2026 hiring guide · Honduras
How to Hire in Honduras From the US
A practical guide for US companies hiring employees or contractors in Honduras: the four legal ways to hire, what a hire costs in US dollars, and the Código del Trabajo rules on the 13th and 14th month, the Reserva Laboral and severance. Hiring now? LatamCent can find, vet and pay bilingual engineering, GTM and customer-facing talent for you.
- 1Choose how to hireEOR, contractor, local entity or hiring partner
- 2Budget the real costSalary in USD plus about 25% in contributions and bonuses
- 3Follow the labor codeContracts, Reserva Laboral and severance
- 4Make a competitive offerThe benefits bilingual candidates in Honduras expect
21-day average to hire · 93% placement success · 60-day replacement
At a glance
Honduras
- Time zoneUTC-6 (Central Standard Time)No daylight saving time
- Overlap with US Eastern7 hours in winter, 6 in summerOn a 9 to 5 schedule on both sides
- CurrencyHonduran lempira (HNL)About 26.89 per US dollar, October 2026
- Talent hubsSan Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa
- Employer costAbout 25% above salaryContributions plus the 13th and 14th month
Trusted by US B2B SaaS teams
4 ways to hire in Honduras, compared
The choice depends on headcount plans, time horizon and how much Honduran payroll and compliance your team wants to run. Here is how the options compare for a US company.
| Hiring partner (LatamCent) | Employer of Record | Independent contractor | Local entity (S.A. or S. de R.L.) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recruiting included | Yes, sourcing plus technical and English vetting | Usually not | No | No |
| Who holds the contract | LatamCent, under a contractor-on-record model | The EOR, under the Código del Trabajo | Your company, service agreement | Your company, under the Código del Trabajo |
| Speed | 21-day average to signed offer | Two to three weeks once you have a candidate | Fastest to sign | Slowest: incorporation, SAR, IHSS, RAP and INFOP setup |
| Compliance risk for you | Stays with LatamCent | Low | Highest: Article 21 presumes employment | You own all of it |
| Best for | Teams that want recruiting and payroll handled by one partner | 1 to 10 employees without a local entity | Short, deliverable-based work | A permanent team with local invoicing |
Based on Honduras’s Código del Trabajo, Decreto 47-2024, 2026 IHSS and RAP rates and LatamCent placement data. Details for each route are in the 4 routes below.
How to hire in Honduras: the 4 routes
US companies hire talent in Honduras through one of three legal structures: a local entity, an employer of record, or independent contractors under service agreements. Each carries a different cost profile and risk. A fourth option, a hiring partner, adds recruiting on top of the compliance layer.
Hire employees in Honduras with an Employer of Record (EOR)
Low riskAn employer of record (EOR) is a third-party company that legally employs workers on behalf of a foreign client, handling contracts, payroll, statutory contributions and labor compliance while you direct the day-to-day work. It removes the entity-setup step, so you can hire employees in Honduras without an entity.
The EOR handles:
- Compliant employment contracts in Spanish
- Monthly payroll and income tax withholding for the SAR
- IHSS, RAP (including the Reserva Laboral) and INFOP contributions
- 13th and 14th-month salaries and vacation accruals
- Termination handling and severance administration
EOR in Honduras fits when:
- You are hiring 1 to 10 employees without a local entity
- You are running a pilot hire before committing to an entity
- You are building distributed teams across several Latin American countries
Statutory employer costs run about 25% above salary including the 13th and 14th month, and the EOR’s fee sits on top. Most global EOR platforms cover Honduras, but an EOR won’t find candidates for you. Sourcing, vetting and closing the hire stay on your side.
Hire independent contractors in Honduras
Highest riskHiring contractors in Honduras delivers speed and flexibility for project-based work, with the highest reclassification exposure of the three structures.
