Start hiring anywhere

Employer payroll taxes – the social contributions you pay on top of an employee's salary – swing widely by country. They range from close to 0% in the UAE (for expat employees) to 45% or more in France. Other markets on the low end include Hong Kong, where employer contributions sit around 5% and are capped, and New Zealand, which levies no compulsory employer contributions on wages.

A low employer rate doesn't always mean a cheaper hire, though. Denmark, for example, keeps employer contributions low and funds its welfare system through high employee income tax instead. Before you optimize for tax alone, weigh salary benchmarks, mandatory benefits, and 13th-month pay against the headline rate.

Playroll's country hiring guides show the full employer cost breakdown across 180+ countries, so you can compare the real cost of employment market by market, not just the tax rate.

The fastest route is 2–5 business days. That's how long Playroll's Employer of Record takes to onboard a new hire, from signed contract to first day, without you setting up a local entity. The EOR already holds a compliant entity in the country, so there's nothing for you to register first.

If you already have your own registered entity there, in-country payroll is the better fit. It tends to become the smarter commercial call once you have around 15 or more employees in a single market, since at that scale the fixed cost of running a local entity is outweighed by the per-employee saving against EOR fees. Setup takes 1–2 weeks depending on how complex your existing payroll structure is, and from there Playroll handles the monthly pay runs, tax filings, social security contributions, and statutory reporting for you.

If that's the direction you're heading but you don't have an entity yet, Playroll's entity setup service can incorporate one for you, usually in 4–12 weeks with a specialist managing the filings, so the switch from EOR to your own entity stays clean.

So the quick rule: if you don't have an entity, use an EOR and hire in 2–5 days. If you already have an entity and a local team, use in-country payroll with a 1–2 week setup. Playroll supports both, plus the entity setup in between, so you can shift from one to the other as your headcount in a market grows.

Yes. You don't need your own legal entity to employ someone abroad. An Employer of Record already has entities in place and legally employs your worker on your behalf, while you manage their day-to-day work.

That's exactly what Playroll does. We become the legal employer in 180+ countries, taking on the compliance, payroll, tax, and benefits obligations, while your new hire works for you like any other team member. You get the person you want, in the country they're in, without the cost or delay of incorporating.

An EOR legally employs your team in a country where you don't have your own entity, taking on the employment relationship, compliance, and liability. In-country payroll assumes you already have an entity set up and just runs the pay, tax filings, and contributions for the people you already employ there.

Use an EOR when you want to hire somewhere new without setting up an entity. Use payroll services when you already have entities and want accurate, compliant pay runs across them. Playroll offers both, so you can mix the two as your footprint grows.

An employee works under your direction on an ongoing basis, and you're responsible for their taxes, benefits, and legal protections in their country. A contractor runs their own business, decides how and when they deliver, and invoices you for the work. Contractors are faster and cheaper to engage, but you get less control and real misclassification risk if you treat one like an employee.

Getting this wrong can mean back-taxes, fines, and owed benefits. Playroll helps you hire either way – compliant employment through our EOR, or contractor management with a built-in misclassification audit and locally vetted contracts – so you can pick the right relationship for the role and stay covered if it changes.

The best countries for hiring remote talent depend on three things lining up: where the skills you need actually concentrate, the total employer cost for your target salary, and how fast you can get someone compliant and onboarded.

Skill concentration varies a lot by role. Software engineering talent is densest in Eastern Europe – Poland, Romania, Albania – along with India and parts of Southeast Asia, especially the Philippines and Vietnam. Finance and operations roles are well-served across Latin America, particularly Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico. Product and design talent clusters in Western Europe and Brazil. Starting from where your specific role is well-supplied matters more than starting from the cheapest market.

On cost, the headline employer tax rate rarely tells the full story. Albania's employer contribution sits at 16.7%, which is low. Brazil's can reach around 37% once you add social security, the severance fund, and the smaller statutory charges – but a senior software engineer in São Paulo still costs far less in gross salary than the equivalent hire in Berlin or Amsterdam, so the total employer cost often lands competitive or cheaper. Always work from total cost, gross salary plus contributions, rather than the tax rate alone.

Playroll's salary benchmarking tool shows median, low, and high pay ranges for any role across 180+ countries, and the employment cost calculator gives you the exact monthly employer outlay per country in about a minute. For a broader starting point, the Global Hiring Index ranks 170 countries on cost, talent availability, compliance ease, digital infrastructure, and innovation – it’s the fastest way to get a shortlist of three or four countries that fit your goals.