For most foreign companies, building a team in Belarus starts and ends in Minsk. The capital is where the Hi-Tech Park is headquartered, where the large engineering centers grew up, and where recruiters have the deepest candidate pools. It is also where salaries are highest and where competition for experienced engineers is fiercest.
Over the past couple of years, more of our clients have started asking a different question: what happens if we hire in Grodno, Brest, Gomel, Vitebsk or Mogilev? Some want to bring payroll costs down. Others have exhausted the Minsk market for a niche stack and need a second source of candidates. And a few simply have a strong engineer in Gomel who has no intention of moving and want to know whether hiring them is complicated.
The short answer is that regional hiring works, and it runs under exactly the same legal rules as hiring in the capital. The longer answer depends on the role, the city and how you plan to manage people you may rarely see in person. Below, we look at the latest salary data for each regional center, the kind of talent each city actually produces, and the practical issues that come up when companies build teams beyond Minsk.
The nominal gross average salary in Belarus was 3,135.9 BYN in August 2026, according to the official Belstat release. Minsk stood at 4,032.7 BYN, while the five regions this article covers all sat in a narrow band between roughly 2,650 and 2,820 BYN. Across the whole economy, then, the average employee outside the capital earns about 30–34% less than the average employee in Minsk.
In tech, the spread is wider and the ranking shifts. Belstat tracks a category called “information technology and information service activities”, and here Minsk averaged 8,290.6 BYN in August, while Mogilev region averaged 4,793.3 BYN. That is a gap of almost 3,500 BYN a month, which dev.by worked out as the capital paying roughly 73% more than the lowest-paying region.
| Region | Average salary, all sectors (BYN) | Average salary in IT (BYN) | IT salary vs Minsk |
| Minsk (city) | 4,032.7 | 8,290.6 | — |
| Minsk region | 3,274.1 | 7,445.5 | −10% |
| Gomel region | 2,773.6 | 6,383.3 | −23% |
| Grodno region | 2,821.6 | 6,281.1 | −24% |
| Brest region | 2,800.5 | 6,029.1 | −27% |
| Vitebsk region | 2,668.5 | 5,152.8 | −38% |
| Mogilev region | 2,655.8 | 4,793.3 | −42% |
Gross monthly averages before tax, August 2026, Belstat data.
Two patterns stand out. First, the western and southern regions (Gomel, Grodno and Brest) form a cluster where IT pay runs a quarter below Minsk. Second, Vitebsk and Mogilev sit noticeably lower, with IT averages closer to 60% of the capital’s level. That second group is where the cost difference is largest, and also where the talent pool is thinnest.
The trend matters as much as the level. In August, real IT wages rose year on year in every region, fastest in Brest at 4.6%. Over the first eight months of 2026, however, real IT pay fell in Gomel by 5.2% and in Grodno by 3%, which suggests regional employers have had less pressure to keep raising salaries than they did a few years ago.
Regional averages are a starting point, not an offer benchmark, and there are three reasons to treat them with care.
For role-level figures rather than sector averages, a salary survey built around your specific positions and cities is a far safer basis for a budget than any published average.
Every regional center has its own mix of universities, industries and established tech employers, and that mix shapes who you will find on the market. Before launching a search, it is worth checking who is already hiring locally. The Hi-Tech Park’s resident directory can be filtered by companies with offices in each region, which gives a quick picture of the competition in a given city.
Grodno has the highest all-sector average of the five regions (2,821.6 BYN in August) and an IT average of 6,281.1 BYN, about 24% below Minsk. Its position on the borders with Poland and Lithuania gives the city a strong western orientation, and many candidates are comfortable working with European clients and time zones.
The main talent source is Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno, which trains mathematicians, programmers and economists. Several outsourcing and product companies have kept Grodno offices for years, so the local market has experienced QA engineers, frontend developers and project managers who have worked on international accounts.
The weak spot is depth at the senior level. The pool of experienced engineers thinned over the past few years as some specialists relocated abroad, and those who remain are well known to every local employer. Expect to compete hard for leads and architects, and to find mid-level hiring considerably easier.
