13 month salary in Turkmenistan

A 13th-month annual bonus is not mandatory in Turkmenistan.

Social security for Turkmen nationals

Employers in Turkmenistan pay contributions equal to 20% of a worker’s salary for old age, invalidity, and survivor’s benefits. They must also contribute an extra 3.5% to professional pension insurance for workers who work under hazardous conditions. Employees don’t have to pay any contributions toward these benefits but may pay up to 2% of their salaries for additional pension insurance.

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Frequently asked questions

How does an EOR in Turkmenistan handle compliance with local labor laws?

Compliance begins when the EOR creates contracts for your workers. Its staff use their expert legal knowledge to ensure that the conditions and compensation agreed to in the contracts are in line with local statutes. It monitors these conditions over time to make sure they’re being adhered to consistently. The EOR also handles payroll which means that it calculates taxes and social security contributions correctly and pays them on time so that compliance is assured and fines and other penalties can be avoided.

What are the benefits of using an EOR for hiring in Turkmenistan?

Aside from ensuring compliance with local laws, EORs in Turkmenistan help you hire workers without having to undertake the lengthy and costly process of registering your own entity there. They can also recruit, hire, and onboard staff for you much more quickly and effectively than you could on your own. They also allow you to outsource your payroll, benefits administration, and even termination functions to them so your HR department doesn’t have to learn how to manage employees in other countries.

Employer of Record (EOR) Services in Turkmenistan