By recruiting talent from countries with a lower cost-of-living (COL) index, companies located in more expensive regions, like the US, UK, or Canada, may reduce hiring process costs.

Flexible and remote work go hand in hand with global hiring, which can positively impact employee experience and company culture. Hiring foreign workers can also support your global expansion plans and provide better customer service with greater coverage across time zones.

There are several ways to approach hiring foreign employees:

• By registering a local entity in the country where your employee resides
• By sponsoring a visa for the employee and relocating them
• By using EOR services to engage full-time employees

Hiring independent contractors is the quickest way to scale your global workforce, as they are responsible for paying their own taxes and benefits, which reduces the complexity around global compliance.

However, you still need to ensure that the nature of your relationship doesn’t resemble the employer-employee relationship, in which case you’d be risking severe penalties and fines for worker misclassification.

To avoid this risk, you should always have a customized contract (compliant with local tax regulations and employment laws in the worker’s home country) with your foreign independent contractor, where the terms of your collaboration are clearly defined.

An employer of record (EOR) is an organization that acts as the legal employer of your foreign employees.

The EOR is the middleman that assumes all legal responsibilities related to the employment of these workers (contracts, compliance documents, payroll, benefits, and more) and ensures you can hire from different countries in full compliance with local labor laws.

EOR services include:

Legal employment of foreign workers Creation of customized, locally compliant employment contracts Background checks Global payroll processing Tax documentation collection and filing Employee benefits administration Intellectual property protection Employee onboarding and offboarding process The biggest benefits of hiring through an EOR include avoiding the costly and time-consuming process of registering your own entity abroad, reducing serious compliance risks when hiring foreign workers, and being able to test global markets with increased speed and reduced risk.

Yes. US-based companies can legally hire non-US citizens around the world by using EOR services or by setting up their own entities in the target country. They can also sponsor their candidates’ visas and relocate them to the US. Non-US citizens can also work with US-based companies as independent contractors, in which case there’s no employment relationship.

Some EORs, such as Deel, offer independent contractor payments and management features through the platform.

Deel is a global-first HR and payroll platform that allows you to hire anyone anywhere. Our services cover the entire hiring process, from creating the contract to paying your workers to terminating them when the time comes.

With Deel, you can:

• Decrease new hire onboarding time to minutes
• Store and manage all documentation securely in one place
• Get your contracts regularly reviewed by our team of 200+ legal experts
• Reduce payroll admin and pay your entire team in one click
• Easily manage time off, expenses, equipment, and more for your global team
• Use PEO services for your team based in the US
• Receive support for your employees during visa application process
• Gain insight into your payroll through detailed reporting
• Compliantly offboard any type of worker in any country