Jordan Social Security Contribution 2026: Who Pays What, in Dinars

Jordan's social security contribution in 2026 is 21.75% of each employee's monthly insurable wage. The employer pays 14.25% on top of the salary, deducts 7.5% from the employee's pay and sends both shares to the Social Security Corporation (SSC).

Under the Social Security Law (No. 1 of 2014, as amended), the 21.75% funds four insurance branches:

• Old age, disability and death: 17.5% (11% employer, 6.5% employee)
• Work injuries: 2%, paid by the employer
• Maternity: 0.75%, paid by the employer
• Unemployment: 1.5% (0.5% employer, 1% employee)

Three rules decide who is covered and on what pay. Coverage: the law applies to workers aged 16 and over under the Labour Law, whatever their nationality, contract or pay type. That includes non-Jordanians: in July 2026 the SSC announced it would send firms the names of uncovered foreign workers, drawn from Ministry of Labour data, with 15 days to put things right.

The floor: contributions are never calculated on less than the minimum wage, JD 290 a month since 1 January 2025 and set for 2025 to 2027. It applies to staff paid by the day, week or hour too. Garment-sector workers under their collective agreement and non-Jordanian domestic workers are outside that decision.

A youth reduction: under Regulation No. 45 of 2024, a small private firm (up to 25 workers) can apply for a 40% cut in its own 11% old-age, disability and death contribution, and a medium firm (26 to 50 workers) for 20%, for Jordanians under 30 with no previous mandatory coverage. It applies only on the firm's request, and full coverage starts at 30.

The Social Security Law published by the SSC has the full text; the examples below assume standard rates with no reduction.

The maximum insurable wage for 2026 is JD 3,733 a month, up from JD 3,668 in 2025. The SSC announced the 2026 ceiling on 14 May 2026, indexed to Jordan's 2025 inflation of 1.77% as the law requires. Pay above the ceiling attracts no contributions, so for most staff the most you deduct is JD 279.975 a month and the most the employer pays is JD 531.953. Staff covered by social security before 1 May 2010 may keep a legacy JD 5,000 ceiling (or their pre-2010 wage, if it was already higher), so check their SSC record before applying the JD 3,733 cap.

To calculate the deduction from a salary, multiply the insurable wage (between JD 290 and JD 3,733) by 7.5% for the employee and 14.25% for the employer. Figures are in dinars, rounded to the fils:

• JD 350 a month: employee deduction 26.250, employer share 49.875, total employer cost 399.875, net before income tax 323.750.
• JD 750 (basic 600 plus a fixed transport allowance of 150): deduction 56.250, employer share 106.875, total cost 856.875, net 693.750.
• JD 1,500: deduction 112.500, employer share 213.750, total cost 1,713.750, net 1,387.500.
• JD 4,000, above the ceiling: contributions are worked out on 3,733 only, so the deduction is 279.975, the employer share 531.953, total cost 4,531.953 and net 3,720.025.

The firm sends the SSC 21.75% of the insurable wage: JD 76.125 in the first example and JD 811.928 in the last. At JD 4,000 the deduction is about 7% of pay rather than 7.5%, because the top JD 267 sits above the cap.

One more rule shapes these numbers: the SSC bases the whole year's contributions on the January wage, and a new joiner's on the wage of the month they start, so a later pay change has to be reported, as the mistakes section below explains.

Pay each month's contributions to the SSC within the first 15 days of the following month: October 2026 contributions are due by 15 November 2026, and December's by 15 January 2027. Late payment costs 1% interest a month on the overdue amount.

A monthly routine that keeps you inside the rules:

• Before payroll, collect the month's new hires, leavers, pay changes and unpaid leave.
• Report new hires by the end of the month after they join; contributions run from the start date, and a part month counts in full.
• Build the insurable wage from basic pay plus regular fixed allowances, leaving out overtime and the other excluded items below.
• Apply the JD 290 floor and the JD 3,733 cap (JD 5,000 for staff insured before May 2010).
• Deduct 7.5% on each payslip and book the 14.25% employer share.
• Withhold income tax and remit it monthly to the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD), uploading each employee's deduction by name.
• Pay the SSC by the 15th and reconcile the social security payable account to zero.
• Report leavers by the end of the month after they leave.

