How to hire in Argentina from the US (2026): contracts, costs and labor law

There are four, and the choice decides who the legal employer is.

For income tax, a foreign company has a permanent establishment in Argentina if it provides services there, directly or through personnel, for more than six months in any twelve, or if a person acting for it habitually concludes contracts or works under its detailed instructions.[6] Argentina has no income tax treaty with the United States.[7] The tax agency AFIP was replaced in October 2024 by ARCA, its legal successor, so some official links still show the afip.gob.ar domain.[8]

Yes. Under the employment statute, as rewritten in 2024 and again in 2026, workers are direct employees of whoever registers the employment relationship, even if they were hired to provide services to other companies. The company that uses them is jointly liable only for the labor and social security obligations accrued while they actually served it, and can recover what it pays from the registering employer.[3] The registration can be made by the employer or by the user company.[9]

Two points to check with a provider. A collective agreement approved by the Labor Secretariat applies to every worker of its activity, whether or not they belong to the union,[10] and a company-level agreement now prevails over an activity-wide one.[10] And when a company subcontracts work that belongs to its normal activity, it must collect each worker’s social security number, proof of monthly contributions and wages, bank account and occupational-risk coverage; doing those checks exempts it from liability.[3]

When an individual provides services under another person’s dependence for pay, whatever the contract is called.[3] The law presumes that dependent services are employment, but since 2024 the presumption does not apply when the parties used a services contract and the provider issued invoices or was paid through the banking system,[3] regardless of how many invoices the provider issues or how many clients it has.[9] A worker can still prove real dependence with other evidence.[3]

The labor statute does not apply to services contracts under the Civil and Commercial Code, to independent workers with collaborators, or to independent providers on technology platforms.[3] An independent worker may work with up to three independent collaborators under a single unified contribution,[11] provided each is registered and files a sworn statement that the relationship is independent.[9]

Ley 27.742 repealed the statutory fines for unregistered employment and the severance increases that used to come with them,[11] and Ley 27.802 opened a program to regularize unregistered relationships that began before its promulgation, with forgiveness of fines.[10]

For how this applies to a US company with no office in Argentina, and how the four main hiring countries compare, see Latin American labor law and US companies.

As a rule, the parties choose the form freely; a written contract is not mandatory unless a law or collective agreement requires one.[3]

• Term: contracts are presumed indefinite. A fixed term is valid only if it is written and the nature of the work justifies it, it may last at most five years, and for terms of a month or more either party must give one to two months’ notice before the end or the contract becomes indefinite.[3]
• Probation: six months, extendable by collective agreement to eight months in companies with 6 to 100 workers and a year in companies with up to five. Either party can end it without cause or severance, it can be used only once per worker, and the worker must be registered from the first day.[3] Since March 2026 no notice is needed during probation.[3] The six-month period applies to hires from July 9, 2024;[9] it was three months before.[12]
• Part-time pay may not be less than the proportional pay of a full-time worker.[3]
• Telework: the remote-work statute, Ley 27.555, is repealed from January 1, 2027.[10]

Payslips can be signed digitally,[3] and records must be kept for two years for labor claims and ten for social security.[3] A digital signature meets any legal requirement of a handwritten one; a simple electronic signature is valid, but if it is disputed, the party relying on it must prove it.[13]

The national minimum wage rises every month under resolutions of the minimum wage council:[14][1]

At the central bank’s reference rate of ARS 1,537.35 per dollar on October 30, 2026,[2] the November minimum is about USD 259. Registered private-sector employees earned ARS 2,256,861 a month on average in July 2026,[15] and registered private wages rose 30.4% in the year to August 2026,[16] against consumer price inflation of 31.5% in 2025[17] and 23.6% from January to September 2026.[18]

Since March 6, 2026, salaries may be agreed and paid in pesos or in a foreign currency such as US dollars,[3] always by credit to a bank account in the employee’s name,[3] and monthly salaries are due within four business days after the month ends.[3]

The legal maximum is 8 hours a day or 48 a week, and night work, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., is limited to 7 hours.[4] Overtime is paid at 50% extra on ordinary days and 100% on Saturdays after 1 p.m., Sundays and holidays,[3] and overtime without administrative authorization is capped at 30 hours a month and 200 a year.[19] There must be 12 hours of rest between working days, and work is barred from 1 p.m. on Saturday until midnight on Sunday, except in permitted cases with compensatory rest.[3]

Since March 2026, collective agreements may average working hours and use hours banks within the weekly maximum, and employer and employee may agree in writing on a scheme to compensate overtime with time off.[3]

Vacation is granted between October 1 and April 30 with 30 days’ written notice, and since March 2026 it can be split by agreement into blocks of at least seven days. Each vacation day is paid at the monthly salary divided by 25, not 30.[3] Other leave under the same statute:[3]

• Maternity: 90 days, paid by social security rather than the employer.
• Birth of a child: 2 days, the statutory paternity leave.
• Marriage: 10 days. Bereavement: 3 days for a spouse, child or parent.
• Illness: full pay for 3 months with up to 5 years of seniority and 6 months above that, doubled for workers with family dependents, paid by the employer.

