These are the instruments that set Zambian payroll deductions and the minimum allowances. We host copies here rather than linking to them, because government and agency URLs move, go behind Cloudflare, or quietly disappear — the ministry's own copy of SI 49 was already unreachable when we collected these. A compliance reference is worth nothing at the moment it 404s.
Every document below shows the source it came from, so you can check our copy against the original whenever you want to. Nothing here is legal advice; where a decision matters, read the instrument or ask your labour consultant.
Made under the Employment Code Act No. 3 of 2019. All three were gazetted on 24 November 2023 and took effect on 1 January 2024. They replaced the 2011 Orders made under the Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act (Cap 276), which that Act repealed — so anything still citing Cap 276 is out of date.
| Instrument | What it sets | Our copy | Original source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SI No. 48 of 2023 General Order |
General workers. Housing 30% of basic where the employer does not accommodate; transport K200/month beyond a 3 km radius where no transport is provided; lunch K180/month where no free adequate meal is provided. Also subsistence K390/night, tool allowance K150/month, night-shift 15%. | PDF, 6 pages, 2.8 MB scanned gazette |
mlss.gov.zm |
| SI No. 49 of 2023 Domestic Workers Order |
Domestic workers. Basic K1,100/month (K5.29/hour) and transport K200/month on the same 3 km test. No lunch allowance and no housing allowance — a point widely got wrong. | PDF, 2 pages, 101 KB searchable text |
ILO NATLEX |
| SI No. 50 of 2023 Shop Workers Order |
Shop workers. The same housing, transport and lunch minimums as SI 48, with its own category wage scale and its own industry exclusions. | PDF, 9 pages, 4.8 MB scanned gazette |
mlss.gov.zm |
| SI No. 3 of 2025 Truck and Bus Drivers (Amendment) |
Amends SI No. 106 of 2020 only. Minimum basic K4,000 truck driver and K3,000 bus driver, cross-border subsistence US$30 or US$20 a night. Does not touch the three Orders above. | PDF, 2 pages, 1.2 MB scanned gazette |
mlss.gov.zm |
| Employment Code Act No. 3 of 2019 |
The enabling Act. Section 106 is the power to make the Orders above; section 138 repealed Cap 276. Section 92 requires housing or a housing allowance but prescribes no percentage — the 30% comes from the Orders, not from the Act. | PDF, 79 pages, 294 KB searchable text |
parliament.gov.zm |
The four statutory deductions, and the instrument that establishes each figure. Note that the Acts themselves generally do not set rates — NAPSA's and NHIMA's live in regulations made under them, which is why both are listed.
| Document | What it establishes | Our copy | Original source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Income Tax (Amendment) Act No. 22 of 2023 |
The PAYE bands. Section 11 amends paragraph 2(1) of the Charging Schedule to the Income Tax Act: 0% to K61,200 a year, 20% to K85,200, 30% to K110,400, 37% above — monthly, 0% to K5,100, then K7,100 and K9,200. Effective from the 2024 charge year and unchanged for 2025 and 2026. | PDF, 6 pages, 293 KB | parliament.gov.zm |
| ZRA Practice Note No. 1 of 2026 | ZRA's own explanation of the current tax year. Does not change the PAYE bands; its worked examples reproduce them. The narrative source to read alongside the Act. | PDF, 109 pages, 1.7 MB | zra.org.zm |
| ZRA Practice Note No. 1 of 2025 | Previous year's practice note; also reproduces the current band table. | PDF, 95 pages, 2.5 MB | zra.org.zm |
| ZRA Practice Note No. 1 of 2024 | The one that actually sets out the band change — its comparison tables show 2023 against 2024, including the top rate moving from 37.5% to 37%. | PDF, 85 pages, 1.1 MB | zra.org.zm |
| National Health Insurance Act No. 2 of 2018 |
Creates NHIMA. Sets no rate — section 15(1) says "at a prescribed percentage" and section 57 gives the Minister power to prescribe by SI. | PDF, 31 pages, 115 KB | parliament.gov.zm |
| SI No. 63 of 2019 NHI (General) Regulations |
The NHIMA rate and its base. The Third Schedule reads "Payroll based — 1% of basic salary" for the employee share and again for the employer share. Basic salary, not gross — which differs from NAPSA (total pensionable earnings) and SDL (gross emoluments). This one catches people out. | PDF, 38 pages, 1.0 MB | ZambiaLII media |
| National Pension Scheme Act No. 72 of 2026 |
The NAPSA Act. Section 67 repeals Cap 256, the 1996 Act — so anything citing Cap 256 now cites a repealed statute. Sets no rate: contributions are "at a prescribed percentage", and the national average earnings is set annually by the Authority. | PDF, 40 pages, 498 KB | parliament.gov.zm |
| SI No. 90 of 2021 NPS (Pensionable Earnings) Amendment |
How the NAPSA rate and ceiling are actually set: 5% each side of total pensionable earnings, with a ceiling of 4 × national average earnings, reset by SI most years. This 2021 specimen sets NAE K6,109 and a ceiling of K24,436 for 2022. It is not the current year — see the note below. | PDF, 48 pages, 390 KB | ZambiaLII media |
| Skills Development Levy Act No. 46 of 2016 |
0.5% of gross emoluments, paid by the employer and not deductible from the employee (s.4(3)). Section 6(1)(b) exempts an employer whose annual turnover is below K800,000. Remit by the 10th of the following month. | PDF, 5 pages, 18 KB | parliament.gov.zm |
The current NAPSA ceiling. The figure in wide circulation for 2026 is a ceiling of K37,236 a month (national average earnings K9,309 × 4), giving a maximum of K1,861.80 each side. We could not obtain an official source for it: napsa.co.zm blocks automated access entirely, and no Pensionable Earnings SI for 2024, 2025 or 2026 is published anywhere we could reach. The figure is consistent with the 4 × NAE rule and with the published series, but treat it as unconfirmed and check it against your own NAPSA employer account.
The Skills Development Levy (Amendment) of 2020. It exists; we could not retrieve it. So the K800,000 turnover exemption above is what the 2016 principal Act says, and we have not confirmed it survives unamended.
A current ZRA employer's guide to PAYE. There is not one. The four employer guides still on the ZRA site are all pre-2024 and use the old 37.5% top rate, so we have deliberately not mirrored them — a stale guide in a compliance library is worse than none. The Practice Notes above are the current narrative source.
Who the Orders leave out. SI 48 does not cover the civil service, local-authority employees, domestic workers, employees in management, unionised employees whose conditions come from collective bargaining, or anyone whose contract is already more favourable than the Order. For those employees the minimums above are not what is owed — the contract or the collective agreement is.
Three copies are scans. SI 48, SI 50 and SI 3 of 2025 are photographed gazette pages with no text layer, so they cannot be searched or copied from. That is how the ministry publishes them. SI 49 and the Employment Code Act have real text.
Currency. Checked on 28 September 2026: no instrument since SI 3 of 2025 changes the figures above. Section 101 of the Employment Code Act requires a review at least every two years, so a revision is due — if you are reading this much later, check for a newer Order before relying on the amounts.
