Every country sets its own registration, tax and social security rules, so there is no single European payroll to run. We handle each country on its own terms and report the whole thing back to you in one place.
Each country gets handled on its own terms: its registrations, its income tax and social security rules, its statutory leave and sick pay, its payslip format and its filing calendar. Flattening all that into one template looks efficient right up until the filings are wrong in six jurisdictions at once. The standardising happens in the reporting, where it costs nothing to get right.
What that means in practice:
Not where the contract was signed, not where the company is. Where the person is sitting when they do the job is what triggers the obligations.
If yes, we run local payroll under your registration. If no, EOR through our entity is usually faster and cheaper than incorporating.
A posting keeps home social security under an A1 for a period. A permanent move does not, and the whole position changes.
Most cross-border payroll decisions follow from those three answers. The mistakes come from guessing at them.
Setup times are indicative and depend on how quickly registrations clear and how complete the worker's documentation is. The contractor column shows the local self-employment model, which is worth knowing about and rarely the right answer for a full-time role.
| Country | EOR status | Typical setup time | Payroll cycle | Local currency | Contractor model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | Available | 1 to 2 weeks | Weekly / Monthly | GBP £ | Contractor review |
| 🇩🇪Germany | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Freelance (Freiberufler) |
| 🇫🇷France | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Auto-entrepreneur |
| 🇳🇱Netherlands | Available | 1 to 3 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | ZZP (self-employed) |
| 🇪🇸Spain | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Autónomo |
| 🇮🇹Italy | Available | 3 to 5 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Partita IVA |
| 🇵🇱Poland | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | PLN zł | B2B contract |
| 🇮🇪Ireland | Available | 1 to 3 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Sole trader |
| 🇵🇹Portugal | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Recibos verdes |
| 🇧🇪Belgium | Available | 3 to 5 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Independent (zelfstandige) |
| 🇸🇪Sweden | Limited | 3 to 5 weeks | Monthly | SEK kr | Enskild firma |
| 🇩🇰Denmark | Limited | 3 to 5 weeks | Monthly | DKK kr | Enkeltmandsvirksomhed |
| 🇦🇹Austria | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | EUR € | Neue Selbstständige |
| 🇷🇴Romania | Available | 2 to 4 weeks | Monthly | RON lei | PFA (authorised person) |
| 🇨🇿Czech Republic | Limited | 3 to 5 weeks | Monthly | CZK Kč | OSVČ (self-employed) |
| 🇨🇭Switzerland | Coming soon | On request | Monthly | CHF Fr. | Einzelfirma |
This matrix is indicative and confirmed per engagement. EOR status, setup times, payroll cycles, currencies and contractor models vary with local rules and your specific requirements. We verify the exact position for each country before you commit.
None of it is complicated. It is just easy to forget until somebody asks to see it.
Evidence of which country's social security system the worker stays in during a temporary assignment. Without it, the host country can charge its own contributions on the same pay you have already contributed on at home.
Most EU and EEA states require notification before an assignment begins, and apply their own core conditions on pay, hours and leave to the posted worker for its duration.
Since Brexit, UK nationals working in the EU need the right permission, and the rules vary by country and by length of stay. This is now the step most often missed.
Sector minimum rates, collective agreements and working-time rules can apply to a posted worker even though they remain employed elsewhere, and they are enforced locally.
An assignment that passes a certain length, or where the cost is borne locally, can create an obligation to run local payroll regardless of the original plan.
A worker doing the wrong kind of work in the wrong country can create a taxable presence for your company. Worth checking before the role is offered, not after.
No, and providers who imply otherwise are selling a reporting layer rather than a payroll. Employment law, income tax, social security, statutory leave and payslip requirements are all set nationally. What can be unified is the process around them: one team, one calendar, one set of reports. What cannot be unified is the rules themselves.
Not necessarily. Where you already have one, we run payroll against your registration. Where you do not, we can employ through our own local entity under an Employer of Record arrangement, which avoids setting up a company for one or two people. Which route makes sense usually comes down to headcount and how long you expect to be there.
An A1 certifies which country's social security system a worker remains in while they are working temporarily in another. Without one, the host country can require local social security contributions on the same earnings you are already paying at home. They are needed far more often than employers expect, including for short trips, and they should be in place before the person travels rather than applied for afterwards.
Where a worker is sent temporarily to another EU or EEA state, the host country's core employment conditions can apply to them: minimum pay rates, working time, holiday entitlement and health and safety. Most countries also require a notification before the assignment starts. Enforcement has tightened considerably and inspections on site are routine in construction and engineering.
There is no single answer, which is the difficulty. It depends on the country, the treaty position, where the cost of employment is actually borne and how long the assignment runs. The point at which a business trip becomes a local payroll obligation arrives earlier than most employers assume, and we would rather work it out at the planning stage than after a local authority has.
Through one consolidated report. Each country runs on its own rules and its own calendar, but the output comes back to you in your reporting currency, split the way your finance team needs it, from one account manager rather than from a different provider in each jurisdiction.
Tell us which countries your people are in or heading to, whether you have entities there and how long the assignments run. We will set out what each jurisdiction requires before anything is signed.