Ley 27.399 sets twelve holidays that never move, counting both days of Carnival and Good Friday, and four movable ones: when they fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday they move to the Monday before, and on a Thursday or Friday to the Monday after. The government may add up to three tourist days a year on a Monday or Friday, and Jewish and Muslim employees may take their main religious days off with pay.[20] The 2026 calendar has 17 national holidays,[21] including an extra one on November 9 for the Pope’s visit, set by an emergency decree,[22] plus three tourist non-working days.[23] Work on a holiday is paid double, while on a non-working day the employer decides whether staff work, at single pay.[3]

The 2027 column applies the rules of Ley 27.399 to the 2027 calendar; the official calendar and tourist days for 2027 had not been published on November 2, 2026.

The 13th salary, the sueldo anual complementario (SAC), equals one twelfth of the year’s pay. It is paid in two installments, due June 30 and December 18, each equal to 50% of the highest monthly salary of that half-year, and a departing employee receives it in proportion to the time worked.[3]

Some benefits are not salary and carry no contributions, such as meals, health plans paid in kind, work clothing and documented childcare costs for children up to six,[3] and reimbursements of phone and internet costs used for work, documented travel expenses and certain equity or profit-sharing plans are excluded from pay.[3] Since March 2026, employers can add variable components tied to merit or organization and change them without creating acquired rights.[3]

Employers deduct ARS 7,003.68 per worker from the monthly contribution base.[29] From the December 2026 accrual period, every employer also pays 1%, or 2.5% for small and medium companies, into its own Labor Assistance Fund (FAL), which helps pay severance, and the same amount is deducted from its social security contributions, so the total does not rise.[10][30][31] For eligible new hires registered between May 1, 2026 and April 30, 2027, such as people who had no registered job on December 10, 2025, employer contributions drop for 48 months to 2% for pensions, the employment fund and family allowances, plus 3% for PAMI.[10][32]

Worked example, calculated by Nearshorers. An employee on ARS 3,000,000 a month, about USD 1,951 at the October 30 reference rate, at a large services company. The SAC and the extra vacation pay from dividing by 25 add 9.1% to annual pay, and the contributions apply to them too: the on-cost is 37.9% of salary, for a total of ARS 4,136,065 a month, about USD 2,690, before the ART premium and life insurance. At the 18% rate it is 35.3%. The Argentina cost guide runs four salary levels.

Employees contribute 11% to the pension system, 3% to PAMI and 3% to their health fund, 17% in total,[28] on monthly pay up to ARS 4,861,685.38 from November 2026.[33] The employer withholds and pays both its own contributions and the employee’s through ARCA.[34] Income tax is withheld on a scale from 5% to 35%, with the top rate above ARS 70,984,968.25 of annual net taxable income in 2026,[35] after deductions that include a non-taxable minimum and a special deduction for employees,[36] and these amounts are indexed twice a year.[37]

• Notice: 15 days when the employee resigns; when the employer dismisses, one month with up to five years of seniority and two months above that, and none during probation.[3] Missing notice is paid in lieu, and a dismissal mid-month adds the salary for the rest of the month.[3]
• Severance without just cause: one month’s salary per year of service or fraction above three months. Since March 2026 the base counts only monthly pay, excluding the SAC, vacation pay and non-monthly bonuses; it is capped at three times the average salary of the applicable collective agreement, but the cap can never bring it below 67% of the employee’s real monthly pay, and the severance is never less than one month’s salary.[3] It is the only compensation for dismissal without cause.[3]
• Severance funds: a collective agreement may replace severance with a fund or system, and employers may set one up on their own.[3][9] The FAL pays nothing until the employer’s account has twelve monthly contributions,[38] and it does not change the severance rules.[10]
• Special cases: a dismissal proven discriminatory adds 50% of the severance, up to 100%; a dismissal for force majeure pays half.[3]
• Formalities: a resignation is valid only by telegram or before the labor authority, a mutual termination needs a notary deed or an authority, and work certificates are due within 45 business days.[3]

Claims expire after two years, unpaid amounts are updated by consumer prices plus 3% a year, and court awards can be paid in up to 6 installments, or 12 for small and medium companies.[3] For an employee on ARS 3,000,000 dismissed without cause after three years, with no collective-agreement cap applying, severance is three months’ salary plus one month’s notice, ARS 12 million, about USD 7,806, before the rest of the month’s salary and the proportional SAC and vacation (calculated by Nearshorers).