Contractor arrangements fit:
- Short-term technical projects with defined deliverables
- Specialized consulting outside your regular operations
- Pilot engagements before converting to full-time
Classification follows substance over form. Article 21 of the Código del Trabajo presumes an employment contract between whoever provides personal services and whoever receives them, and Article 7 makes the end company jointly liable with intermediaries. Fixed hours, exclusivity, integration into normal operations and economic dependence on one client all point to employment.
If reclassified, the US company inherits severance, statutory contributions and back pay from the first day. Reduce the risk by:
- Scoping work to specific deliverables, not ongoing time-based engagement
- Avoiding exclusivity clauses and fixed schedules
- Requiring contractors to invoice under their own RTN and use their own tools
- Engaging Honduran counsel before any contractor relationship passes six months
Set up a local entity in Honduras
You own complianceForeign investors most often choose the Sociedad Anónima (S.A.), equivalent to a corporation, or the Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada (S. de R.L.), closer to an LLC. Single-owner companies and the Comerciante Individual are also available, and a foreign company can open a branch with the same rights as a local one.
Registration runs through these steps:
- Draft the deed and register through Mi Empresa en LÃnea, the government portal that works with the chambers of commerce
- Obtain the RTN tax ID from the SAR
- Get the municipal operating permit
- Register as an employer with the IHSS, the RAP and INFOP
- Open a local bank account and set up payroll
From the first hire, the Código del Trabajo requires:
- A written employment contract
- IHSS, RAP and INFOP contributions every month
- 13th and 14th-month salary accruals from day one
- Vacation, notice and severance obligations tied to tenure
With local counsel, setup usually takes two to four weeks. An entity makes sense for a permanent presence, a local team of meaningful size or local invoicing; for a first or second hire, the administration rarely pays off.
Hire through a nearshore hiring partner
Recruiting includedA hiring partner covers the part the other three routes leave to you: finding and vetting the right person. LatamCent recruits inside the networks where bilingual Honduran engineers, GTM and operations talent move, then carries the contract, payroll and the legal side under a contractor-on-record model, with one USD invoice each month.
If you’re building a product team, see how our nearshore software development model works across Latin America.
- 21-day average from kickoff to signed offer
- Pre-vetted shortlists with technical and English screening built in
- 60-day replacement coverage on every hire
For US B2B SaaS companies hiring their first one to ten people in Honduras, an EOR or hiring partner resolves speed and compliance without the setup weight of an entity. An entity becomes the right call once headcount stabilizes and local invoicing is needed.
What a Honduran hire costs in US dollars
Convert Honduran lempiras to US dollars at the October 2026 Banco Central de Honduras rate, estimate the employer contributions on top of salary, then see what a decade of lempira movement means for what your Honduran hire costs you.
Cost converter
For a professional salary in 2026: IHSS 5% health and maternity, 3.5% pension and about 0.2% work risk, on salary up to the L11,903.13 ceiling; the 4% Reserva Laboral on salary up to L57,896.16; the 1.5% RAP housing fund (FOVIIF) on salary above the IHSS ceiling; and 1% INFOP. The 13th and 14th-month salaries add one-sixth more, which puts most hires near 25% above salary. LatamCent hires are priced as salary plus a service fee, quoted per role.
USD to HNL, 10-year trend
2016 to 2026 · the dollar buys about 17% more lempiras
Higher line = weaker lempira = your dollar buys more Honduran talent. The lempira slides gradually under a crawling exchange band, about 17% over the decade, with a faster move since 2025.
Sources: Banco Central de Honduras annual average selling rates for 2016 to 2025, and the BCH reference rate of 26.8936 for October 20, 2026. Averages will differ from any single day’s quote.
Why this matters for hiring
A Honduran salary of 55,000 HNL a month costs a US buyer about $2,045 a month at the October 2026 rate. Because the lempira weakens gradually, the same local salary costs fewer dollars than it did a decade ago.
These are reference rates and live FX moves daily. Use them for planning and confirm the rate before you sign a contract.
