Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is an Arab country in Western Asia’s Levant region, on the Jordan River’s East Bank.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Palestine all border Jordan. The Dead Sea runs along its western boundaries, and in the extreme south-west, the nation has a 26-kilometer coastline on the Red Sea.
Jordan is strategically located at the intersection of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Jordan’s capital, Amman, is the country’s most populous city as well as its economic, political, and cultural hub.
Humans have lived in Jordan since the Paleolithic period. At the end of the Bronze Age, three prosperous kingdoms emerged: Ammon, Moab, and Edom.
The Nabataean Kingdom, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid Caliphates, and the Ottoman Empire were among the later rulers.
The Ottoman Empire was partitioned by Britain and France after the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916 during World War I.
The Hashemite, then Emir, Abdullah I created the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921, and the emirate became a British protectorate. Jordan became an independent state in 1946, formally known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, but after capturing the West Bank during the 1948 Arab Israeli War and annexed it until 1967, it was renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1949.
Jordan gave up its claim to the land in 1988, and in 1994, it became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Jordan was one of the founding members of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Although the sovereign state is a constitutional monarchy, the king wields extensive executive and legislative authority.
Jordan is a semi-arid country with an area of 89,342 km2 and a population of 10 million people, making it the Arab country with the 11th largest population.
The dominant religion is Sunni Islam, which is practiced by approximately 95% of the population and coexists with an indigenous Christian minority.
Jordan has been referred to as an “oasis of peace” in a volatile area on several occasions. It has largely escaped the unrest that erupted in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2010.
Jordan has been accepting refugees from a variety of conflict-torn neighbouring countries since 1948. According to a 2015 census, Jordan has 2.1 million Palestinian refugees and 1.4 million Syrian refugees.
Thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing ISIL persecution have sought asylum in the kingdom. Jordan continues to welcome refugees, but the recent massive influx from Syria has put significant pressure on the country’s finances and infrastructure.
Jordan is rated as a “high human growth” country with an “upper middle income” economy. Jordan’s economy, despite being one of the smallest in the country, is attractive to foreign investors due to its skilled workforce.
Date | Holiday name |
January 1 | New years day |
April 9 & 10 | Easter |
April 21 to 23 | Eid al- Fitr |
May 1 | Labor Day |
May 25 | Independence day |
June 27 till July 1 | Eid al-Adha |
July 19 | Islamic new year |
September 27 | Birthday of Prophet Muhammed |
December 25 | Christmas day |
Employees are given 14 to 21 days of paid annual leave each year.
Jordan recognizes 18 public holidays.
Every worker is entitled to fourteen days a year of sick leave with full pay on the basis of a report by the medical practitioner approved by the establishment.
Sick leave may be extended to a further fourteen days with full pay if the worker is hospitalized and with half pay if the worker is not hospitalized but provides a report from a medical commission approved by the establishment.
Women workers are entitled to maternity leave with full pay for ten weeks including rest before and after delivery. Leave after delivery shall be no less than six weeks long and employment before the expiry of such a period shall be prohibited.
After expiry of the maternity leave period every woman worker is entitled, within one year of delivery, to take time off with pay for the purpose of nursing her newborn baby, provided that total time off does not exceed one hour a day.
Employees who are fathers are entitled to up to three days of paid paternity leave.
The employment contract may be terminated by either the employer or the employee. It may be ended if all parties agree, the contract has expired, the task has been finished, or the employee has died or become incapacitated, as documented by a medical report.
Employers are exempt from the foregoing restrictions, however, if it is discovered that the employee was hired by another company during any of these breaks. Employers are obligated to provide terminated employees with an end of service certificate that includes the employee’s name, job description, and start/end dates of employment.
The party initiating the termination must present the other party with a written termination notice at least 30 days before to the exit date, which cannot be retracted unless all parties agree. The contract shall remain valid and the employee shall be entitled to their salary during this notice period.
Employers who terminate an employee may either exempt the employee from work throughout the notice period or require the employee to work during the notice period except for the final seven days. Regardless of whether the employee is excluded from work or not, the employer is required to pay the employee’s wage throughout the notice period.
In certain circumstances, an employee may resign without giving notice and still be entitled to end of service remuneration.
If the employer ends the fixed-term period contract prior to its expiration, or if the employee terminates it for any of the reasons listed above, the employee retains all contractualr rights, benefits, and earnings until the termination notice period expires.
