The Home Ministry has amended the regulations governing the employment of expatriates, mandating that the salaries of all foreign workers in the Maldives be deposited directly into bank accounts opened in their names within the country.
According to the revised regulations, all salaries and benefits due to expatriate employees under their employment contracts must be deposited into an account held in the employee's name at a bank registered with or licensed by the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA).
Failure to comply with these regulations may result in several penalties, including the cancellation or reduction of employment quotas, administrative fines, blacklisting on the Xpat system, and the referral of cases to investigative authorities.
While many companies currently pay their expatriate staff in cash, this practice will no longer be permitted under the new regulatory framework.
The requirement for expatriate salaries and benefits to be deposited into local bank accounts was originally introduced through a 2016 amendment to the Employment Act.
Following that amendment, a remittance tax was also introduced, requiring a three percent fee to be paid to the state when expatriate workers withdrew cash from their local bank accounts while abroad.
However, the previous administration under the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) abolished the remittance tax, stating that it was not a fiscally beneficial tax for the state.