Brest region recorded an all-sector average of 2,800.5 BYN and an IT average of 6,029.1 BYN in August. It also posted the fastest real growth in IT pay of any region that month, at 4.6% year on year, which tells you local employers are actively competing for people.
As the main road and rail gateway between Belarus and the EU, Brest has a strong logistics, trade and manufacturing economy, supported by the Brest free economic zone. That shows up in the talent pool: developers with ERP, warehouse management and supply-chain domain knowledge are easier to find here than almost anywhere else in the country. Brest State Technical University and Brest State University named after A.S. Pushkin supply graduates in software engineering, automation and applied mathematics.
For product teams that need engineers who understand business processes rather than just code, Brest is often an underrated option.
Gomel is Belarus’s second-largest city and, on the August data, the best-paying region for IT outside Minsk, at 6,383.3 BYN. That figure needs context, though. Over January–August, real IT wages in Gomel region fell by 5.2%, the steepest decline in the country, so the market is less overheated than the headline number suggests.
The city has three universities that feed the tech market: Francisk Skorina Gomel State University, Sukhoi State Technical University of Gomel and the Belarusian State University of Transport. The regional economy is heavily industrial, with agricultural machinery, oil production and refining all nearby, and a large share of local “programmer” vacancies are actually industrial automation, PLC or 1C roles. For companies working on embedded systems, IoT or industrial software, that is an advantage, because Gomel produces engineers who understand hardware and production environments.
Classic outsourcing companies also recruit here, including trainee programs for junior developers, so entry-level hiring is relatively straightforward. Senior product engineers are scarcer and usually require a Minsk-level offer to move.
Vitebsk region averaged 2,668.5 BYN across all sectors and 5,152.8 BYN in IT in August, roughly 38% below the capital. Real IT wages grew 4.2% year on year that month, second only to Brest.
The city itself has Vitebsk State University named after P.M. Masherov and Vitebsk State Technological University. Just as important is the Polotsk–Novopolotsk area about 100 km away, home to Polotsk State University, which has a well-regarded IT faculty, and to the Naftan refinery, which makes Novopolotsk one of the better-paying towns in the country. Together, these give the region two distinct candidate pools rather than one.
Vitebsk works well for companies willing to invest in growing junior and mid-level engineers. The cost advantage is significant, competition from large tech employers is moderate, and retention tends to be good once people are trained. The trade-off is that you will rarely find a ready-made senior team here.
Mogilev region has the lowest averages of the five: 2,655.8 BYN across all sectors and 4,793.3 BYN in IT, about 42% below Minsk. On paper, that makes it the cheapest place in the country to hire technical staff.
The main universities are the Belarusian-Russian University, which has a strong engineering focus, Mogilev State University named after A.A. Kuleshov, and the Belarusian State University of Food and Chemical Technologies. The regional economy is built around heavy machinery, chemicals and tyres (the latter in nearby Bobruisk), so mechanical, electrical and automation engineers are easier to find than web developers.
The IT market is the smallest of the five, and senior searches can take noticeably longer. Mogilev makes most sense for QA, technical support, data processing and engineering roles, or as part of a hybrid setup. At about 200 km from Minsk, regular trips to a capital office are realistic.
Very little, and that surprises many foreign founders. Belarus has no regional salary coefficients, no regional minimum wage and no separate tax regimes for Grodno or Mogilev. The Labour Code, income tax rules and social contribution rates are the same everywhere in the country. An employment contract for a developer in Vitebsk looks exactly like one for a developer in Minsk.
The same is true for the Hi-Tech Park. Residency is granted to the company, not tied to where its employees sit, so an HTP resident registered in Minsk can employ people anywhere in Belarus and still apply the park’s tax regime to their salaries. That includes the reduced personal income tax rate for HTP employees and the capped base for employer social contributions.
Where things do change is in how the work is organised:
Companies that do not yet have a Belarusian entity have another route. An Employer of Record can employ a developer in Brest on exactly the same basis as one in Minsk, with contracts, payroll and reporting handled locally, while the client directs the work day to day. For a first regional hire, or for testing a city before committing to an office, this is often the fastest option.
