---
title: "Statutory Contributions & Withholding"
description: "Versioned government contribution and withholding rates by country, mapped to your chart of accounts, with per-employee registration numbers."
url: "https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory"
category: "Team, roles & approvals"
updated: "2026-10-29"
publisher: "BareLedger (Syneria Technologies OPC)"
---

# Statutory Contributions & Withholding

> Country packs of versioned government rates, GL mapping, per-employee registrations — no rate ever hard-coded.

**Who can use this page**: HR and the Accountant (payroll access). Find it under **Settings → Statutory**.

## What this is

The government deductions on every payslip — social security, health insurance, housing funds, income-tax withholding — are **schemes** with **versioned rate tables**. BareLedger never hard-codes a rate: the figures live as data, each version carries the official source it was taken from, and when an agency changes rates next year a *new* version arrives with its own effective date. Old payslips keep reproducing exactly, because every payslip line remembers which version and bracket produced it.

## Country packs

1. The platform maintains a registry of per-country schemes. Each is **signed off by a human** against the official source before it can be used (you'll see "No packs are enabled yet" until then).
2. In **Settings → Statutory**, pick your country, **Preview** (shows exactly what would be added — applying never changes or removes anything you have), then **Apply pack**.
3. Your own additions — a union due, a provident fund — live alongside pack schemes and survive every re-apply.

Eleven packs ship (every one disabled until its figures are verified), each with its own page: [Statutory Pack: Philippines](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-ph), [Statutory Pack: Singapore](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-sg), [Statutory Pack: United Arab Emirates](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-ae), [Statutory Pack: Saudi Arabia](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-sa), [Statutory Pack: Egypt](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-eg), [Statutory Pack: Australia](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-au), [Statutory Pack: New Zealand](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-nz), [Statutory Pack: Japan](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-jp), [Statutory Pack: United Kingdom](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-uk), [Statutory Pack: Canada](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-ca), [Statutory Pack: United States](https://bareledger.app/guides/statutory-us).

## Mapping schemes to your books

Each scheme needs three accounts (click **Map GL**):

- **Employee share — liability**: money withheld from staff, owed to the agency until you remit it.
- **Employer share — expense**: your own cost on top of salaries.
- **Employer share — liability**: that same employer amount, also owed to the agency.

In plain terms: approving payroll records "we owe the agency this much"; paying the agency later clears those liability accounts. The optional **remittance due day** feeds the filing-calendar reminders.

## Per-employee registrations

On each employee's record (and in the onboarding form), HR keeps one entry per scheme: the agency-issued ID number (stored encrypted), an effective window, and a status — **active**, **exempt** (registered but not deducted, e.g. by treaty), or **suspended**. Some schemes also take per-employee choices (a voluntary fixed top-up, filing elections); those live on the registration too. An employee is only ever computed for schemes they're actively registered in.

## How the computation runs (plain language)

On each payroll run, per employee: contributions are computed first, each on its own base (basic or gross pay, clamped to the scheme's floor/ceiling and annual cap); the pre-tax ones reduce the pay that income tax sees; withholding then runs on what's left. Monthly tables stay correct on semi-monthly or weekly payroll because the engine works month-to-date — the halves always add up to the monthly figure. A **minimum-wage earner** flag (on the employee's tax profile) suppresses withholding without touching contributions.

## Common mix-ups

- **"The pack list is empty."** No country has been signed off yet in the platform console — that's deliberate; rates are only usable after human verification.
- **"I applied the pack twice."** Harmless — applying is additive and skips everything you already have.
- **"An employee has no deductions."** Check their registrations: no active registration in a scheme means no computation for it.