The 9 best Employer of Record (EOR) Services [2024]
When your company wants to expand into new markets across international borders, an employer of record (EOR) service allows you to get up and running in a new country as quickly as possible.
An EOR serves as the legal employer of your new hires in a given country. With an EOR, you can hire and collaborate with employees overseas without establishing your own legal entity in a new place—while ensuring you stay compliant with local tax and labor laws. All that's left for you to do before making your first global hire is to choose the right EOR for your business.
But that's easier said than done. Businesses have a lot of choices when it comes to global EORs, which is where this guide comes in. Below, you'll find features, pricing, pros and cons, and more for the top 9 EOR services on the market today. You’ll be prepared to choose the best EOR for your business—and get back to what you do best.
What are employer of record services?
An employer of record service empowers companies to grow internationally without needing to set up a local entity in each new country. The EOR acts as an official employer that hires new employees on behalf of another business, helping to minimize compliance risk when expanding into new markets.
In addition to helping your company remain compliant with tax and labor laws, the EOR takes on administrative and HR responsibilities. These include onboarding, payroll processing, benefits administration, and termination. With an EOR, you retain control over day-to-day operations without the added stress of navigating international HR compliance.
3 benefits of using employer of record (EOR) companies
But first, let’s take a look at some overarching advantages of using EOR companies for your global employment needs:
Simplified global expansion
Have you identified a promising new market for your product or service? Is a prospective hire based in a foreign country where you don't yet have a business presence? An EOR allows you to put boots on the ground quickly without going through the time-consuming and expensive process of incorporating a foreign subsidiary.
Imagine you're a US-based software startup that wants to hire a sales manager in Singapore. Registering a legal entity in Singapore would take months and could cost thousands of dollars in legal and registration fees. And you'd need to navigate unfamiliar rules around incorporation, taxation, and labor regulations.
Alternatively, you could engage an EOR with an existing presence in Singapore. The EOR would employ the sales manager on your behalf, providing a locally compliant employment contract and handling payroll from day one. You get a faster time-to-hire and can focus on ramping up the new team member rather than dealing with administrative red tape.
Compliance with local labor laws
Employment laws and regulations vary widely across countries and jurisdictions. Classifying workers, structuring compensation and benefits, and collecting statutory payroll taxes can be a compliance minefield for global employers.
An experienced EOR partner takes on many of these compliance burdens as the legal employer. They'll ensure employment contracts and handbooks meet all applicable local requirements. They'll also stay on top of legislative changes in each country to keep your HR practices up to the required standard. And they'll take on responsibility for any employment-related claims or audits.
Streamlined HR operations
Managing HR and payroll across borders introduces heaps of manual work and complexity for people ops teams. You're dealing with disparate local vendors, unfamiliar legal frameworks, and cumbersome money movement logistics. This administrative strain only scales as you enter new international markets.
Partnering with a global EOR platform helps to streamline and centralize workforce operations. You get a compliant solution for onboarding employees, processing payroll, and administering benefits in a foreign market.
How to choose the right employer of record provider
With a growing number of EOR platforms vying for your global business, how do you cut through the noise and select the right one? Here are five key factors to consider:
Geographic coverage and localization
First and foremost, you'll want to check that an EOR can legally employ workers in your target international markets. Some EORs have wider coverage than others. While most of the major players cover common expansion hotspots like Canada and western Europe, emerging markets may be hit or miss.
Even if an EOR operates in a country, service levels may vary. Consider whether the provider has its own local entities and HR staff on the ground in the country. If it relies on third-party partnerships to serve a market, that can introduce inconsistency and communication gaps.
Localization is also key to delivering a great employee experience. Can the EOR provide employment contracts, benefits packages, and HR support in local languages? Do payroll schedules and cycles align with local norms and holidays? The more tailored the EOR service is to each market, the smoother the ride will be for your cross-border teams.
Employee benefits and worker-wellbeing offerings
Benefits are a key lever for attracting and retaining top global talent. But procuring and administering employee benefits across countries is often an obstacle for lean HR teams. An EOR partner should take this burden off your plate.
Look for an EOR provider that can offer robust, locally competitive benefits packages that align with worker expectations in each market. This may include supplemental health insurance, retirement plans, wellness stipends, and more.
In vetting EOR benefits offerings, get granular. Are benefits fully integrated into the EOR's platform for automated deductions and easy enrollment? What is the breadth of coverage? Are family members eligible? The top EOR players will offer competitive benefits packages that can attract and retain international talent.
Scalability and flexibility as you grow
Choosing an EOR is not just about solving your global employment needs for today, but setting up for future international growth. The provider you pick now must be able to grow and flex with you as you scale into new markets down the road.
Consider your longer-term global expansion roadmap. If you're eyeing a more obscure country, will the EOR be able to set up shop and get you to market quickly? Do they have a track record of launching in new locations for clients as opportunities arise?
