Employer of Record (EOR) providers in Eastern Europe: Comparing the top 5 companies
- Gegidze • გეგიძე | Marketing
- Jul 11
- 8 min read
Table of contents:
Introduction
You’ve found your next hire in Romania. She’s a perfect senior engineer, fluent in English, available next week. But there’s a catch: your legal team says setting up an entity will take 3 months. And the EOR you just spoke to? Vague pricing, zero clarity on who actually employs your team, and a contract longer than your Series A pitch deck.
That’s the reality for too many companies expanding into Eastern Europe without the right Employer of Record (EOR) partner.
An EOR lets you hire employees legally without setting up a company. They become the official employer on paper, while you manage the team and day-to-day work. Payroll, taxes, compliance, benefits, and local contracts? All handled.
But here’s the thing: not all EORs are built the same. Some outsource to shadow partners. Others hide fees in the fine print. And a few simply don’t cover the countries you care about.
This article cuts through the noise. We’re comparing the top 5 EOR providers for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and the Baltic based on:
Legal coverage
Pricing transparency
Compliance capabilities
Onboarding speed
Country-specific support
Because if you’re going to grow fast and stay compliant, you need the right EOR from day one.
What makes a great EOR provider in Eastern Europe?
Hiring in Eastern Europe isn’t hard.
It’s just a bureaucratic Hunger Games run in four languages with different social tax rules per border.
If you’ve ever tried to onboard a dev in Sofia while setting up payroll in Kraków and filing labor paperwork in Romanian (twice, because the first stamp didn’t count)... you already know this.
This is where a great EOR earns its keep, and where the mediocre ones politely ruin your expansion plans.
Let’s break down what separates the A-players from the ✨LinkedIn claims✨:
Full-stack compliance (that doesn’t break)
This means handling:
Payroll filings that follow country-specific calendars
Social contributions (which, by the way, vary wildly—from 40%+ in Slovakia to 23% in Romania)
Mandatory benefits like health coverage, parental leave, 13th-month pay (yes, that’s a thing)
Tax thresholds (especially in Ukraine and Bulgaria, where income tax is flat but contributions aren’t)
If they can’t walk you through every step of your employee’s tax situation in Czechia in plain English, they’re not a partner, they’re a liability.
Transparent, region-aware pricing
“€199 per employee/month” sounds great, until you see the add-ons.
A good EOR:
Lists all fees upfront
Explains what’s included (and what’s not)
Doesn’t surprise you with legal line items that look like they were pulled from a slot machine
Bonus points if they adapt pricing based on your team size and hiring plans. You shouldn’t pay the same if you’re hiring one dev in Bucharest vs. 30 engineers across five countries.
Speed + onboarding without pain
Some EORs need 2 weeks to “review the employment offer.”
Others onboard your new hire in 3 business days—with contracts, payroll setup, benefits, and hardware handling all sorted.
Guess which one scales with you?
Great providers already have templates, workflows, and legal docs localized in every Eastern European country they serve. That’s how you go from offer letter to productive team member—without seven Zoom calls and a month of waiting.
Human HR support (with actual humans)
Things will go wrong.
Employees will move, get sick, go on leave, get confused, want to relocate, ask for equipment... you name it.
The good EORs don’t panic. They pick up the phone, speak your employee’s language (literally), and sort it out.
Support teams should be multilingual, trained in local HR law, and able to handle emergencies without kicking the problem back to you.
Digital hr tools that don’t feel like 2008
You want:
Online contract signatures
Real-time payroll tracking
Employee portals in their native language
Easy access to tax forms, payslips, and holiday balances
And yes, if you’re dealing with multiple countries, integrations with your ATS or HRIS matter.
Because payroll shouldn't live in 19 different spreadsheets and a cursed PDF folder on someone's desktop.
Data protection that’s not just lip service
GDPR fines are no joke, and your dev’s IP is more valuable than their MacBook.
