Background: - Social health insurance (SHI) is a financial mechanism that allows cross subsidization of the poor by the rich, and the sick by the healthy. Ethiopia is currently introducing SHI to achieve universal health care coverage, but there is no evidence concerning willingness to pay and factors associated with willingness to pay among health workers.

Objective: - The objective of this research was to determine willingness to pay for SHI among health workers and to determine factors associated with willingness to pay.

Methods: - An Institution-based, cross-sectional study was conducted from April- December 2016, on 420 health workers who work at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College. Data was collected using a semi-structured self-administered questionnaire, entered using EPI INFO version 7, and analyzed by SPSS version 20. Variables having p < 0.2 at bivariate analysis were fitted to multivariate analysis. Crude and adjusted odds ratios, P-values and 95% CI were computed to show the association of variables.

Results: - The level of willingness to pay for SHI was 17% (95% CI 13.4-20.3%). Significant associations were found between willingness to pay and perceived quality of health care services under SHI (odds ratio [OR] = 2.74 (1.45-5.20)), perception that SHI will create workload for health workers (OR = 0.47 (0.26-0.87)) and history of large amount of out of pocket money for treatment (OR =1.84 (1.02-3.31)).

Conclusion: - The overall willingness to pay was 17%. Policy makers should devise a plan that promotes the level of willingness to pay and identify factors that affect willingness to pay. More studies are required to assess these factors