[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"footer-data":3,"$f1kk47eqiei854":42},{"countries":4,"agencies":26},[5,10,14,18,22],{"id":6,"name":7,"agencyCount":8,"avgAgencySize":9},"seychelles","Seychelles",1,0,{"id":11,"name":12,"agencyCount":13,"avgAgencySize":9},"italy","Italy",861,{"id":15,"name":16,"agencyCount":17,"avgAgencySize":9},"qatar","Qatar",207,{"id":19,"name":20,"agencyCount":21,"avgAgencySize":9},"bosnia-and-herzegovina","Bosnia and Herzegovina",36,{"id":23,"name":24,"agencyCount":25,"avgAgencySize":9},"afghanistan","Afghanistan",16,[27,30,33,36,39],{"_id":28,"name":29,"id":28},"69301515b3404633fe0f16f2","Anexxa ® – Soluções de Recursos Humanos",{"_id":31,"name":32,"id":31},"69301514b3404633fe0f16e6","Robert Walters",{"_id":34,"name":35,"id":34},"69301517b3404633fe0f170f","Real",{"_id":37,"name":38,"id":37},"69301518b3404633fe0f1720","Experis Belgium",{"_id":40,"name":41,"id":40},"69301519b3404633fe0f1739","Reed",{"article":43},{"slug":44,"title":45,"html":46,"topic":47,"coverUrl":50,"coverAlt":51,"publishedAt":52,"agency":53,"related":54,"comments":82,"alternates":83},"employer-of-record-or-staffing-agency","Employer of record or staffing agency: which do you need?","\u003Ch2 id=\"two-different-questions\">Two services that answer different questions\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>You have the work, and maybe even the person, but the job sits in a country where your company has no legal entity. Two kinds of provider offer to help, and their sales pages can sound alike. An employer of record and a staffing agency solve different problems, though. One answers who will legally employ the person, and the other answers who will find them.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Mixing them up costs time. If you sign with an employer of record before you have a candidate, you have an employment contract waiting for a name. If you brief a recruitment agency when nobody can employ the person locally, you may end up with a strong finalist and no one to sign their contract.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>This guide explains what each service does, where they meet, and how to combine them. It stops where the legal questions begin. Contracts, tax and the status of the arrangement belong with counsel in the country of hire.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2 id=\"what-an-employer-of-record-does\">What an employer of record does\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), a research firm that covers the workforce market, defines an employer of record as an entity that employs a worker \u003Cstrong>for administrative purposes only\u003C\u002Fstrong>. In that definition, the end-user hirer has already recruited and hired the worker, and the work is done under that hirer's direction or control. In plain terms, you choose the person and manage their work, and the employer of record holds the employment in that country.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>That is why companies use these providers to take on staff in a new country without setting up a local entity first. In SIA's coverage of its 2025 market report, providers said spend on employer of record services rose from 2022 to 2023. The provider runs the local side of the employment: the contract, pay, onboarding, and the paperwork when someone leaves. Ask each provider which of those tasks it does itself and which it hands to someone else.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>What an employer of record does not do is find the person. Its model assumes you arrive with a candidate. If a provider also offers to recruit, treat that as a separate service and judge it the way you would judge any agency.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2 id=\"what-a-staffing-agency-does\">What a staffing agency does\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\"Staffing agency\" covers two different models, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) separates them in its Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181). The first model matches jobs with candidates without the agency becoming a party to the employment that follows. That is the usual \u003Cstrong>recruitment agency\u003C\u002Fstrong> or search firm. It finds and screens people, you make the offer, and you employ the hire.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>The second model employs workers in order to make them available to a third party, which the convention calls the user enterprise. The user enterprise assigns the tasks and supervises the work. The ILO's 2025 guide to private employment agencies names this the \u003Cstrong>temporary work agency\u003C\u002Fstrong>, which recruits and employs workers so they can be placed with a user. Under the same convention, governments are expected to divide responsibility for those workers' rights between the agency and the user.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>In the European Union, temporary agency work also falls under Directive 2008\u002F104\u002FEC. The European Commission sums it up as non-discrimination: on essential working conditions, temporary workers are treated like staff the user company recruited itself. The Commission adds that member states must make clauses that stop the user from hiring the temporary worker directly void, or open to being declared void. It also says temporary workers should not be charged recruitment fees, and the ILO convention sets the same general rule for workers using any private agency.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2 id=\"side-by-side\">The three options side by side\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>The table sets the three models against the questions an employer hiring abroad usually asks first. Your own contracts may shift a line or two, so read it as the default shape of each service.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ctable>\u003Cthead>\u003Ctr>\u003Cth>Question\u003C\u002Fth>\u003Cth>Employer of record\u003C\u002Fth>\u003Cth>Recruitment agency\u003C\u002Fth>\u003Cth>Temporary work agency\u003C\u002Fth>\u003C\u002Ftr>\u003C\u002Fthead>\u003Ctbody>\u003Ctr>\u003Ctd>Who finds the candidate?\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You do\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>The agency\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>The agency\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003C\u002Ftr>\u003Ctr>\u003Ctd>Who is the legal employer?\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>The employer of record\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You, so you need a way to employ locally\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>The agency\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003C\u002Ftr>\u003Ctr>\u003Ctd>Who directs the daily work?