The reform is in force but was challenged in court. On March 30, 2026 a labor court suspended more than 80 of its articles at the request of the CGT union confederation;[39] on May 8 a federal judge lifted that injunction,[40] and in July an appeals court confirmed it, according to press reports, with the constitutional challenge still to be decided.[41] The Argentina labor reform page covers the changes in detail.

Most individual contractors use the monotributo, a simplified regime whose single monthly payment covers VAT, income tax, pension and health.[42] From August 1, 2026, a monotributista can bill up to ARS 126,610,838.75 a year, about USD 82,000, in the top category,[42] and the monthly payment for service providers runs from ARS 49,527.18 in category A to ARS 1,614,446.04 in category K.[43] The amounts are indexed twice a year, and a contractor who exceeds the ceiling must move to the general regime.[37]

Services exported to a US client are invoiced with a Factura E, in dollars or pesos,[44] and carry no Argentine VAT; a contractor registered for VAT can also recover the input VAT linked to them.[45]

The money has to come into Argentina. Residents paid by non-residents for services must bring the funds in and sell them on the official market within 20 business days,[46] but individuals do not have to convert them if they credit them to a dollar account in their own name at a local bank.[46] That exemption has had no annual cap since September 2025[47] and has covered all types of services since April 2026.[48] Companies must sell, except knowledge-economy companies that can keep part of their export dollars in a special account to pay salaries.[46]

Anyone can download a contractor’s tax registration certificate by entering the 11-digit CUIT on ARCA’s website,[49] which shows the income tax and VAT status and the monotributo category,[50] and check whether a CUIT is active, limited or inactive.[51] On the US side, collect a Form W-8BEN or a W-8BEN-E, and screen the contractor against the OFAC sanctions lists.

An employee’s personal inventions belong to the employee, but inventions derived from the company’s processes or research, and those made by a worker hired to invent, belong to the employer; the employer has a right of first refusal on personal inventions.[3] Software is protected by copyright, and software written by employees hired to develop it belongs to the employer unless agreed otherwise.[52] That rule does not cover independent contractors, so a contractor agreement needs an express assignment.

Authors can assign their economic rights but always keep moral rights to integrity and attribution, and the copyright law states that an assignment must be registered with the National Copyright Registry, without which it “will not be valid”.[52] Register assignments of important work.

With safeguards. Argentina’s data protection law covers individuals and companies and treats health and union data as sensitive,[53] and processing needs consent unless an exception applies, such as data needed for a contractual or professional relationship.[53] Transfers to countries without adequate protection are prohibited, and the United States is not on the regulator’s list of adequate countries, so transfers rely on consent or the regulator’s free model contractual clauses; contracts that depart from the models must be submitted to the regulator within 30 days of signing.[54] The European Commission reconfirmed Argentina’s adequacy in January 2024.[54]

Not for employees. Argentine employment law governs any employment contract performed in Argentina, even if signed abroad, and agreements that reduce statutory rights are void.[3] In the national labor courts, which sit in Buenos Aires City, an employee can choose to sue where the work is done, where the contract was concluded or at the employer’s domicile.[10]

Between companies, the parties to an international contract can choose the governing law, within Argentine public-policy limits, and agree to foreign courts or arbitration abroad.[55] Argentina has been a party to the New York Convention on foreign arbitral awards since 1989.[56] Under the Civil and Commercial Code, an electronic document counts as signed only with a digital signature; documents signed with other electronic tools are private instruments whose value the judge assesses.[55]

Argentina keeps UTC-3 all year, with no daylight saving time since 2009,[5] so Buenos Aires is one hour ahead of New York while the US is on daylight saving time and two hours ahead in winter. The law is national, but some holidays are regional: November 10, 2026 is a holiday only in Córdoba and the City of Buenos Aires, and November 11 only in Buenos Aires province.[22]

On talent, Argentina scored 575 in the EF English Proficiency Index 2025, 26th of 123 and first in Latin America, and Buenos Aires scored 594.[57] Knowledge-based services exports, which include software and IT, reached USD 9.6 billion in 2025, 53% of the country’s services exports, and the sector had more than 285,000 formal jobs, with 80% of its workforce holding university studies.[58]