Nicaragua Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

WHAT A PAYROLL ENGINE GETS WRONG IN NICARAGUA. 1. THE CURRENT STEP IS THE 1 FEBRUARY 2019 STEP, AND NOTHING HAS MOVED SINCE. The consolidated Reglamento states the rates as those applying "a partir del 1 de febrero de 2019" and no later step is written into artículo 11. The earlier graduated path under Decreto 39-2013 — employer IVM rising 8 % (2014), 9 % (2015), 9.5 % (2016), 10 % (2017) — was superseded outright by the 2019 reform, which jumped the employer IVM branch to 12.50/13.50 % in a single move rather than continuing to phase. Do not look for an annual increment: there is none. 2. THE HEADLINE EMPLOYER RATES ARE 21.50 % AND 22.50 %, AND ONLY ONE BRANCH DIFFERS. Régimen Integral employer: IVM 12.50 or 13.50 + Riesgos Profesionales 1.50 + Víctimas de Guerra 1.50 + Enfermedad y Maternidad 6.00 = 21.50 % for employers with fewer than 50 workers and 22.50 % for employers with 50 or more. The employee always pays 7.00 % (IVM 4.75 + EM 2.25). The State pays 1.75 %. 3. THE HEADCOUNT THRESHOLD IS A CLIFF. At 50 workers the employer's IVM rate rises from 12.50 % to 13.50 % on the WHOLE payroll, not on the marginal worker. Fifty is counted as workers, not full-time equivalents or payroll value. 4. THERE IS NO CEILING AT ALL, AND THIS IS RECENT. Artículo 16 states it in terms: "A partir del 1 de febrero de 2019 no existirá límite máximo para la remuneración objeto de cotización." The pre-2019 maximum contributory wage was abolished by the same reform. Any record or engine still applying a Nicaraguan contribution cap is carrying a figure that has been dead since February 2019 and will materially under-collect on senior salaries. 5. THERE IS A FLOOR, AND IT IS SECTORAL. The contributory wage may not be lower than the minimum wage established for the EMPLOYER'S ECONOMIC ACTIVITY (artículo 16), except for incomplete periods. Nicaragua's minimum wage is a sectoral table, so the floor is not a single national number and must be selected by the employer's activity. 6. TWO ITEMS ARE OUTSIDE THE BASE AND ONE OF THEM IS LARGE. Artículo 10: "No se considerarán como remuneraciones afectas al Seguro Social los viáticos y el Aguinaldo que reciba el trabajador." The aguinaldo is the statutory thirteenth-month payment — a full month's pay each year that carries no INSS contribution on either side. An engine that runs contributions over annual gross including the aguinaldo over-collects by roughly one twelfth. 7. VACATION PAY IS TIMED, NOT EXEMPT. Artículo 18: worked vacation accumulates to the earnings of the period in which it is worked; vacation actually taken is contributed in the period to which it corresponds. Both are contributory — only the allocation differs. 8. THERE ARE TWO COMPULSORY REGIMES AND THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. The Régimen Integral, served above, is the ordinary one. The Régimen de Invalidez, Vejez, Muerte y Riesgos Profesionales (IVM-RP) covers workers who are not entitled to the health branch, and its numbers differ: IVM employer 13.50 % (50+) or 12.50 % (fewer than 50) and worker 4.75 %; Riesgos Profesionales employer 1.50 %; Víctimas de Guerra employer 1.50 % AND WORKER 0.25 %. Employer totals are therefore 16.50 % and 15.50 %, and the worker pays 5.00 %, not 7.00 %. The worker's 0.25 % war-victims contribution exists ONLY in this regime. 9. THE EMPLOYER WITHHOLDS AND REMITS BOTH SIDES, MONTHLY. Artículo 17: the worker's contribution is deducted at the moment the remuneration is paid, and the employer remits both shares. Registration of every worker, apprentices included, is the employer's obligation (artículo 6), and a successor employer is jointly liable for the predecessor's last six months of contributions (artículo 5). 10. THE VOLUNTARY (FACULTATIVO) RATE IS A DIFFERENT NUMBER AGAIN. A person affiliating voluntarily to the Facultativo Integral regime contributes 22.25 % of the declared income themselves. It is not the employed-person rate and must not be substituted for it. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: none in the rates. Contribution percentages are national. The only differentiation is by employer HEADCOUNT (the 50-worker threshold), by REGIME (Integral versus IVM-RP), and — for the floor only — by the employer's ECONOMIC ACTIVITY through the sectoral minimum wage. Never by department or municipality. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: THE SECTORAL MINIMUM WAGE TABLE — not served here. It sets the floor of the contributory wage but is a separate series, negotiated periodically and differentiated by economic activity. THE STATE'S 1.75 % — recorded in the instrument quotation and in the notes, but not added to rate_total, because it is neither an employer cost nor an employee deduction. THE RÉGIMEN IVM-RP AS SEPARATE BRANCH ENTRIES — its full percentages are given in the notes, but it is not served as branches because it is not the regime applicable to an ordinary private-sector employee. FACULTATIVO (VOLUNTARY) AND SELF-EMPLOYED RATES — outside the scope of an employed-person record; the 22.25 % Facultativo Integral figure is noted only to prevent substitution. SOURCING CAVEATS: Every percentage, the base definition, the abolition of the ceiling and the minimum-wage floor are read verbatim from the Asamblea Nacional's own published consolidated text of Decreto-Ley No. 975 (Reglamento General de la Ley de Seguridad Social), and the operative Spanish is quoted in the instrument fields. That consolidated text carries the rates as reformed with effect from 1 February 2019; I did not separately open the 2019 reforming decree itself, so the reform is identified by its effect and commencement date as recorded in the consolidated text rather than by its own decree number and Gaceta reference. The Facultativo Integral rate of 22.25 % is taken from the INSS's own affiliation-regimes page. I found no instrument or authority publication indicating any change to artículo 11 since February 2019, but that is a negative finding rather than an authority statement that the rates remain in force.

Get it programmatically

curl https://latamref.dev/v1/ni/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://latamref.dev/v1/ni/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/ni/social-contributions

Other Nicaragua series: BCN Tasa de Referencia Monetaria (TRM) · IVA standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Minimum wage (sectoral schedule) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate · Withholding tax rates · Statutory legal interest (interés legal) · Personal income tax brackets

The same figure elsewhere: Panama · Paraguay · Peru · Trinidad and Tobago · Uruguay · all 22