A great EOR protects:
Personal employee data (think: address, tax ID, bank details)
Your company’s IP with airtight clauses, NDAs, and secure contract structures
Your brand reputation by not cutting corners with sketchy subcontractors
Extra perks that actually matter
Some providers go the extra mile. We like those.
Local hiring support when you want to grow your team
Benefit benchmarking to make your offer attractive
Hardware procurement—so your hire in Sofia gets a MacBook, not a 12-inch coal-powered ThinkPad
Offboarding support when things end (cleanly and legally)
Comparison table: Top 5 EOR providers
Team Up
High-Growth Partner With Regional Rollout
Team Up brings a modern, startup-savvy approach to EOR, fast onboarding, transparent pricing, and real people who actually pick up the phone.
Pros:
Rapidly expanding coverage across Eastern Europe with vetted local legal partners
Hands-on support for onboarding, payroll, and contract compliance
Clear, founder-friendly pricing (€199–€299)
Limitations:
Newer presence in the region, but scaling quickly with priority support in place
Custom benefit packages under development
Best for:
Startups and mid-sized teams that want a responsive partner focused on speed, transparency, and practical hiring, not bloatware dashboards or corporate runarounds.
Deel
Well-known but high-cost
Pros
Wide coverage and global name recognition
Solid tools for contracts and payroll
Direct legal entities in most countries
Limitations
Expensive for small teams
Less flexibility in contract terms
Best For
Large firms with internal HR and legal who just need execution at scale.
Remote
Clean tech, limited service
Pros
Sleek UI, API-friendly
Good documentation and self-serve tools
Limitations
Slow support response in some regions
Narrower options for custom terms or benefits
Best For Tech-first teams with simple structures and low support needs.
Papaya Global
Analytics-heavy and finance-focused
Pros
Strong reporting and compliance dashboards
Payroll reconciliation tools for CFOs
Limitations
Not founder-friendly
Pricing is opaque and scaling is costly
Best For
Finance-led orgs managing complex global payrolls.
Safeguard Global
Enterprise beast
Pros
Strong in multinational compliance
Stable for long-term employment
Limitations
Built for enterprises, not startups
Onboarding can be slow and rigid
Best For
Big orgs hiring 50+ people in-country and integrating with SAP.
Deep dive: Team Up’s EOR offering in Eastern Europe
Let’s get the awkward bit out of the way:
No, we don’t have boots on the ground in every Eastern European capital (yet). We’re not sending branded hoodies to HR directors in Cluj. We’re still expanding, carefully, deliberately, and with a healthy dose of paranoia about doing it right.
But here’s what we do bring to the table:
1. A flat monthly fee that won’t surprise you later.
€199–€299 per employee. That covers compliant contracts, payroll, taxes, social contributions, terminations, and offboarding. No onboarding fees. No minimum hires. No “contact sales” for a quote that turns into a math puzzle.
2. A setup that actually works for remote hiring.
We’ve built this model for companies that want to hire smart people in Romania or Ukraine without setting up a local entity, hiring three lawyers, and praying no one accidentally triggers a tax audit.
3. Contracts? Filed and compliant.
We don’t hack together freelance agreements and cross our fingers. These are full employment contracts, in the right language, following the right laws. Social security? Reported. Taxes? Filed. Your hire? Covered.
4. Onboarding doesn’t drag.
We’re fast, usually under 7 days, because we’ve already handled the backend: local payroll providers, verified legal counsel, country-specific admin checklists. You’re not our first client. You won’t be our last.
5. You’re not flying blind.
You’ll get a real point of contact. Someone who answers emails and knows what to do if your developer in Sofia wants to work from Spain for 3 months. (Yes, that happens.)
Is it perfect? Not yet. But it’s stable. Compliant. Transparent.
And unlike the “global-first” players, we don’t treat Eastern Europe as an afterthought.
If you want to test the region without marrying it, we’re built for that.
If you want to scale later with confidence, we’re planning for that too.
Cost considerations: Hidden fees & service gaps
Most companies comparing EORs do the same thing:
They look at the monthly cost to use EOR in Eastern Europe..