Also think about what happens when you're ready to transition from an EOR arrangement to setting up your own entities in key markets. This transition often becomes necessary as your workforce in a particular country grows. At a certain scale, the per-employee cost of using an EOR can exceed the cost of maintaining your own legal entity. Additionally, having your own entity can offer more control over your operations and employment practices in that country.
Transparency around costs and pricing
EOR services may seem like a black box of fees and surcharges. Between setup fees, per-employee usage fees, and various add-on costs, it can be tough to predict your true spend, let alone budget for it predictably.
The most reputable EORs are upfront about their fee structures and don't nickel-and-dime clients for standard employer costs. In comparing providers, drill down into exactly what services and features the monthly price includes. Will you get hit with extra transactional fees for running payroll services or issuing offer letters?
Also get a sense of the total cost of employment beyond the EOR service fees. A provider may boast bargain EOR rates but fail to accurately account for mandatory benefits and employer payroll taxes. This could lead to sticker shock down the line as you scale up hiring.
Integration with your existing HR systems
For most global businesses, an EOR platform won't be the only tool in your HR tech stack. You likely have existing systems for core functions like HCM, applicant tracking, or time and attendance. Your EOR service should play nicely with this tooling so you can manage your entire workforce in sync.
When assessing EORs, look for a provider with pre-built integrations with your most important HR platforms. This will save your team hours of manual data entry and reconciliation between systems. Imagine being able to seamlessly sync global employee data from your EOR to your HCM for unified workforce reporting and analytics. Or initiating background checks or device procurement for international hires with a few clicks in your ATS.
What are the top 9 EOR services?
Every EOR service brings something different to the table. Here are all the details you need to choose from the 9 best employer of record services in 2024.
1. Rippling
Rippling EOR allows you to hire across 32 countries by serving as the legal employer of your new hires—so you don’t have to establish your own legal entity in every country where you do business.
Rippling provides benefits, helps ensure compliance, and handles employee events like leaves, promotions, and terminations. Rippling can also provide real-time visibility into net pay and taxes and gives complete control into payroll processing.
The best part? Rippling EOR is built on top of our native HRIS, so when you're ready to scale up and establish your own local entity, transitioning your employees to your own entity takes just minutes.
Rippling's G2 Score
Rippling's Capterra Score
4.8 out of 5
4.9 out of 5
Overall, I feel like Rippling has simplified many aspects of my work life and made it easier for me to stay organized and on top of my HR-related tasks.
-G2 REVIEWER
Key features:
- Onboard international employees in 90 seconds.
- Pay workers in their local currency in minutes, and without waiting on transfers or conversion.
- Automatically file and pay taxes globally.
- Streamline and sync all your HR data with payroll, including hours, time off, deductions, and more.
- Use one GL integration for global spend, saving hours of reconciliation work each month with payroll and expense data that's automatically categorized and synced to your general ledger.
- Securely offload payroll tasks—precisely define which roles have access to payroll data and admin privileges—from approving hours worked to hitting “Run.”
- Automate nearly any international payroll process with custom workflows to notify people of important changes and automated administrative tasks—like triggering a reminder to pay a bonus.
- Design worldwide and country-specific policies for employee benefits, leave, and more.
- Offer equity.
- Automate your global compliance work, including minimum wage enforcement, overtime enforcement, leave enforcement, and global compliance training.
- Report on all your employee data across the world in one place.
- Manage human resources, IT, and finance in one unified system for global employment.
2. Papaya Global
Papaya Global is an EOR service that's best suited for large enterprise companies rather than small businesses (or bootstrapped startups).
The platform offers EOR services in over 160 countries worldwide, and provides tools for hiring, onboarding, workforce management, multi-currency payments, and benefits administration. Papaya Global can run HR services and payroll for your entire company—including both employees and independent contractors.
Key features:
- Workforce management across 160+ countries
- Automated payroll
- Safe, simple, and fast global payments (in local currency or crypto)
- Integrations with HRIS, expense management, time and attendance, ERP, and financial software
- Dedicated customer success representative
3. Deel
Deel is an established company in the EOR industry, which can be used to hire employees and contractors in 150 countries without setting up a local entity, allowing companies to scale quickly while expanding their global footprint.
Key features:
- Legal entities in 100+ different countries
- Onboarding and offboarding
- App management
- Compliance management
- Streamlined payroll
- Integrations with other HR platforms
4. Remote
Remote is an EOR service provider that's especially geared toward remote teams and employers of remote workers. It offers a modern platform with HR, payroll, and benefits features for remote employees.
One of the biggest advantages Remote has over many other global EOR platforms is that they fully own all the legal entities in the countries they cover. This allows them to offer their users speed and flexibility—with no third-party payroll aggregation adding extra hassle to their payroll runs.