\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You, as the user company\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003C\u002Ftr>\u003Ctr>\u003Ctd>It fits when\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You already have the person\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You need the person and can employ them\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003Ctd>You need someone found and employed for an assignment\u003C\u002Ftd>\u003C\u002Ftr>\u003C\u002Ftbody>\u003C\u002Ftable>\u003Cp>The middle column is where employers hiring abroad get stuck. A recruitment agency's work ends at the accepted offer, and that offer still needs an employer. If your company has no entity in the country, someone else has to fill that box.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2 id=\"using-both\">When you use both\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>For a first hire abroad, the usual answer is to combine the two. A local recruitment agency finds the person, and an employer of record employs them. The order of the steps matters more than the names of the providers.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Col>\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Decide whether you already have a candidate.\u003C\u002Fstrong> If you do, you may need only an employer of record.\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Choose the employer of record before the search ends.\u003C\u002Fstrong> The offer has to match the contract it can issue, so know its terms before a finalist says yes.\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Brief a recruitment agency that works in that country.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Our guide to \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Framp.directory\u002Fen\u002Farticles\u002Fchoose-recruitment-agency\">choosing a recruitment agency\u003C\u002Fa> covers what to check before you sign.\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Tell the agency who will employ the hire.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Its fee terms, any replacement guarantee and its offer process should name the employer of record from the start.\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Agree who does what in the first weeks.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Write down who sends the offer, who runs onboarding, and whom the new hire contacts about pay.\u003C\u002Fli>\u003C\u002Fol>\u003Cp>A temporary work agency with its own entity in the country can sometimes cover both jobs, because it finds the worker and employs them. That suits a defined assignment with an end date. For a long-term hire you want to keep, compare that route with the agency and employer of record route. Ask, too, what it would take to move the person onto your own payroll later.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2 id=\"questions-for-the-provider-and-counsel\">Questions for the provider and for counsel\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>An employer of record is a specific legal structure, and not every arrangement sold under that name is one. Crawford Temple, chief executive of Professional Passport, a UK assessor of payment intermediary compliance, gave this warning in comments quoted by SIA:\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cblockquote>We advise anyone looking at these arrangements to take specific legal guidance on their situation and whether EOR is a valid structure.\u003C\u002Fblockquote>\u003Cp>The same SIA article lists points worth checking with any provider. Put them to each one and compare the answers in writing.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cul>\u003Cli>Who is the employer on the ground, and is it the provider's own entity in that country or a partner it subcontracts to?\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>Is employer of record work the provider's core business, with its own operations and legal staff?\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>Which platform runs pay and records, and does it reflect local rules such as leave entitlements?\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>How quickly does the provider act on bonuses, terminations and pay questions?\u003C\u002Fli>\u003C\u002Ful>\u003Cp>Then take the rest to a lawyer or tax adviser in the country of hire: the contract terms, whether the arrangement is valid there, and what it means for your company's tax position. This guide does not answer those questions, and a provider's sales team should not be your only source on them. With those answers in hand, you can pick the service that fits the hire rather than the one that called first.\u003C\u002Fp>",{"slug":48,"name":49},"employer-of-record","Employer of record","\u002Fuploads\u002Farticles\u002F6ad07d10dd19d6d35160e820\u002Fcover.jpg","Two colleagues sit side by side at a wooden table in a bright office, looking over printed pages while one holds a pen.","2026-10-15T07:13:20.033Z",null,[55,64,74],{"slug":56,"title":57,"excerpt":58,"topic":59,"coverUrl":53,"publishedAt":62,"publishedLabel":63},"it-recruitment-eastern-europe","IT recruitment in Eastern Europe: where the talent is","The short answer If you want the largest pool of IT specialists in Eastern Europe, start with Poland. Eurostat, the EU statistics office, counted about 778,800 ICT specialists employed there in 2025,…",{"slug":60,"name":61},"staffing","Staffing","2026-10-17T07:20:05.521Z","17 Oct 2026",{"slug":65,"title":66,"excerpt":67,"topic":68,"coverUrl":71,"publishedAt":72,"publishedLabel":73},"recruitment-agencies-find-and-win-new-clients","How recruitment agencies can find and win new clients","Treat new clients as a system, not luck Most small recruitment agencies win their first clients through people they already know: a former manager, a hiring lead from a previous job, a candidate who…",{"slug":69,"name":70},"agencies","Agencies","\u002Fuploads\u002Farticles\u002F6acdd97ebc08759f47f42eeb\u002Fcover.jpg","2026-10-13T07:10:54.116Z","13 Oct 2026",{"slug":75,"title":76,"excerpt":77,"topic":78,"coverUrl":79,"publishedAt":80,"publishedLabel":81},"choose-recruitment-agency","How to choose a recruitment agency for a hard-to-fill role","Start with the role, not the agency Most employers who turn to a recruitment agency for the first time do it because a role has stayed open too long. They are not alone: in ManpowerGroup's 2026…",{"slug":69,"name":70},"\u002Fuploads\u002Farticles\u002F6ac7553ecd9c320b308ede11\u002Fcover.jpg","2026-10-08T08:33:02.954Z","8 Oct 2026",[],[84,86,89,92],{"locale":85,"slug":44},"en",{"locale":87,"slug":88},"hi","employer-of-record-ya-staffing-agency-aapko-kiski-zaroorat-hai",{"locale":90,"slug":91},"de","employer-of-record-oder-personalagentur",{"locale":93,"slug":94},"es","empleador-de-registro-o-agencia-de-personal"]