A remote team is a set of people in places. Each place can ask who employs them, whether they may work, how they are paid, and what happens if they are hurt or if their work causes a loss. The company that enjoys the work may not be the company that appears on the payslip. That gap is the subject. It is not solved by a monthly transfer.
Who employs them
A local subsidiary, a home-country contract, or an employer of record are different legal pictures. An employer of record employs locally on another company’s behalf and runs payroll. It has a contract and limits. It does not, by itself, settle tax or immigration. Calling someone a contractor is also a picture, and it can be wrong if the reality is employment. Ask an employment lawyer in the country of the person. Do not ask a group chat.
Paying them
Salary in their currency, into an account they can use, with the deductions that employment requires where they are employed. A multi-currency account at headquarters may help you hold the money. It is not payroll. Benefits, expenses and equipment are further payments with their own tax treatment. Keep the approval trail. Remote does not mean a single founder should be able to pay everyone from a phone with no second check.
Cover
Employer health cover may not extend to a country you did not name. Travel insurance does not cover a person who lives there. Liability and workers’ compensation, or the local equivalent, may be required and may be local. Tell the insurer where people work. The business insurance page is the list of questions. It does not say what is mandatory in a given country.
A remote colleague is a set of local questions, not a laptop
When someone works from a country the company did not originally operate in, ask three practical things. How are they employed: by you, by a local entity, or by an employer of record? How are they paid, and in which currency? What insurance is required or simply prudent for that person and for the work? The answers are local. An employer of record can take on employment and payroll in some countries, under a contract you should read. It does not automatically give you a bank account, a tax opinion on the company, or insurance for professional mistakes.
Banking has to match the employment. Salary paid from the wrong entity, or expenses run through a personal card and left there, become messy for the person and for the company’s records. Ask the bank whether it will pay into the country in question, and ask payroll what details they need. Agree the currency in the contract so a movement in the rate is not an argument every month.
Write down who employs whom, and review it when the map changes
Keep a list of people, the country they work from, the employing entity, and the policies that are supposed to cover them. Update it when someone moves. A move of an employee can matter to their immigration permission, to payroll taxes, and to whether the company has created a presence it did not plan. Those are questions for qualified advisers. The list is what you hand them.
Insurance should be read against the same list. A travel policy is not employers’ liability, and a home-country employers’ policy may not respond to staff abroad. Ask the broker with the list in front of them. Keep the contracts with the employer of record, the payroll provider and the insurer together. When something goes wrong, the question of who was responsible is answered by those contracts, not by the team’s shared sense of fairness.
A practical checklist
- Country and status of each person.
- Who employs them.
- Right to work checked locally.
- Payroll path, not only a transfer.
- Insurance told where people sit.
- A rule for equipment, expenses and who approves pay.
Questions to ask
- Is this person our employee there, or someone else’s?
- What payroll and registrations follow?
- Does our health or liability policy name that country?
- How are they paid, and in which currency?
- What happens if they move again?
- Are we creating a taxable presence by having them there?
Common mistakes
- A contractor agreement used to avoid asking.
- Payroll run from a personal account.
- Insurance schedules that still list one office.
- Assuming an employer of record covers immigration.
- Hiring in a new country because the time zone was convenient.
WiT Access provides general information and comparison resources. Nothing on this website constitutes financial, tax, legal or investment advice. Always consider obtaining advice from an appropriately qualified professional.