Then pick the lowest one.
And then, six weeks later, start wondering why they're spending more time talking to an outsourced call center than their own hire in Romania.
Let’s break the illusion.
1. Percentage-based pricing is a trap
At first glance, “15% of salary” seems fair.
Until you realize that means your €5K/month engineer is suddenly costing €750 on top of taxes and overhead. Every single month.
The higher you pay your talent, the worse it gets.
And promotions? Raises? Those bump up your EOR fee, too.
2. Flat fee ≠ , predictable fee (unless it actually is)
Some providers love to advertise a flat rate.
Then tack on extras: onboarding fees, 13th salary admin, holiday pay management, contract translations, labor law updates.
Before you know it, your “flat” €199 turns into €299.
Every. Month.
True flat-fee pricing means:
One rate per employee
All admin, contracts, payroll, and compliance included
No charges just because you asked a smart question
If it’s not that, it’s not flat.
3. Bundled vs variable pricing: Watch the margins
Some EORs bundle health insurance, co-working memberships, and other perks. Sounds great, until you realize you’re locked into overpriced packages your team doesn’t even use.
Others go full à la carte.
Need support in Bulgarian? Extra.
Want to edit your employment contract? That’s a “custom legal review.”
Choose providers who let you scale what matters, not ones who nickel-and-dime you into budget purgatory.
When to use EOR vs entity setup
Some decisions are complicated. This one, When to use EOR vs entity setup in Eastern Europe, doesn’t have to be.
EOR wins when speed, flexibility, or uncertainty are in the mix.
You use an Employer of Record when:
You want to hire in Romania, Poland, or Bulgaria next week, not next quarter.
You're testing a new market and aren’t ready to invest €10K+ on lawyers and registrations.
You only need 1–5 people on the ground—maybe a backend engineer, a customer success lead, a content hire.
You’re hiring remote employees in multiple countries and don’t want to juggle five different payroll systems.
You need full legal compliance without owning the legal complexity.
That’s where an EOR shines: → No entity. No paperwork. No tax nightmares. Just real employment, legally handled.
But sometimes, setting up a legal entity is the smart play.
Let’s be honest—if you’re:
Hiring 20+ people in a single country
Opening a physical office or signing local contracts
Bidding on public tenders or needing local VAT invoices
Planning to stay in the market for years and build a local brand
…then yes, it’s time to go all in.
Owning your entity gives you full operational control. No middleman. No EOR limitations. You decide everything, down to the office chair budget and the exit clauses in contracts.
But be prepared: → Setup takes 6–12 weeks. → You’ll need legal, payroll, accounting, and HR infrastructure. → You’ll be on the hook for 100% of compliance risk.
So, which route is better?
The right one depends on your current needs, not just your future plans. And if you’re not sure yet? Start with EOR. Transition later.
Plenty of companies do.
And they usually thank themselves for it.
Final verdict: Which EOR is right for you?
Here’s the thing—there’s no single “best” EOR provider in Eastern Europe.
There’s only the right one for you, your budget, and your growth plans.
Some companies want rock-bottom pricing.
Others want white-glove HR support or country-specific expertise.
And some just want to hire two engineers in Kraków without spinning up a local entity and praying their freelancer contracts hold up in court.
Let’s keep it real:
If you’re hiring across multiple Eastern European countries and want to avoid the headaches of juggling vendors, look for regional coverage and unified tools.
If compliance gives you hives, prioritize providers with strong legal infrastructure and no third-party outsourcing.
If you hate surprise invoices, skip the “% of salary” vendors and stick to transparent flat fees.
And if you’re just testing the waters?
Team Up may not have the biggest market share yet, but we’ve built our offering around exactly that kind of use case:
Start lean, stay compliant, and scale fast if things go well.
No setup fees. No long-term lock-ins. No fine print that reads like a tax code.
Use this article as your filter. Ask the right questions.
And when in doubt, ask who’s legally liable if something goes sideways.
Because that’s where you’ll really know if a provider is worth the invoice.
