Global Hiring Planner
The Global Hiring Planner compares the same hiring scenario across multiple countries and published US states. Enter one annual base salary, the currency you think in and how many equivalent hires you are planning, then add the locations you are weighing up. Every location is costed from that one scenario, with salaries converted at the published exchange rates rather than treated as equal numbers in different currencies, so the comparison shows a real difference in employment cost rather than a difference in assumptions.
EOR Lens includes statutory employer costs and verified employer of record provider charges where those amounts can be supported by published evidence. If a required cost cannot be quantified, EOR Lens does not treat the missing amount as zero: the cost is named, the known portion is shown as a subtotal, and that location is left out of the ranking.
Cost is only one hiring factor. The Planner does not recommend a country, and a lower employer cost is not by itself a reason to hire somewhere. It is not a salary benchmark, not a take-home estimate and not advice about where to hire.
Cost is one hiring factor among several. This comparison does not model talent availability, market salary levels, time zones, language, immigration, employee preference, benefits beyond statute, employee net pay or corporate tax.
The hire you are planning
The same base compensation is applied to every location, converted where needed.
Results are shown in this currency for every location.
Same salary, same location, repeated.
A label for your own notes. It changes no cost, rank or provider result.
Candidate locations
United States employer cost depends on the state. Select a state to compare it; a federal-only figure is not equivalent to a state result and is never substituted for one.
Add locations to compareComparison
- Choose at least two candidate locations to compare.
Before you start
Worked example: one international hire
Fixed scenario: £70,000 annual base salary, one hire, results shown in GBP. Every publication-cleared country the Planner supports is evaluated. The United States is excluded from this example because United States employer cost depends on the state; it has its own worked example below. The scenario is fixed; every figure below is generated from the current EOR Lens dataset each time the site is built, and none of it is written by hand.
- Locations evaluated
- 38
- Sufficiently complete to be ranked
- 34
- Shown but not ranked
- 4
- Verified employer-cost range (a year)
- £35,233
- Ranking basis
- Provider-inclusive verified cost
- For this £70,000-equivalent one-person scenario, EOR Lens currently evaluates 38 published countries, of which 34 have data complete enough to take part in the cost ranking.
- For this £70,000-equivalent one-person scenario, Thailand currently has the lowest comparable verified employer cost among the 34 published countries with sufficiently complete data in the EOR Lens dataset, at £72,146 a year.
- For this £70,000-equivalent one-person scenario, Brazil currently has the highest comparable verified employer cost among the same 34 published countries, at £107,379 a year.
- The verified employer-cost range across the comparable published countries in this £70,000-equivalent one-person scenario is currently £35,233 a year.
- 4 of the 38 published countries carry a statutory cost that cannot be quantified from published evidence and 0 cannot be costed at all in this scenario; an unquantified cost is never treated as zero, so those locations are shown but not ranked.
- 34 published countries currently tie for the most verified provider options in this scenario, with verified employer of record coverage from 5 providers in the current EOR Lens dataset. Provider availability is a coverage measure of the EOR Lens dataset, not a judgement of provider or market quality.
- In this scenario the largest single component behind the gap between Brazil and Thailand is employer contributions, a difference of £21,233 a year on current EOR Lens data.
- Thailand currently has verified EOR coverage from 5 providers in the current EOR Lens dataset: RemoFirst, Pebl, Deel, Oyster and Remote.
- Of those, 0 have fully quantifiable published pricing for this scenario and 5 have at least one provider-specific charge that is not published. An unpublished charge is not an accusation and does not mean the provider is more expensive or unavailable.
- In Thailand for this £70,000-equivalent one-person scenario, the Lowest verified cost provider is currently RemoFirst and the Top Match is currently RemoFirst. They are separate outputs: Lowest verified cost ranks on verified cost alone, while Top Match is the canonical suitability recommendation.
- In Thailand for this £70,000-equivalent one-person scenario, employer statutory costs above base salary currently come to £389 a year, giving a jurisdiction employer cost of £70,389 a year.
- These figures are generated from the current EOR Lens dataset: statutory rules resolved at 2026-01-01, exchange rates from the snapshot recorded 2026-08-28. They describe employer cost for one fixed scenario and are not a recommendation about where to hire.
Highlighted location: Thailand
Selected because it holds the lowest comparable verified employer cost in this fixed scenario on current data. Status: Comparable, provider cost incomplete.
| Jurisdiction employer cost (a year) | £70,389 |
|---|---|
| Monthly equivalent | £5,866 |
| Statutory employer cost above base salary | £389 |
| Provider-inclusive verified cost (a year) | £72,146 |
| Eligible providers | 5 |
| Lowest verified cost | RemoFirst |
| Top Match | RemoFirst |
| Calculation context | Statutory rules at 2026-01-01; exchange-rate snapshot 2026-08-28 |
In this location the published EOR versus own-entity model reaches break-even at around 32 employees. It is secondary context and never enters the location cost ranking.
Worked example: one United States hire
Fixed scenario: $100,000 annual base salary, one hire, results shown in USD. Every publication-cleared US state the Planner supports is evaluated, using the canonical federal-plus-state employer-cost engine. The scenario is fixed; every figure below is generated from the current EOR Lens dataset each time the site is built, and none of it is written by hand.
- Locations evaluated
- 50
- Sufficiently complete to be ranked
- 32
- Shown but not ranked
- 18
- Verified employer-cost range (a year)
- $1,711
- Ranking basis
- Provider-inclusive verified cost
- For this $100,000 one-person scenario, EOR Lens currently evaluates 50 published US states, of which 32 have data complete enough to take part in the cost ranking.
- For this $100,000 one-person scenario, Nebraska currently has the lowest comparable verified employer cost among the 32 published US states with sufficiently complete data in the EOR Lens dataset, at $110,130 a year.