Employment laws in Honduras
The Código del Trabajo is employee-protective by design. Severance builds from the first day of service, statutory contributions stack above gross salary, and dismissal without documented cause has a calculated cost. For US employers the exposure sits in three places: severance, mandatory benefits and the employer contribution load.
Severance (auxilio de cesantÃa) under Article 120 applies to unjust dismissal on an indefinite contract: 10 days of salary between three and six months of service, 20 days between six and twelve months, and one month per year after that, capped at 25 months. Article 121 limits early termination of a fixed-term contract to the remaining term.
Since June 2024, Decreto 47-2024 requires a 4% monthly Reserva Laboral contribution into each worker’s RAP account. On unjust dismissal it offsets severance: the employer pays any shortfall, and any excess goes to the worker. A worker who resigns before 15 years of service takes the balance instead of severance.
Budget the 13th and 14th month as fixed costs. The aguinaldo is paid in December and the décimo cuarto in June, each equal to a month’s salary.
Onboarding
The employer needs an RTN from the SAR and registers each worker with the IHSS and the RAP, plus INFOP for employers with five or more workers. The contract must be in writing, including any probation or fixed-term clause.
Contracts and probation
Indefinite contracts are the default for permanent or continuous work; fixed-term and per-job contracts are the exception. Probation lasts up to 60 days, must be agreed in writing, and either side can end it with no notice or severance.
Notice periods
Under Article 116: 24 hours under 3 months of service, 1 week from 3 to 6 months, 2 weeks from 6 to 12 months, 1 month from 1 to 2 years and 2 months after 2 years. Notice is given in writing or paid in lieu, and a dismissed worker gets one paid day a week to look for work.
Working hours and overtime
Day schedule: 8 hours a day and 44 a week, paid as 48. Night schedule: 6 hours and 36 a week. Mixed schedule: 7 hours and 42 a week. Overtime pays 25% extra by day, 50% at night and 75% when it extends a night shift.
13th and 14th month
Both are mandatory: the aguinaldo (13th month) in December and the décimo cuarto (14th month) in June, each equal to one month’s salary, prorated for partial years.
Income tax 2026
Annual progressive scale: 0% up to L228,324.32, 15% up to L348,154.10, 20% up to L809,660.75 and 25% above, after a L40,000 medical deduction. The employer withholds monthly and remits to the SAR.
Minimum wage 2026
Set by sector and company size, from about L9,597 to L19,299 a month after 6% to 7% increases backdated to January 2026, well below market pay for professional roles.
Monthly payroll in Honduras
Payroll in Honduras runs monthly and carries its own compliance load:
Health, maternity, pension and work-risk contributions up to the ceiling
4% RAP contribution that pre-funds severance
FOVIIF contributions on salary above the IHSS ceiling
1% training levy for employers with five or more workers
Income tax under the SAR progressive scale
13th and 14th-month salaries and accrued vacation
Companies hiring through an EOR transfer payroll execution, statutory filings and termination administration to the provider. A local entity keeps every filing, audit and severance calculation in-house.
Plan compensation around the full statutory load from day one. The gap between gross salary and total employment cost is the real workforce budget.
Common benefits and perks in Honduras
Base salary alone doesn’t close senior bilingual offers in Honduras. The candidates US SaaS companies want already hold or evaluate offers from international employers, and the package outside the paycheck often tips the decision.
Private health insurance
IHSS covers the statutory baseline, but senior professionals expect private medical insurance for immediate family. Family coverage shortens time to acceptance.
Life insurance
Standard at mid-to-large international employers and increasingly expected. The cost stays modest and it signals a long-term offer.
Additional paid time off
Statutory vacation starts at 10 working days. Tech employers add a birthday off and extra days from year one.
Performance bonuses
Variable pay tied to KPIs matches SaaS operating models and what bilingual professionals already see at international employers.
Remote work stipend
No law requires internet or equipment reimbursement, so a stipend, an employer-provided laptop and a coworking allowance work as competitive positioning.
Meal or transport allowance
Common at Honduran employers and expected by candidates from BPO and shared-services backgrounds, even for remote roles.
