Hire someone who lives in another country
You found the right person and they live somewhere you have no legal entity, so employing them properly means opening a company abroad or getting the paperwork wrong.
Tools worth considering
Deel
Platform for hiring and paying contractors and employees in other countries, with employer of record coverage and managed payroll.
No free tier. Find Talent $14 per worker/mo; Hire Contractors $49 per contractor/mo, or $325 per contractor of record/mo; Hire Full-Time Employees $125 per US PEO employee/mo, or $599 per EOR employee/mo; month-to-month with no long-term commitment
Remote
Employer of record, global payroll and contractor management for hiring across borders, priced per person per product.
No free tier. Employer of Record $699 per employee/mo across 90+ countries; Global Payroll $29 per employee/mo; Contractor Management $29 per contractor/mo, or $99 on the Plus tier with up to $100,000 indemnity coverage; Contractor of Record from $325 per contractor/mo; PEO from $99 per employee/mo; Equity from $39/mo; 15% discount for startups and social purpose organizations
The problem
The person you want is in another country. To employ them normally you would need a legal entity there, local payroll registration, and an employment contract that satisfies local law on notice, holiday, sick pay and termination. That is months of work and ongoing accounting for one hire.
So most small businesses take the shortcut and engage them as a contractor. Sometimes that is correct. Often it is not, and the risk is not theoretical: if the person works set hours, uses your equipment and takes direction like an employee, tax authorities in many countries will treat them as an employee regardless of what the contract says. The bill lands on you, backdated, with penalties.
The second problem is smaller but constant: actually paying them. Cross-border transfers, currency conversion, invoices in formats your bookkeeping does not like, every month.
What AI can actually do here
Almost nothing, and that is worth saying plainly on a site about AI tools. This category is a legal and administrative service with software attached. The value is that a company already has the entity, the local payroll and the liability, and you rent access to it.
The software layer handles contracts from local templates, collects the compliance documents, runs payroll and moves the money. Some of it will summarise local rules for you. Treat that as orientation, not advice, because the consequences of getting employment classification wrong are borne by you and not by the tool.
The one genuinely automatable piece is the recurring payment, which is a real saving of both time and transfer costs.
How the tools differ
Both sell the same shapes of service and the prices are per person per product, so map your actual situation before comparing.
Deel has no free tier. Find Talent is $14 per worker per month, Hire Contractors $49 per contractor per month or $325 per contractor of record, Hire Full-Time Employees $125 per US PEO employee per month or $599 per employer of record employee. It is month to month with no long-term commitment, which matters if the hire is a trial.
Remote also has no free tier. Employer of Record is $699 per employee per month across 90 or more countries, Global Payroll $29 per employee per month, Contractor Management $29 per contractor per month or $99 on the Plus tier with up to $100,000 indemnity coverage, Contractor of Record from $325, PEO from $99 per employee per month and Equity from $39 per month. There is a 15% discount for startups and social purpose organisations.
The two details worth weighing beyond headline price: the indemnity coverage on Remote’s contractor Plus tier, which is insurance against exactly the misclassification risk above, and Deel’s month-to-month commitment.
When you don't need a tool
If the person is genuinely an independent contractor, working for several clients, setting their own hours and using their own tools, a normal contract and a normal invoice is enough. Test that honestly rather than hopefully.
If you already have an entity in that country, you have payroll there and this whole category is redundant.
If it is one short project, a fixed-scope contract is proportionate. Employer of record pricing makes sense for an ongoing role, not for six weeks of work.
Once someone is on board, run HR admin without an HR department covers what comes next.
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Frequently asked questions
What is an employer of record?
A company that legally employs the person in their country on your behalf, while they work for you day to day. It holds the employment contract and the local obligations, and you pay a monthly fee per employee. It is the standard route when you have no entity there and want a genuine employee rather than a contractor.
Can I just hire everyone as a contractor?
Only if they genuinely are one. Authorities look at the substance of the relationship, not the label: set hours, your equipment, your direction and exclusivity all point to employment. Misclassification is assessed against you, backdated, and the tools that offer indemnity coverage exist precisely because this happens.
Which is cheaper?
It depends entirely on which product you need and where the person is. Compare like for like: contractor management against contractor management, employer of record against employer of record. The headline numbers here are per person per month and the products are not interchangeable, so a single cheapest answer would be wrong.
Do I still need my own legal advice?
For anything beyond a standard arrangement, yes. These services handle compliance within their model, but decisions about whether someone is an employee, what happens on termination, and how intellectual property is assigned are yours. This page is orientation, not legal advice.