Key features:
- Payroll with support for over 100 currencies in 179 countries with no interchange fees
- Benefits management for health insurance, stipends, allowances, stock options, and one-off benefits like moving bonuses
- Discounted EOR services for any refugees your company employs
- Self-serve onboarding and management tools
5. Oyster HR
Oyster HR offers EOR services in 180 countries around the world. Its offerings are very similar to most EOR companies—you get hiring, compliance, payroll, and benefits support all over the world. Oyster promises to handle all the details so you can focus on top talent.
Key features:
- Compliant hiring and payroll in 180 countries through partnerships with local entities
- Single source of truth for contracts and documents
- Streamlined global payments in local currencies
- Customizable, localized benefits packages
- Dedicated customer service for enterprise users
6. Globalization Partners
Globalization Partners (G-P) offers an AI-driven international employment platform that combines HR services and global payroll. Users can make international hires in 187 countries. G-P's features help global businesses recruit and hire, create and store legally compliant documents, pay employees and contractors around the world in their local currencies, and more.
Key features:
- Accommodates payments in 50+ currencies across 180+ countries
- Partnership with ADP for payroll, HR, and PEO services
- International recruiting and hiring
- International benefits administration
7. Plane
Plane (formerly Pilot) manages international payroll, benefits, and compliance for US-based companies, making it easier for them to hire employees and contractors all over the world. Plane provides a single, cloud-based platform for onboarding and paying employees and contractors no matter where they're based, supporting payments for contractors in 240 countries, and payroll for employees in 100 countries.
Pilot also handles employment paperwork, compliance, tax withholding, and more of the hassle of managing a global workforce. With transparent, flat-fee pricing, it's one of the more affordable EOR services on this list, which helps make up for being slightly less feature-rich than some other offerings.
Key features:
- Localized contracts
- Global payroll
- Taxes and compliance
- Immigration assistance
8. Velocity Global
Velocity Global is an EOR service that's particularly well known for its support of immigrants, business travelers, and anyone else who's doing business in a new country. Velocity Global offers transition support for ex-pats and business travelers, plus visa support and global payroll.
Key features:
- Global onboarding, including help with visas
- Creating and managing compliant documents
- Global payroll in over 185 countries
- Benefits administration
9. Global Expansion
Global Expansion exists to help businesses handle their global staffing needs—from onboarding to payroll, HR, and benefits administration—without setting up a local entity. Global Expansion offers services in 214 different countries and territories—more than many other EOR services.
Key features:
- Global immigration support
- HR and payroll
- Global tax and compliance services
- Employee benefit administration
Run your global workforce with Rippling EOR
If you need an EOR for global workforce management, look no further than Rippling.
Rippling can help you at every stage of your international growth. You can:
- Pay contractors globally.
- Run global payroll via Rippling entities.
- Run global payroll via your own entities.
Plus, Rippling is so much more than just an EOR—it also handles your global HR, finance, and IT, all in one place.
Frequently asked questions
What are employer of record services?
An employer of record (EOR) employs workers on behalf of another company, handling HR, payroll, and compliance responsibilities. EOR services typically include:
- Compliant employment contracts
- Employee onboarding
- Payroll processing and tax withholding
- Benefits administration
- Labor law compliance
- Employee relations support
Companies use EORs to quickly hire in countries where they lack a legal entity.
Should I use an employer of record?
Consider an EOR if you want to:
- Test a new market before committing to a legal entity
- Hire remote talent in new geographies
- Send employees on international assignments
- Meet aggressive hiring timelines
- Avoid the overhead of setting up entities in all locations
What is the difference between an EOR and a PEO?
EORs and PEOs (professional employer organizations) are often confused, but there are some key distinctions.
A PEO is a co-employer model in the US, where the PEO is responsible for a specific portion of the employer responsibilities, typically payroll, taxes, benefits, and workers' compensation insurance.
An EOR, by contrast, is a global service where the EOR is the sole employer of record; the EOR employs workers on behalf of client companies without requiring them to open a local entity there.
What are the alternatives to a global employer of record service?
The most common alternatives to a global EOR include opening your own legal entity, using an administrative services organization (ASO), hiring a staffing agency, or finding an international payroll solution.
Each approach comes with pros and cons. For instance, an ASO can help you outsource HR tasks, but it won’t take on the role of a legal employer—so you’ll still have to establish an entity, pay the associated fees, and stay on top of local compliance in each foreign country. The same goes for opening an entity without investing in HR services, with the caveat that all your administrative functions will be in-house.
Is Rippling an EOR or a PEO?
Rippling offers both EOR and PEO services along with a comprehensive workforce management platform. If you’re based in the US, you can use Rippling PEO to access domestic HR services, and Rippling EOR abroad to hire compliantly without setting up entities. The unified platform enables you to manage all global employees in one place.
This blog is based on information available to Rippling as of October 11, 2024.
Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.