The companies that get the most out of regional hiring treat it as a deliberate strategy rather than a cost-cutting shortcut. These are the lessons we see repeated most often.
Match the role to the city. Each regional market has a natural profile. Brest is strong on logistics and ERP domain knowledge, Gomel on industrial and embedded software, Grodno on QA and frontend for international clients, and Vitebsk and Mogilev on trainable junior and mid-level talent. Asking a small market for a skill it does not produce leads to long, expensive searches.
Do not anchor offers to regional averages. The fastest way to lose a good regional candidate is to quote them a number based on the regional average. Experienced engineers compare offers against remote roles from Minsk and abroad. The real savings come from mid-level and junior positions, and from lower turnover, rather than from underpaying seniors.
Look at contributions as well as salaries. For HTP residents, employer social contributions are calculated on a base capped at the national average salary. Since IT salaries in every region exceed that level, a developer in Mogilev and one in Minsk often cost roughly the same in contributions. The saving sits almost entirely in the gross salary line, which is worth remembering when you model the business case.
Build relationships with local universities. Internships, guest lectures and graduate programs give you access to candidates before larger employers reach them. Keep in mind that graduates who studied on state-funded places are subject to mandatory job placement, so check a candidate’s status early in the process.
Plan the hybrid rhythm up front. Decide how often regional employees will visit the Minsk office, or meet as a team elsewhere, and put the travel costs in the budget from day one. Quarterly in-person sessions work well for most distributed teams.
Source beyond job boards. Many strong regional engineers are not actively looking and do not keep their profiles updated. Referrals, local tech communities and a recruiter with a national database usually find people that a job posting never reaches. Our IT recruiting team works with more than 145,000 candidate profiles across Belarus, which makes it possible to judge quickly whether a search in a particular city is realistic.
Budget regional hires like any other. Regional salaries slot into the same structure as Minsk ones, from contributions and the HTP deduction to equipment, office and services. A standard R&D center budget needs only its salary assumptions adjusted city by city, which makes it easy to compare a Minsk-only plan with a mixed one.
Yes. There is no requirement for employees to live or work in the city where the employer is registered. A Minsk company can hire someone in Grodno or Gomel on a standard employment contract, usually with remote work set out in the contract.
According to Belstat’s August 2026 figures, IT salaries in the regions are 23 to 42% lower than in Minsk. Where you land in that range depends on the city. Don’t expect the full discount on every role, though. A senior developer in Gomel or Brest can work remotely for a company anywhere, so they’ll ask for close to what they’d get in Minsk or on the remote market.
There’s no single answer. If you need a large, experienced team, start with Gomel or Grodno, which have the most developers outside the capital. Brest has plenty of people who’ve worked on logistics and ERP systems. Vitebsk and Mogilev are cheaper, so they work well for junior and mid-level hires.
Not necessarily. Most regional engineers work from home under a remote work arrangement. An office becomes worth considering once you have a team of several people in one city who benefit from working together in person.
Junior and mid-level roles in Gomel, Grodno or Brest can often be filled in a similar time to Minsk. Senior and niche roles, particularly in Vitebsk and Mogilev, typically take longer because the pool is smaller and the best candidates are rarely on the open market.
Minsk will remain the center of gravity for Belarusian tech, but it is no longer the only sensible place to build a team. Grodno, Brest and Gomel offer established IT communities at roughly a quarter below capital salaries, while Vitebsk and Mogilev offer deeper savings for companies prepared to grow their own talent. The legal framework is identical across the country, so the real work lies in choosing the right city for each role and setting offers that reflect the market rather than the regional average.
The companies that succeed with regional hiring usually start small: one or two strong hires, a clear remote work arrangement and a budget that reflects real role-level pay. From there, a regional hub can grow into a stable, cost-efficient part of a wider Belarusian operation.
If you are weighing a first hire outside Minsk or planning a distributed team across several cities, contact our team and we will help you compare locations, benchmark salaries and choose the employment model that fits your plans.
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