SSF in Nepal Explained: The 31% Contribution Every Employer Must Get Right

If you run payroll for a business in Nepal, the Social Security Fund (SSF) is not optional paperwork — it is one of the most consistently audited parts of Nepali compliance, and one of the easiest to get wrong when it is still being calculated by hand in a spreadsheet.

What SSF actually is

SSF is Nepal's government-administered social security scheme, replacing the older Provident Fund and Gratuity arrangement for registered employers. Every enrolled employee builds a contribution history tied to their own SSF number, which follows them between employers.

The 31% split

The headline number payroll teams need to know is 31% of basic salary, split as:

• 20% employer contribution — paid by the business on top of salary
• 11% employee contribution — deducted from the employee's basic salary

Both portions are deposited to the employee's SSF account together, on the employer's monthly filing, not separately.

Where payroll teams get it wrong

Three mistakes come up constantly in manual or semi-manual payroll:

• Calculating SSF on gross salary instead of basic salary, which overstates the contribution
• Missing the monthly filing deadline, which creates a compliance backlog that compounds month over month
• Not reconciling SSF contribution history when an employee moves between branches or leaves the company

Why this is worth automating

Once SSF is calculated automatically from each payroll run — tied directly to attendance and salary structure — the 20/11 split, the filing figures, and the employee-level contribution history stop being a monthly scramble. This is exactly the kind of compliance detail Hajir Khata was built around, rather than adapted to after the fact.

Contribution rates and filing rules are set by the Social Security Fund and can be updated by the government — always confirm current rates against the latest SSF notice before relying on any figure for compliance purposes.