The short answer: To switch EOR providers or convert contractors to employees, a new employer of record (EOR) takes over each person's local employment contract, payroll, taxes, and statutory benefits on an agreed start date. Your people keep their roles, managers, and pay. With Booth, a compliant move goes live in days to a few weeks per country, in 120+ countries, with no legal entity required.
You've built a team across borders. Some are contractors you've worked with for years. Some sit on another provider's payroll. A few are in countries where you've never had a legal presence.
Then finance asks for one invoice instead of five. Legal flags the contractors doing full-time, core work. Or you're preparing for a raise or a sale, and you know diligence will pull apart anything informal.
This guide covers what an EOR and a COR are, what changes when you move a team, how the move works step by step, how long it takes, and what it costs.
An employer of record (EOR) is a company that legally employs people on your behalf in their home country, so you don't need your own legal entity there. The EOR holds the local employment contract, runs payroll and tax withholding, provides statutory benefits, and handles HR administration and offboarding.
You still direct the work, set pay, and make the decisions. Booth carries the employment and compliance obligation behind them.
A contractor of record (COR) is a company that manages independent contractors on your behalf, without making them employees. Booth handles the contract, verifies the working relationship, and manages invoicing and payments, which reduces your misclassification exposure.
Choose EOR for people doing core, ongoing, full-time work. Choose COR for short-term or independent work.
Both run on BoothOS, Booth's platform for hiring, paying, and managing global teams in 120+ countries. BoothOS runs multi-currency payroll on one engine, tracks compliance as each market's rules change, and keeps headcount, cost, and reporting in one place.
When you move a team to Booth, only the legal employer changes. The work, the people, and the reporting lines stay with you.
For your people, the visible change is a new local employment contract and one compliant payroll. Contractors moving onto EOR also gain the statutory benefits employees get in their country — the exact package depends on local law.
Moving an existing team to a new EOR is a migration, not a re-hire. Booth runs it in four steps:
If you're leaving another EOR or payroll provider, Booth handles the migration from them, so you're not managing two systems mid-transition. You end up with one invoice, one point of contact, and one view of headcount and cost.
Say you have 6 contractors in the Philippines, 4 employees on another EOR in Colombia, and 2 employees on another EOR provider in Poland.
An EOR transfer takes days to a few weeks per country, depending on local requirements. Multi-country moves run in parallel, not one after another. Booth gives you a per-person timeline once we know the locations.
If your contractors do core, full-time, ongoing work, converting them to employees through an EOR removes your misclassification risk. If a local authority reclassifies long-term contractors as employees, you can face back pay, unpaid statutory contributions, and penalties. Most countries judge this on how the work is actually done, not what the contract calls it. It’s the principle behind the ILO's Employment Relationship Recommendation (R198) and the U.S. Department of Labor's guidance on misclassification.
Misclassified contractors are also one of the first things an acquirer's diligence pulls apart. A clean employment structure — compliance tracked continuously across every market, and reporting in one place — shows a buyer exactly how your people are employed and paid.
You have two options:
Booth charges a single monthly rate: your employee's compensation and benefits package, plus Booth's management fee. Pricing is transparent, so you see exactly how the number is built.
You start from an all-in rate that moves with actuals. If someone works a holiday, logs overtime, or has other variable items in a month, Booth bills those as they occur, not baked into a flat estimate. The comparison that matters is your fully loaded cost of employing locally versus Booth's all-in rate.
Yes. Booth's transfer model lets Booth run the employment now and hand the team over to your own entity when you're ready, so an EOR doesn't lock you in.
Your own entity makes sense once you're ready to carry the setup cost, in-country HR and payroll capacity, and full compliance liability in that market. Until then, an EOR is faster and lighter.
Do you need a legal entity to hire employees in another country?
No. An EOR like Booth employs people through its own local entities, so you can hire and retain talent in 120+ countries without setting up a company there.
Will employees' pay be interrupted during an EOR transfer?
No. Booth coordinates the sequencing so there's no gap in pay and no disruption to their work.
Do employees change managers or roles when they move to an EOR?
No. Day-to-day management, priorities, and reporting lines stay with you. Only the legal employer changes.
Can Booth take over from another EOR or payroll provider?
Yes. Booth handles the migration from your current provider and consolidates your team onto one invoice, one point of contact, and one view of headcount and cost.
Tell us where your people are and how they're engaged today. We'll map each country and role, put a proposal together, and give finance a one-page cost view and legal a compliance summary. Talk to Booth or get a quote.