What a global payroll company does, and how to choose one

Advertised prices, verified

How a global payroll company runs your payroll

1. Consolidation and onboarding. The provider takes over each country payroll: employee data, contracts, benefits in kind, year-to-date figures and the local statutory registrations your entities already hold, then maps them into one calendar and one data model.
2. The monthly gross-to-net run. Each cycle, local rules are applied to gross pay: income tax withholding, social contributions, benefits and deductions, producing compliant payslips per country. You approve one consolidated run rather than chasing each country separately.
3. Filings and payments. The provider files the statutory returns each country requires and pays net salaries, tax authorities and social schemes, either from your accounts or through its own payment rails, with the evidence returned to you.
4. Reporting and reconciliation. Consolidated reporting shows cost per country and per employee in one currency view, and a reconciliation trail ties every payslip to what was actually filed and paid, which is the part worth auditing before you renew.

Aggregator or owned infrastructure: the two delivery models

Behind the platform, global payroll is delivered one of two ways. Aggregators contract a network of in-country payroll partners and unify their output; the strength is country breadth, the weakness is that quality and speed vary with each local partner, and an error can take two hops to fix. Owned-infrastructure providers run their own payroll engines in each market; behaviour is more consistent, but coverage lists are shorter and adding an unusual country is slower.

Neither model is simply better. A UK company with staff in five major markets may be better served by owned infrastructure; one with two people in each of fifteen countries usually needs an aggregator's reach. Ask every candidate which model serves each of your countries, because most large vendors mix the two and the answer differs by market.

Global payroll or EOR: which product do you actually need?

The dividing line is entity ownership. Where you have a registered employing entity, a global payroll company keeps it compliant and pays its people. Where you have none, no amount of payroll software helps, because there is no employer to run payroll for; an employer of record supplies the local employer and typically charges several times more per employee per month than payroll processing does.

Many buyers need both at once: payroll for the home entity and an EOR for one or two overseas hires. The pricing table on this site shows verified per-employee prices for the vendors that publish them; treat any quote that blurs the payroll and EOR lines into one number with suspicion, because the two services carry very different obligations and costs.

What to check before you sign

Ask which countries on your list are served by the provider's own engine and which through partners, and how errors are remediated across that boundary. Ask what the fee actually includes: year-end documents, off-cycle runs, corrections and new-country setup are common extras. Ask where employee data is processed and under what data protection terms, and how the provider evidences filings in each country, since the filing receipts, not the platform screenshots, are what an audit will want. Contract terms control; nothing here is legal or tax advice.

Common questions

Is a global payroll company the same as an EOR?

No. A payroll company processes payroll for entities you own; an EOR legally employs staff for you where you have no entity. Many vendors sell both, and the prices differ substantially, so be precise about which product each country needs.

Do I need an entity in every country?

For payroll processing, yes; the service assumes a registered local employer. Where you have no entity, the options are opening one or hiring through an employer of record, and the comparison tables on this site cover the EOR route.

How do global payroll companies charge?

Commonly a fee per employee per payslip cycle, sometimes with a platform or base fee per country, plus extras for off-cycle runs, corrections and setup. The vendors in this index that publish pricing are shown with links to their own pages, so you can verify the current figures directly.

What is the difference between an aggregator and owned infrastructure?

Aggregators deliver through in-country partner firms and win on breadth; owned-infrastructure providers run their own local engines and win on consistency. Most large vendors mix the two, so ask which model applies to each of your countries.

Coverage by country

• Employer of record vendors covering Singapore
• Employer of record vendors covering Mexico
• Employer of record vendors covering Spain
• Employer of record vendors covering Colombia
• Employer of record vendors covering United Kingdom
• Employer of record vendors covering France
• Employer of record vendors covering Hungary
• Employer of record vendors covering New Zealand