Professional development
Certifications, online courses and English classes carry weight, since professionals see English fluency as the bridge to international careers.
Flexible hours and wellness
Async schedules are normal in tech and BPO teams. Wellness and mental health programs round out the package senior hires evaluate.
Senior professionals in Honduras compare offers against what international employers put on the table. An offer missing two or three of the items above loses to competitors that include them.
Layering benefits costs less than inflating base salary by the same amount, and each benefit keeps its retention value through currency moves.
Leave policy in Honduras
Paid leave is set by the Código del Trabajo and funded partly through the IHSS, with the employer topping up the subsidy in most cases.
10 weeks
4 weeks before birth and 6 after, at full salary. The IHSS pays a 66% subsidy and the employer pays the difference. Dismissal protection applies during pregnancy and lactation.
None in law
No statutory paid paternity leave. A bill has been proposed; international employers commonly offer 5 to 10 days voluntarily.
Up to 6 months
Job-protected suspension for non-work illness. The IHSS pays 66% from day 4; the employer covers the first 3 days.
Two daily breaks
Two 30-minute breaks a day during the first 6 months after birth.
The employer manages payroll during maternity leave and holds the position open through the pregnancy and lactation window. Dismissal during that protected period exposes the company to reinstatement and back-pay claims.
With no statutory paternity leave, SaaS companies hiring senior technical talent typically offer one to two weeks to match regional offers.
Article 104 protects the job for up to six months of non-work illness:
- Days 1 to 3: paid by the employer
- From day 4: IHSS subsidy at 66% of salary, up to its ceiling
- After six months: Article 105 allows termination with notice and severance
A 2026 bill would extend maternity leave but isn’t law. Plan temporary coverage before any leave begins.
Remote work regulations in Honduras
Honduras has no comprehensive telework law for private employers. Companies that hire remote employees operate under the general Código del Trabajo and the individual employment contract, and the government has asked the ILO for help drafting telework rules.
In Honduras the remote-work contract covers schedule, availability, equipment and data, because nothing else does.
Working hours, availability windows, performance expectations and reporting lines, since the default rules assume fixed-location work.
No statute sets one. Define availability and after-hours expectations in the contract.
No statutory reimbursement. Market practice for technical hires is an employer-provided laptop plus an internet stipend, set in the contract or policy.
Honduras has no general data protection law yet; a bill is pending. Rely on your own security policies and client obligations.
Statutory time off in Honduras
The Código del Trabajo mandates paid annual vacation that grows with tenure, plus national holidays clustered around Holy Week and the October Semana Morazánica. Both affect sprint planning and coverage for US teams.
Paid time off (vacation) in Honduras
Vacation accrues in working days after each year of continuous service:
Accrued days can’t be cashed out during employment. Unused and proportional vacation is paid in the final settlement.
Honduras’s public holidays
Honduras groups the October 3, 12 and 21 holidays into the Semana Morazánica. In 2026 private employers observe it from midday Wednesday, October 7 to midday Saturday, October 10, and the public sector takes October 5 to 9. Working a holiday is paid at a premium.
Holy Week in early April and the Semana Morazánica each take several consecutive days off the calendar, so plan client coverage and releases around both.
Popular roles to hire in Honduras
Honduras built decades of operational discipline serving US clients. Hiring developers in Honduras works well for application engineering and infrastructure support, while bilingual customer-facing roles run deeper than the engineering bench.
Engineering teams in Honduras
Technical talent concentrates in application engineering, full-stack work and infrastructure support rather than research-grade product engineering.
GTM, finance and marketing roles in Honduras
GTM is where Honduras stands out among smaller Latin American markets, with bilingual sales and customer-facing operations forming its deepest commercial talent layer.
Support, operations and HR roles in Honduras
Honduras has its deepest supply here, anchored by a BPO industry that has served US companies for over a decade.
Don’t see the role you need?