Fines add up: 1% of the contributions due for each month employee data is late, and 30% of the contributions involved, without warning, for uncovered workers or wages declared above or below the real ones. The SSC board may waive up to 70% where there was no bad faith. A firm in arrears can have instalment interest waived in full by paying 25% of the debt upfront, under an SSC board decision valid until 31 December 2026.

Income tax, briefly: a resident employee gets a JD 9,000 personal exemption a year plus JD 9,000 for dependants, and tax on the rest starts at 5% on the first JD 5,000. So JD 750 a month, or JD 9,000 a year, is covered by the personal exemption alone if there is no other taxable income.

January wage data for all insured staff is due at the SSC by the end of March, so 31 March 2027 next time; our year-end closing checklist for Jordan includes it.

The rates are fixed by law; the real risk is the insurable wage you declare. These five mistakes are worth checking for:

• Getting allowances wrong in either direction. An allowance paid to all staff or a whole category on fixed, regular terms is part of the insurable wage, so housing and transport allowances usually count, as do sales and collection commissions. The SSC's Coverage Regulation excludes, among other items, overtime pay, occasional grants, tips, representation, clothing and phone allowances, meals in kind, travel tickets, children's education allowances, bonuses that are not fixed and cash in lieu of leave. Renaming an allowance does not change its treatment.
• Using the wrong ceiling: 2025's JD 3,668 in 2026, JD 3,733 for an employee insured before May 2010 who keeps the older JD 5,000 ceiling, or no cap at all on a JD 4,000 salary.
• Being loose about day one: registering a new hire only after probation, or skipping the month they joined because they started on the 20th. Contributions run from the start date, and a part month counts in full.
• Ignoring raises after January. The SSC bases the year on the January wage, so if you had 20 or more workers in January, report the first later change on the in-year wage form; otherwise you are declaring a wage that is no longer real.
• Leaving people out. Non-Jordanians and staff paid by the day, week or hour are all covered, on no less than JD 290. An uncovered worker brings the 30% fine on top of the missed contributions and interest, and the 2026 draft amendments, not yet passed, proposed raising it to 100%.

If you fix one thing this month, compare the wage you declare for each employee with what the payslip actually pays, line by line.

Yes. Odoo 20 includes a Jordan payroll localization in two modules: Jordan - Payroll (l10n_jo_hr_payroll) and Jordan - Payroll with Accounting (l10n_jo_hr_payroll_account). Both run on the Payroll app, which is in Odoo Enterprise only, not Community; our guide to Odoo Community vs Enterprise in Jordan explains what that means for your plan.

According to Odoo's Jordan payroll documentation, the localization sets up:

• A Jordan: Monthly Pay salary structure with rules for basic pay, housing, transport and other allowances, overtime, and leave and end-of-service provisions.
• Social security rules at 14.25% for the employer and 7.5% for the employee, with the base capped by a yearly parameter.
• Progressive income tax rules, with non-resident and dependants fields on the employee form.
• Journal entries in the Jordanian chart of accounts: both social security shares in 201022 Social Security Payable, withheld tax in 200307 Employee Income Tax.

Rates and the cap sit under Payroll > Configuration > Rule Parameters, so a new ceiling is a parameter update, not a code change. Before your first live run, check three things:

• The 2026 cap parameter reads JD 3,733.
• Non-Jordanian staff: Odoo's documentation says its social insurance rules are only available for Jordanian employees, while the law covers every nationality. Decide how foreign staff are handled before go-live.
• Income tax exemptions: Odoo's page lists JD 12,000 each for residents and dependants, while Article 9 of the Income Tax Law, as published by ISTD, gives JD 9,000 each from 2020. Have your tax adviser confirm the parameter values.

Then run one month in parallel with your current payroll and compare every payslip to the fils; our guide to moving from Excel to Odoo in Jordan covers choosing the go-live date.

Your next step: send your salary structure to METCH, an official Odoo partner serving Jordan, through the Odoo proposal request. We set up the salary rules, the SSC and income tax parameters and the accounting entries, then test them against your last manual payroll before you switch.