- For this $100,000 one-person scenario, Oregon currently has the highest comparable verified employer cost among the same 32 published US states, at $111,841 a year.
- The verified employer-cost range across the comparable published US states in this $100,000 one-person scenario is currently $1,711 a year.
- 18 of the 50 published US states carry a statutory cost that cannot be quantified from published evidence and 0 cannot be costed at all in this scenario; an unquantified cost is never treated as zero, so those locations are shown but not ranked.
- 32 published US states currently tie for the most verified provider options in this scenario, with verified employer of record coverage from 5 providers in the current EOR Lens dataset. Provider availability is a coverage measure of the EOR Lens dataset, not a judgement of provider or market quality.
- In this scenario the largest single component behind the gap between Oregon and Nebraska is employer contributions, a difference of $1,711 a year on current EOR Lens data.
- Nebraska currently has verified EOR coverage from 5 providers in the current EOR Lens dataset: RemoFirst, Pebl, Deel, Oyster and Remote.
- Of those, 0 have fully quantifiable published pricing for this scenario and 5 have at least one provider-specific charge that is not published. An unpublished charge is not an accusation and does not mean the provider is more expensive or unavailable.
- In Nebraska for this $100,000 one-person scenario, the Lowest verified cost provider is currently RemoFirst and the Top Match is currently RemoFirst. They are separate outputs: Lowest verified cost ranks on verified cost alone, while Top Match is the canonical suitability recommendation.
- In Nebraska for this $100,000 one-person scenario, employer statutory costs above base salary currently come to $7,742 a year, giving a jurisdiction employer cost of $107,742 a year.
- These figures are generated from the current EOR Lens dataset: statutory rules resolved at 2026-01-01, exchange rates from the snapshot recorded 2026-08-28. They describe employer cost for one fixed scenario and are not a recommendation about where to hire.
Highlighted location: Nebraska (United States)
Selected because it holds the lowest comparable verified employer cost in this fixed scenario on current data. Status: Comparable, provider cost incomplete.
| Jurisdiction employer cost (a year) | $107,742 |
|---|---|
| Monthly equivalent | $8,978 |
| Statutory employer cost above base salary | $7,742 |
| Provider-inclusive verified cost (a year) | $110,130 |
| Eligible providers | 5 |
| Lowest verified cost | RemoFirst |
| Top Match | RemoFirst |
| Calculation context | Statutory rules at 2026-01-01; exchange-rate snapshot 2026-08-28 |
How the Global Hiring Planner works
One annual base salary and one headcount are applied to every candidate location. For each one, EOR Lens builds annual cash from base pay plus any statutory additional payments, applies the employer contributions and statutory funds that the jurisdiction requires, adds verified provider charges where they are published, and converts the total into your chosen display currency. Every location is then shown on the same basis, so the comparison reflects employment cost and nothing else. The full arithmetic is set out in the methodology.
What can the Planner compare?
The Planner compares one equivalent hiring scenario, built from a single annual base salary and a single headcount, across several candidate countries and published US states. For each location it shows the annual employer cost, the monthly equivalent, the statutory cost components behind that figure, how many employer of record providers are eligible there, and the verified provider-inclusive cost where published fees allow one to be calculated.
What the Planner does not answer
It does not calculate employee take-home pay, benchmark market salaries, or assess talent availability, immigration suitability, timezone fit, language or employee preference. It does not name a best country to hire in. Those decisions sit outside an employer-cost comparison, and presenting a cost ranking as an answer to them would be misleading.
What employer costs are included?
Employer cost is the base salary, plus mandatory additional pay such as thirteenth-month arrangements and holiday allowances, plus employer statutory contributions and mandatory employer funds, plus applicable employment taxes, plus verified provider charges where a provider is involved. Employee net pay, corporate tax, discretionary benefits and immigration costs are outside the model. Single-location detail, including the source behind each rate, lives on the country employer-cost pages.
How EOR provider costs are included
A provider fee is separate from the statutory cost of employing someone: the statutory cost is owed wherever the employment sits, and the provider fee is what an employer of record charges to carry it. Where a provider publishes its fees, those fees are added to produce a provider-inclusive figure. Where a charge is not published, EOR Lens does not estimate it, and the resulting provider-inclusive figure is described as a subtotal rather than a guaranteed final invoice. A provider that does not publish every charge has done nothing wrong; it simply cannot be fully verified from public evidence.
Why some locations are not ranked
An unpublished cost is not a free cost, and an unknown amount is not zero. A location is ranked only when its published employer cost can be quantified in full. Where a statutory obligation exists but no reliable published figure does, the Planner keeps the known information visible as a subtotal and says what is missing, but that location does not compete for the lowest verified cost. Locations with materially incomplete statutory cost data are not allowed to win the ranking, because an incomplete total would otherwise look like the cheapest complete one.
Lowest verified cost and Top Match
Lowest verified cost is arithmetic: it marks the lowest total of statutory employer cost plus published provider fees for the inputs you entered, and it changes whenever those inputs change. It is not a judgement about the best provider or the best country, and not a guaranteed final invoice. No provider can influence it. Top Match is different: it is the independent provider recommendation for a given location, produced by a separate scoring model that also weighs factors such as contract terms and offboarding cost. Lowest verified cost and Top Match may be the same provider or different providers, and neither is wrong when they differ. Top Match ranks providers within a location; it never selects a country.
Planner or the single-location calculator?
The employer-cost calculator answers "what does employment in this location cost?"; the Global Hiring Planner answers "how does the same hiring scenario compare across several possible locations?". Use the employer-cost calculator when the location is already decided and you want one jurisdiction in depth, including provider-by-provider pricing. If you are weighing an employer of record against opening your own entity, the EOR versus entity comparison works through the break-even.