We hire across engineering, GTM, customer success, finance and operations in Honduras. Tell us what you’re looking for.
Why should US-based B2B SaaS companies hire in Honduras?
Honduras combines bilingual operators on US working hours with compensation that protects runway. The bench is narrower than the largest regional markets, but inside its strongest lanes the talent is already used to US employers.
Time zone overlap with the US
Honduras runs on UTC-6 all year with no daylight saving time: the same clock as US Central from November to March, and one hour behind Central the rest of the year. On a 9 to 5 schedule that is 7 hours of overlap with US Eastern in winter and 6 in summer, and many Honduran teams work 8 to 5, which adds an hour.
Standups, code reviews, customer escalations and live unblocking all happen inside a shared business day.
Bilingual talent that protects runway
Senior software engineers in Honduras earn roughly USD 1,930 to 2,555 a month in the local market, and bilingual customer support agents about USD 500 to 1,000. US software developers earned a median of USD 135,980 a year in May 2025 (BLS), several times more. Engineers working remotely for US companies command more than local rates, but the gap stays wide.
That difference can fund several Honduran hires for the loaded cost of one US mid-level engineer.
For US B2B SaaS companies building:
- Customer success and customer support functions
- Sales development and outbound prospecting teams
- Technical support and tier-2 escalations
- Back-office finance and accounting operations
- QA, manual testing and operational engineering
Senior product engineering, AI research and specialized data science sit deeper in larger Latin American markets and should be sourced accordingly.
English skills and the talent pipeline
Honduras scores 553 on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025, in the high band and 32nd worldwide, with San Pedro Sula at 570 and Tegucigalpa at 565. Customer-service professionals score even higher. Screen conversational English in the first interview and source mainly from those two cities.
UNAH carries the largest graduate volume, UNITEC concentrates technical programs in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, and Zamorano holds regional weight in engineering and applied sciences. Honduran universities graduated 24,473 students in 2024, and many join the BPO and shared-services industry directly.
That means candidates arrive familiar with US ticketing systems, SLAs and clients from early in their careers.
Honduras’s economy
Honduras has a GDP of about USD 40 billion (World Bank, 2025), one of the smaller economies in Latin America, and almost every major flow points to the United States. Coffee is the top export, followed by palm oil, and maquila plants near San Pedro Sula ship textiles and auto wiring harnesses into US supply chains under CAFTA-DR.
Remittances reached a record USD 12.2 billion in 2025, about 30% of GDP, and the BPO sector, supported by a 2014 call-center incentives law, built the bilingual workforce US employers source from today. Concentrix, Teleperformance, Startek, Allied Global and Crescendo (formerly PartnerHero) all operate in the country.
Inflation was 6.28% year on year in September 2026, above the central bank’s 4% target, and the lempira trades in a crawling exchange band. Senior professionals with international options expect pay indexed to the dollar.
For US companies, that means budgeting in USD and planning for regular pay reviews rather than relying on the local rate alone.
Quick facts about Honduras
How LatamCent can help you hire in Honduras
Most US founders who read a labor breakdown like this one reach the same conclusion: they want a partner who already does this for a living. That’s our job, in Honduras and across Latin America.
LatamCent runs sourcing and compliance as one workflow. We recruit inside the networks where senior Honduran engineers, product leads and operations talent move, then carry the contract, payroll, IHSS, RAP, INFOP and SAR filings, the 13th and 14th month and the legal side under a contractor-on-record model. You get one USD invoice each month, and the Honduran compliance footprint stays with us.
More LatamCent hiring guides
Comparing countries first? Read our guides to hiring in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala, or browse every Latin America hiring guide.
For US B2B SaaS teams, a Honduras engagement looks like this in practice:
How to hire in Honduras: FAQ
Is it legal for a US company to hire employees in Honduras?
Yes. US companies hire talent in Honduras through one of three legal structures: a local entity, an employer of record (EOR), or independent contractors under service agreements. A hiring partner adds recruiting on top. Every employment relationship sits under Honduras’s Código del Trabajo.
