Terminating an employee in North Macedonia requires more preparation than many international employers anticipate. The country’s Labour Law sets out a comprehensive framework that governs every dismissal, from written warnings through to final payments. There’s no at-will employment here: every separation must follow a defined legal pathway, and procedural errors can expose your organisation to significant liability. This guide covers what you need to know as an employer operating in North Macedonia in 2026.
Termination framework in north macedonia
North Macedonia’s employment relationships are governed by the Labour Law, which applies to all employees in the country regardless of where the employer is incorporated. The law draws a clear distinction between different grounds for termination, and each ground carries its own procedural requirements and financial obligations.
You can’t simply decide to end employment and walk away. Even straightforward separations involve written documentation, mandatory timelines, and specific payments. Understanding the framework before you act is essential to avoiding costly mistakes.
Types of termination
North Macedonia recognises several routes to ending an employment relationship, and each one comes with different requirements. The three most common scenarios you’ll encounter as an employer are termination with cause, termination without cause, and mutual agreement.
Termination with cause
Where termination is based on employee conduct or performance, the Labour Law requires a structured process before dismissal can take place. You must issue a written warning to the employee, setting out the specific concerns. The employee then has a minimum of 15 days to address those concerns and demonstrate improvement before you can proceed with dismissal. Skipping this step, or shortening the improvement window, leaves the termination legally exposed.
Termination without cause (redundancy or economic reasons)
Where termination is driven by genuine business reasons such as workforce reduction or economic necessity, the law permits dismissal without a conduct or performance basis. You’re required to give at least one month’s notice, and the employee is entitled to severance pay. This route doesn’t bypass documentation requirements: the reason for termination must be clearly established and recorded.
Mutual termination
Both parties can agree in writing to end the employment relationship at any time. North Macedonia’s Labour Law sets a specific formal requirement for this type of separation: the agreement must be in writing and must carry wet signatures from both parties, with handwritten names and dates. Digital or typed signatures don’t satisfy this requirement. A mutual termination that doesn’t meet these formalities isn’t legally valid.
Notice periods
The standard minimum notice period in North Macedonia is one month, and it applies to termination by either party. You should always check the specific employment contract before issuing notice, since contractual notice periods that exceed the statutory minimum are binding.
During probation, different rules apply. The maximum probation period is four months, and either party can terminate during this window with a shorter notice period than applies to confirmed employees. If you’re ending employment during probation, confirm the contractual notice provisions before proceeding.
Severance pay
Severance pay is mandatory for terminations on redundancy or economic grounds, and also applies in the case of retirement. It’s calculated based on the employee’s average net salary over the last six months of employment, with the amount scaling by length of service.
The applicable rates are:
- Less than 5 years of service: 1 month’s average net salary
- 5 to 10 years: 2.5 months’ average net salary
- 10 to 15 years: 3.5 months’ average net salary
- 15 to 20 years: 4.5 months’ average net salary
- 20 to 25 years: 6 months’ average net salary
- More than 25 years: 7 months’ average net salary
There’s also a statutory floor: severance can’t fall below 50% of the national average monthly net salary per employee, regardless of the calculation above. If the formula produces a lower figure, you must pay the minimum amount instead.
Severance isn’t owed where termination is for cause, or where the employee resigns voluntarily.
Final payments
All outstanding amounts owed to the employee must be paid on or before their last working day. This includes any unpaid wages, accrued but unused leave, and the severance payment where applicable. North Macedonia’s Labour Law doesn’t allow for deferred final payments: everything due must be settled by the time the employment ends.
It’s worth building your payroll and HR process around this deadline. Late final payments create compliance risk and can give rise to employee claims.
Termination of foreign national employees
If you’re employing a non-EU/EEA national in North Macedonia and their employment ends before their work permit expires, there’s an additional compliance step. You’re required to notify the relevant authorities of the termination. Failing to make this notification on time is a separate compliance obligation from the termination itself, so it needs to be tracked alongside your standard offboarding process.
You should confirm the specific authority and notification timeline that applies in the circumstances, as this will depend on the type of permit the employee holds.
Protected periods
There are employment protections in North Macedonia that limit your ability to terminate in certain circumstances. You can’t terminate an employee’s employment during pregnancy or maternity leave. If an employee is in a protected period, you’ll need to pause any planned termination process until that protection has ended. Proceeding with dismissal during a protected period violates the Labour Law.
How an EOR manages terminations in north macedonia
Terminating an employee in North Macedonia as a foreign employer without a local entity means navigating the Labour Law from a distance, and the margin for procedural error is narrow. Missing a written warning step, miscalculating severance, or issuing a mutual termination agreement without wet signatures can each invalidate a dismissal or trigger a legal claim.
Working with an Employer of Record (EOR) means the legal employer on record handles every step of the termination process on your behalf. The EOR manages the notice period, prepares the required documentation, calculates severance based on the correct salary average and service band, issues final payments on the last working day, and handles authority notifications for foreign national employees where required.
If you’re looking at EOR services for your North Macedonia team, RemotePass handles the full employment lifecycle, including compliant terminations.
North Macedonia’s Labour Law gives employees strong protections at every stage of a termination, and the procedural requirements are detailed enough that they’re easy to miss without local expertise. If you want to make sure every separation is handled correctly, book a demo with RemotePass at https://www.remotepass.com/request-demo to see how we support compliant terminations in North Macedonia and beyond.
