Guide · Work · 5 min read
If your salary is late
When your salary is due, what your employer can deduct, and how to complain to the Commissioner.
In plain English · by bruneilaws · not legal advice· Law as at 30 Sep 2026
On this page · 6 parts
The short answer
Your salary for each salary period, other than overtime pay, has to be paid before the expiry of the 7th day after the last day of that period. Overtime pay has to be paid not later than 14 days after the last day of the salary period in which you worked it.
Your employer can make no deductions from your salary other than those the Act authorises, unless a court or other competent authority orders them.
Who these rules cover
The Employment Act's definition of an employee does not include a seaman, a domestic worker, or a person employed in a managerial, executive or confidential position.
Salary periods
Your employer may fix salary periods, the periods for which your salary is payable. No salary period can be longer than one month. If none is fixed, your salary period is taken to be one month.
When your salary is due
Salary you earn under your contract of service, other than overtime pay, has to be paid before the expiry of the 7th day after the last day of the salary period it is payable for.
The total salary due to you when your contract of service is completed has to be paid on its completion.
Subject to the Act, if your employer dismisses you or ends your contract, your salary and any other sum due to you have to be paid on the day of the dismissal or termination or, if that is not possible, within 3 days after it, not counting rest days and public holidays.
Salary has to be paid on a working day, during working hours, at the place of work or another place you and your employer agree. That rule does not apply when your salary is paid into a bank account in Brunei Darussalam in your name, alone or jointly with others.
Your salary is payable in legal tender and not otherwise.
What your employer can deduct
The deductions the Act authorises include:
- Deductions for absence from work
- Deductions for damage to or loss of goods expressly entrusted to you for custody, or loss of money you have to account for, where the damage or loss is directly caused by your neglect or default
- The actual cost of meals your employer supplies at your request
- House accommodation your employer supplies
- Amenities and services your employer supplies, as the Commissioner authorises
- Recovering advances or loans, or adjusting overpayments of salary
- Income tax you owe
- Contributions your employer pays for you under the Employee Trust Act and the Supplemental Contributory Pensions Trust Act
- Other deductions the Minister approves
A deduction for damage or loss cannot be more than the damage or loss your neglect or default caused. Except with the Commissioner's approval, it can never be more than one-quarter of one month's salary, and it cannot be made until you have had a chance to show cause against it.
Advances may be recovered in instalments by deductions from salary spread over not more than 12 months, and no instalment can be more than one-quarter of the salary due for that salary period.
In any one salary period, the total of the deductions from your salary, other than those under section 45(1)(a), (f), (g) or (j), cannot be more than 50 per cent of the salary payable for that period, except for deductions from your last salary when your contract ends or is completed.
If your employer does not pay
The Commissioner may inquire into and decide a dispute between you and your employer, or anyone the Act makes liable to pay salary due to you, that arises out of a term of your contract of service or the Act.
After deciding, the Commissioner may order either party to pay the sum of money the Commissioner considers just, with no limit on the amount.
These complaint rules apply to all workmen, and to other employees whose salary is not more than $3,000 a month. Overtime, bonus payments, annual salary supplements, productivity incentive payments and allowances are not counted, and the Minister may prescribe another amount.
To start, you present a written statement to the Commissioner, or make a statement in person, setting out your complaint and the remedy you seek. The Commissioner then examines you on oath and records the substance of your statement.
If you are a workman, and a principal in the course of its trade or business contracts with a contractor to supply labour or to carry out work the principal has undertaken, and the contractor or a sub-contractor owes you salary for that labour or work, the principal, the contractor and any such sub-contractor, not being your employer, are jointly and severally liable with your employer to pay you, but none of them for more than the salary earned in one month for the work done, and, for a contract of service for constructional work, the principal only if it is also a constructional contractor.
A claim against them under section 53 has to be started within 60 days from the date the salary became due, or a longer period the Commissioner allows, and you can still recover your salary from your employer instead.
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