New law for Curacao: Overtime Wage Exemption

Written by Sue van Elteren
Posted on 11 Sep 2025 - 2 minutes read

As of July 1, 2025, the National Ordinance on the Promotion of Labor Participation of Youth and Young Adults came into effect in Curaçao. This law introduces several new payroll-related exemptions. In this article, we focus specifically on the Overtime Wage Exemption – what it entails, who is eligible, and how you can correctly process it in Celery.

What is the Overtime Wage Exemption?
The Overtime Wage Exemption applies to all employees (not just youth and young adults) who earn up to the SVB wage limit. In 2025, this limit is XCG 84,396 per year or XCG 7,033 per month.

For these employees, the first 10 overtime hours per week may be paid tax-free, provided you have obtained a tax ruling from the Tax Authorities.

The 10-hour limit is derived from the Employment Regulations 2000 (in Dutch: Arbeidsregeling 2000), which states that the maximum working week, including overtime, is 50 hours (40 regular hours + 10 overtime hours). Employers are legally required to pay overtime to these employees.

How to Process the Exemption in Celery
To accommodate this exemption in Celery, we have made the following changes:

Existing overtime wage codes (starting with 3XX) now include the word taxed in their description. Using these codes will apply wage tax and social security contributions as before.
New overtime wage codes (starting with 4XX) have been added, including the word untaxed in their description.

This ensures a clear distinction between taxable and tax-free overtime wages. When entering (or importing) periodic changes, you must select the correct overtime wage code.

Celery cannot automatically determine whether overtime is taxable or tax-free because:

We cannot verify whether you have obtained a tax ruling from the Tax Authorities.
The first 10 overtime hours per week may be tax-free, but overtime in Celery is usually processed monthly, not weekly.

Practical Steps
If you want to apply the Overtime Wage Exemption, first request the tax ruling from the Tax Authorities. Once approved, use the new untaxed overtime codes in Celery to ensure correct payroll processing. With Celery, you can easily process both taxable and tax-free overtime wages in compliance with the latest legislation.