How do I hire in Honduras as a US company?
Choose a route first: an EOR or hiring partner that employs people on your behalf, your own entity (an S.A. or S. de R.L. with an RTN from the SAR and IHSS, RAP and INFOP registration), or contractors for short, deliverable-based work. Then sign a written contract, register the employee with the IHSS and the RAP, and run monthly payroll with contributions, the Reserva Laboral and income tax withholding.
Can I hire employees in Honduras without an entity?
Yes. An employer of record or a hiring partner employs the worker on your behalf, so you can hire employees in Honduras without opening an entity. That fits teams of one to ten people; an entity makes sense once headcount stabilizes and you need local invoicing.
Which employer of record should I use to hire in Honduras?
Check that the provider employs people through its own Honduran entity rather than a subcontracted partner, registers workers with the IHSS and the RAP, and handles the 4% Reserva Laboral, the 13th and 14th month and terminations correctly. Make sure its quote shows statutory costs separately from its fee. An EOR doesn’t recruit, so if you still need to find the person, a hiring partner like LatamCent that covers sourcing and compliance may fit better.
How much does it cost to hire through an EOR in Honduras?
Employer contributions for a professional salary run about 8% above salary: IHSS up to its ceiling, the 4% Reserva Laboral, the RAP housing fund and 1% INFOP. The mandatory 13th and 14th-month salaries add one-sixth more, which puts total statutory cost near 25% above salary before the EOR’s own fee. A 55,000 HNL monthly salary is about $2,045 at the October 2026 rate, or about $2,209 with contributions.
How much is 24,000 HNL in US dollars?
At the Banco Central de Honduras reference rate of 26.89 lempiras per dollar on October 20, 2026, 24,000 HNL is about $892 a month. Rates move daily, so confirm the current rate before you sign a contract.
What is the average software engineer salary in Honduras?
Senior software engineers in Honduras earn roughly USD 1,930 to 2,555 a month in the local market, and engineers working remotely for US companies command more. US software developers earned a median of USD 135,980 a year in May 2025, several times more than a Honduran senior engineer.
Can I hire contractors in Honduras?
Yes, for short-term, deliverable-based work invoiced under the contractor’s own RTN; companies withhold 12.5% income tax on fees paid to resident individuals. Article 21 of the Código del Trabajo presumes employment when someone provides personal services, so fixed hours, exclusivity and integration into your team create reclassification risk, with severance, contributions and back pay owed from day one.
How do I recruit IT talent in Honduras?
Source in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, where application, full-stack and cloud engineers and bilingual technical support concentrate, and screen conversational English in the first interview. LatamCent recruits and vets IT talent in Honduras and handles the employment side, with a 21-day average from kickoff to signed offer.
What is Honduras’s time zone overlap with US business hours?
Honduras runs on UTC-6 all year with no daylight saving time. On a 9 to 5 schedule on both sides that is 7 hours of overlap with US Eastern from November to March and 6 hours the rest of the year, and many Honduran teams work 8 to 5, which adds an hour.
What are the standard working hours and key employment rules in Honduras?
The day schedule is 8 hours a day and 44 a week, paid as 48, with a night schedule of 6 hours (36 a week) and a mixed schedule of 7 hours (42 a week). Overtime pays 25% extra by day, 50% at night and 75% when it extends a night shift. Probation runs up to 60 days in writing, indefinite contracts are the default, and the 13th and 14th-month salaries are mandatory.
Ready to hire in Honduras?
If Honduras is on your shortlist for an engineering, data or GTM hire, tell us about the role. We’ll tell you whether it’s sourceable in your timeline before you spend cycles on it.
- 21 daysaverage from kickoff to signed offer
- 93%first-placement success rate
- 60 daysreplacement coverage on every hire
“It basically feels like we’re working with our in-house people team. Sometimes I actually get confused about who’s a YipitData employee and who’s a LatamCent employee.”
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