Employer of Record Services: Complete Guide for International Expansion
- vsavastin
- Dec 16, 2025
- 5 min read
In this modern world, where labor is highly mobile and can work from just about anywhere on the globe, Employer of Record (EoR) services have become a valuable service. EoR services allow organizations to hire people who reside in countries where they do not have a local legal entity. An EoR provider provides everything you need to legally hire these workers, including signing contracts, handling international payroll, complying with tax regulations, and adhering to all other statutory requirements. In other words, an EoR provider allows organizations to pursue international expansion without having to deal with the administrative and legal burdens normally associated with cross-border hiring.
Hiring workers who reside in other countries comes with an enormous amount of legal complexities because each jurisdiction has specific laws about tax contributions, pension/retirement programs, labor laws, including employee rights, and different systems for handling HR-related issues. Thankfully, contracting an EoR allows you to focus on hiring and retaining the best talent without being burdened with the challenges of adhering to all local labor laws and requirements.
DevelopmentPeople offers a full spectrum of seamless, compliant, and cost-efficient Employment of Record services, including recruiting, vetting, background checks, HR, contracts, mediation, and much more.
In this article, we’ll explain exactly how EoR services work and how you can use them to attract the best global talent without lengthy administrative overhead.
Understanding Employer of Record (EoR) Services
Even as recently as a few decades ago, the only way a company could hire a worker in a foreign country was to establish an official legal presence there to assume responsibility for maintaining local labor laws, tax contributions, payroll, and benefits. This can be extremely costly for an organization wishing to remain nimble in an ever-changing and dynamic market or for smaller companies that only want to hire a small number of employees in that country.
One alternative is called PEO (professional employer organization) services, which function as a “co-employer” of workers, assuming responsibility for certain HR tasks such as payroll and taxes but otherwise relinquishing control over day-to-day operations to the primary employer. PEO also requires its client to already have a legal entity in place.
While PEO services certainly play their role, EoR services differ in that a provider like DevelopmentPeople assumes full liability and is, legally speaking, the sole employer for that worker. While the primary organization that hired them remains in control of day-to-day operations, all legal responsibilities concerning the employee, including payroll, taxes, pensions/retirement contributions, adherence to labor laws, et cetera fall on the shoulders of the EoR services provider.
Generally speaking, PEO services are primarily beneficial for companies hiring domestically who need assistance with HR tasks like payroll and benefits, while EoR providers are for companies wishing to hire internationally who do not wish to or cannot afford to establish a local legal presence to serve as their employer.
EoR services providers like DevelopmentPeople can assume the full responsibilities of an employer, including onboarding, training, payroll administration, tax remittance, and local compliance management.
In short, EoR service providers offer turnkey services for any organization that wants to accelerate their global expansion timelines and/or hire workers at will from any country without the expense and complexity of establishing a legal entity in those jurisdictions.
Benefits of Using EoR Services for International Expansion
Imagine that your organization wants to expand its foothold by setting up a presence in country X. The first thing you’re going to want to do is hire someone who knows the local market and can legally operate there on your behalf. But hiring that person brings all sorts of additional costs, including adhering to local labor laws, payroll/pension programs, tax contributions, and even things like regulations about sick leave and vacation pay.
Instead of having to deal with all that, organizations can use an EoR services provider to do it for them, thus reducing their administrative burden and simplifying their HR management responsibilities. Using an EoR allows companies to pursue international opportunities more quickly and enjoy lower upfront costs, thus providing a significant competitive advantage.
EoR services providers like DevelopmentPeople also enhance a company’s risk mitigation because it is the EoR who is legally responsible for employment contracts, statutory benefits, and all other aspects of legal compliance, including workforce documentation and mediating disputes.
In short, using an EoR services provider lets you seize international opportunities quickly and easily without getting bogged down with having to comply with local labor regulations, which can be complex to navigate, expensive to execute, and problematic in terms of maintaining compliance.
Key Considerations When Choosing an Employer of Record Provider
Although you will maintain control of day-to-day operations when you hire an international worker who is officially employed by an EoR services provider, the fact that the provider is their de jure employer of record means that you need to choose your EoR services provider very carefully.
Essential evaluation criteria for an EoR services provider include things such as geographic coverage (do they have a legal basis for employing people in a given country?), service breadth (can they handle things like onboarding and complex pension contribution systems?), technology infrastructure (how seamlessly can they integrate things like payroll and taxes into your existing system?), and expertise in HR compliance (including local regulations on issues such as Paid Time Off and sick days).
Other factors to consider include upfront and transparent pricing, how much oversight they will provide on employee-related issues like productivity and attendance, responsiveness when you have a question or concern, and their ability to scale up if you decide to increase the size of your international workforce.
Depending on your business strategy and budget, the EoR services provider you choose should have an established reputation and be able to provide you with long-term support for all of your international employment needs.
Why DevelopmentPeople is the Partner to Trust for Global Employment and EoR Services
DevelopmentPeople is a globally operating HR consultancy and staffing firm, focusing exclusively on organizations in the international development and humanitarian aid sector. The team behind DevelopmentPeople has years of experience working with NGOs, charities, multilateral institutions, and the private sector to meet the full spectrum of recruiting, staffing, and HR requirements. We have partnered with organizations such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Save the Children US, GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance), Expertise France, and the Global Fund.
DevelopmentPeople is an arm of DevelopmentAid, the global leader in providing information systems to the international aid and sustainable development community.
DevelopmentPeople offers a full spectrum of EoR services, including recruiting, shortlisting, interviewing, vetting, background checks, onboarding, training, payroll, tax and pension contributions, and adherence to local labor laws and regulations. In short, DevelopmentPeople offers end-to-end support for organizations wishing to expand their international presence, allowing them to effortlessly hire people no matter where in the world they reside.
DevelopmentPeople’s advantage is its technology framework, which allows it to manage every facet of international employment, centralizing international payroll, compliance monitoring, contract management, and onboarding workflows with precision and transparency. We have everything your organization needs to expand into new markets and maintain full oversight of global hires without having to worry about additional administrative overhead and complexity.
Since its founding, DevelopmentPeople has operated with a client-centric approach that prioritizes responsiveness, tailored solutions, and building trustworthy relationships to foster long-term partnerships.
If you’d like to learn more about how Development,People and its EoR services can be part of your international expansion strategy, contact us.
