Offshore Payroll Outsourcing for Bangladesh Staff
PayrollBD runs payroll in Bangladesh for companies based abroad. We compute pay, deduct tax at source under the Income Tax Act 2023, file the monthly return with the National Board of Revenue, and keep the wage record your staff are owed under the Bangladesh Labour Act 2006. Your legal employer status does not change.
Who is offshore payroll built for?
Offshore payroll is a service that runs a Bangladesh payroll for a company registered outside the country. The route you take decides who signs the payroll and who answers to the regulator. Three routes cover almost every case, and they differ by whether you hold a presence approved by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority.
| Setup route | BIDA permission | Report to Bangladesh Bank | Who runs the payroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branch office | Required before trading | Within thirty days of permission | PayrollBD, on your instruction |
| Liaison office | Required before opening | Within thirty days of permission | PayrollBD, on your instruction |
| Employer of record | Held by the local employer | Handled by that employer | PayrollBD, under that contract |
Setting up runs in five stages, and each one closes with a paper you can check. Nothing is filed until the stage before it is signed off. How long it takes rests on how complete your staff records already are.
- Scope — we confirm your route, your headcount and how your wage periods run.
- Records — appointment letters, pay terms and taxpayer identification numbers are collected.
- Register — the opening wage register is built from those records, worker by worker.
- Parallel run — one month runs beside your current process and the two are compared.
- Live — the first live run goes out and the monthly return follows it.
Which duties fall on a foreign employer?
The Bangladesh Labour Act 2006 applies throughout the country, and none of its exclusions turns on where your company is registered. Your staff here are covered whatever your head office address says. Five clocks bind almost every foreign employer, and each starts on an event rather than a calendar date.
| Obligation | Counted from | Statutory limit |
|---|---|---|
| Length of a wage period | Start of the wage period | Not more than one month, section 122 (Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006) |
| Payment of wages | End of the wage period | Within seven working days, section 123 (Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006) |
| Return of tax deducted | End of the month of deduction | By the fifteenth of the next month, section 177 (Income Tax Act, 2023) |
| Report to Bangladesh Bank | BIDA permission issued | Within thirty days, section 18B (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947) |
| Final dues after exit | Date the job ends | Within thirty working days, section 123 (Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006) |
Key Responsibilities of Foreign Employers
Who does what on your file?
Three people touch your file each month, and each one has a defined stop. One prepares the run, one checks it against the statute, and one answers your staff directly. None of them can approve a payment, because that approval stays with you and never moves.
Where does offshore payroll go wrong?
Offshore payroll fails on sequence far more often than on arithmetic. A company that pays before the wage register exists, or remits capital before it tells Bangladesh Bank, has to unwind and refile. The damage is rarely a penalty. It is a stalled month with staff hired and no clean record to show an inspector.
What keeps a foreign employer compliant?
Four things hold the file together, and each one traces to a named instrument. They are the law that governs the contract, the office that receives the return, the clock that sets the payment date, and the pack that closes a leaver. The cards below name each one.
How does an offshore engagement start?
You send three things and we send back a written scope note. We need your registration route, your Bangladesh headcount and the way your wage periods run today. The note then names the filings we prepare, the approvals that stay with you, and the records that return to your office each month.
What do foreign employers ask?
The questions below come from the enquiry stage of offshore payroll files. Each answer states the position first and then gives the reason behind it. Where an answer rests on the law rather than on PayrollBD, the answer says so plainly instead of implying a promise nobody can make.
Do we need a local entity?
Not always. A branch or liaison office needs permission from the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority before it opens, and once that permission issues you must report to Bangladesh Bank within thirty days under section 18B of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947.
Where you would rather not register at all, an employer of record holds the contract locally and PayrollBD runs the payroll under it. The route changes who signs, not what the law requires.
Who is the legal employer?
Whoever holds the employment contract is the legal employer, and that is never the payroll provider. If you open a branch or liaison office, that office employs the staff and answers for the filings. If you use an employer of record, that local company is the employer and carries the duty.
PayrollBD prepares, computes and files on instruction, and the signature stays with the employer in both routes.
How do staff get paid?
Staff are paid by bank transfer against a register you approve, and the sequence never varies. Nothing is released until that approval is on file, because the employer carries the duty rather than the provider. The five steps below run in the same order every month.
- You send attendance, leave and overtime for the wage period.
- We build gross to net and deduct tax at source at the average rate.
- You approve the register before any money moves.
- Wages are released and a wage slip goes to each worker.
- The monthly return of tax deducted goes to the National Board of Revenue.
Can salary be sent abroad?
Yes, within a limit set by the central bank and against a valid permit. An expatriate resident in Bangladesh with income here may remit up to 75 percent of net income each month to the country of domicile, out of current savings.
The transfer runs through an authorised dealer bank and the bank checks that a valid work permit is in place. A work permit issued through the one stop service of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority runs for one year and is renewable.
Hand your Bangladesh payroll over
Tell us where your company is registered and how many people you pay in Bangladesh. PayrollBD replies with a scope note naming the filings we prepare and the approvals that stay with you. Nothing reaches an authority before you agree that note in writing. Reviewed By Eicra Binte Islam, Head of Payroll & HR Compliance.