Cheapest Employer of Record Services of 2026

Hire with Columbus handles the employment paperwork, local tax compliance, payroll and benefits administration for each hire, and you manage the day-to-day work. It also runs contractor management for companies paying freelancers abroad.

RemoFirst was founded in 2021 by Nurasyl Serik and Volodymyr Fedoriv, is headquartered in San Francisco, has raised $39 million and employs between 201 and 500 people. It sells two things: employer of record services for hiring employees abroad without a local entity, and contractor management for paying freelancers compliantly.

Your contract is with RemoFirst. In most countries the legal employer of your hire is an in-country partner that RemoFirst manages; we have confirmed that model in 34 countries and have no owned entities on file. RemoFirst issues the employment contract, runs payroll, files taxes and statutory contributions and administers benefits. You manage the work. For a first hire abroad that replaces the three to six months it takes to set up your own entity.

Beyond EOR and contractors it offers RemoHealth, one health insurance program across countries, RemoTech equipment provisioning, and visa and work-permit support in 85+ countries.

Remote was founded in 2019 by Job van der Voort and Marcelo Lebre, both former GitLab executives, and has disclosed about $496 million in funding. Remote owns and runs its legal entities in each country it covers rather than relying on third-party partners, which keeps employment responsibilities in-house.

Multiplier was founded in 2020 by Sagar Khatri, Amritpal Singh and Vamsi Krishna. It is headquartered in New York and has raised $77 million. For other options at this stage, see our list of the best employer of record providers for startups.

Payoneer Workforce Management started in 2019 as Skuad and became part of publicly traded Payoneer (NASDAQ: PAYO) in August 2024. Beyond employer of record it sells contractor management from $19 per contractor per month and an Agent of Record tier from $99 per contractor per month that adds misclassification protection. Payroll runs in 70+ currencies.

Deel was founded in 2019 by Alex Bouaziz, Shuo Wang and Ofer Simon. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, has raised $925 million in disclosed funding rounds and is valued at $17.3 billion.

Pebl was founded in 2014 by Ben Wright as Velocity Global and employs through a mix of its own entities and local partners. Its AI assistant, Alfie, runs compliance checks and gives cost estimates. Pebl says it has more than 200 in-house legal and tax specialists and supports 50+ languages, and it also offers immigration and visa support.

Oyster puts more weight on the employee experience than most EOR providers, with Oyster Academy for professional development and tools for onboarding and working across cultures. Most of its customers are mid-market and enterprise companies with 50 or more employees.

Rippling was founded in 2016, is headquartered in San Francisco, and Parker Conrad is its CEO. The breadth that makes the single employee record useful is also the learning curve reviewers describe, so budget setup time and check that you will use enough of the platform to justify configuring it.

Employ Latam's coverage runs from Mexico and Brazil to Argentina, Colombia, Peru and the Central American and Caribbean markets. Alongside employer of record for employees, it handles compliant contractor payments, and every quote breaks out the statutory costs for that country.