The party who initiates the termination must give the other party a written termination notice at least 30 days prior to the exit date, which cannot be retracted unless all parties agree. The contract remains in effect during the termination notice period, and the employee is entitled to their salary during this time.
Employers in Jordan are not required to provide bonuses.
Jordan’s legislator has established a two-year probation period for public employees, during which time the public administration must make a hiring decision.
The standard workweek consists of 48 hours spread across five days and eight hours per day. Fridays and Saturdays have traditionally been considered Jordan’s official weekends. The total number of work and rest hours per day cannot exceed 11 hours.
Overtime is paid on a percentage of the employee’s wage rate and is limited to 30 days per year.
Mandatory benefits postulated by law include a probationary period, pay on annual leaves, public holidays, sick leaves, maternity leave, paternity leave, and overtime pay. Statutory benefits also include social security benefits.
In Jordan, CIT rates are imposed depending on the industry/business activities from which the taxpayer derives revenue.
The CIT rates are as fol- lows, according to the income tax law:
For banks, the percentage is 35%.
Telecommunications, insurance and reinsurance businesses, financial intermediation companies (including exchange and financing leasing companies), organizations that produce and distribute energy, and enterprises that engage in mining raw material operations are all imposed a 24 percent tax rate.
Other businesses are subject to a 20 percent tax rate.
Jordanian resident companies are not subject to CIT on their global revenue unless such money is derived from Jordanian deposits and funds, in which case the income is taxed at a rate of 10%.
All net revenue earned by overseas branches of Jordanian resident companies is taxed at a set rate of 10%.
Non-resident companies are subject to withholding tax (WHT).
30 %
A general sales tax, comparable to a value-added tax (VAT), is levied at a rate of 16% on the following transactions:
Sales of products, services, or a combination of the two.
Importing any service or products from outside Jordan or from Jordan’s free zone regions and marketplaces.
Certain goods are taxed at a higher rate. Export sales of products and services outside Jordan, free zone regions and marketplaces, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZ), and development zones are taxed at zero percent.
Bread, water in less than five liters, tea, sugar, gold, money, and electricity are all free from sales tax.
Jordan visa policy details which nations do not need a visa to visit the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and who may enter the country without one. Whether or not a visa is necessary for Jordan, foreign residents must produce a passport valid for at least 6 months beyond the desired stay, with at least 2 blank pages, in order to enter the Kingdom. There is currently no restriction on Jordan visas for nationals of other nations.
Residents of Lebanon and inhabitants of the European Union (excluding Croatia) arriving by direct aircraft to Aqaba Airport may display their national identity cards.
The sole exemption is for foreigners travelling from Jordan to Iraq, who must have a round-trip non-refundable ticket.
Currently, nationals of up to ten countries, including citizens of all Gulf Cooperation Council members, may visit Jordan without a visa for periods ranging from one month to three months, depending on their nationality (GCC).
All other foreign residents, in addition to an eVisa, must get a visa before to arrival in Jordan, whether it is a visa on arrival at an immigration booth at the border or an embassy visa from a Jordanian diplomatic post.
The Jordan Pass is a streamlined online tourist package that includes the Jordan electronic visa, which eliminates lengthy waits at Jordanian border crossings for visa on arrival applications. It is also intended to enable for faster entrance into Jordan through Jordanian immigration checkpoints.
To travel to Jordan for reasons other than tourism, a visa must be obtained from the closest Jordanian embassy or consulate. Furthermore, foreign citizens who are not eligible for Jordan visas online, up to around 80 countries, must apply for Jordan visas at Jordan’s embassy, regardless of their reason of visit or planned length of stay.
More than 230 nations, including those who enter the Kingdom
a electronic visas, visas on arrival, or embassy visas, need an authorized tourist visa to enter the Kingdom. For anyone planning a tourist trip to Jordan, an accelerated electronic application for Jordan Pass, which enables 140 nations to receive an electronic visa, is now available.
The Jordan Pass is a travel package that waives visa costs for tourists visiting at least three nights in Jordan. It also offers free admission to over 40 of Jordan’s most popular tourist destinations.
A Jordanian tourist visa may be acquired in just a few minutes using the computerized system, and the application procedure is fast and simple. After completing the application, the applicant will get his Jordan Pass through email, both as a PDF and as a QR code, which he may use to obtain access at immigration checkpoints.
Around 80 nations are unable to apply for Jordanian tourist evisas and must get embassy visas for tourism in advance from the Jordanian diplomatic post closest to them.
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