US contractor management and payroll services can help you access top global talent fast and stay focused on your business growth. Instead of managing compliance for contracts and payroll in-house, a global employment partner like Remote makes it easy to pay and manage independent contractors in the United States and the rest of the world.
Hiring independent contractors as a foreign employer in the US is not as easy as working with local freelancers. You’ll face an unfamiliar set of labor laws and foreign tax requirements.
The first step to managing contractor payments in the US is determining whether the individuals providing the services are considered independent contractors under US law.
Managing remote workers in the US doesn’t have to be complicated. Fortunately, there is a simple, fast, cost-effective way to hire contractors outside your home country and stay compliant with local labor laws. Partner with a contract management and payroll service provider. You can scale with speed and avoid the significant time and cost commitments needed to build this capability in-house.
First and foremost, you can expect a global contractor management and payroll services provider to set up locally compliant contracts and ensure your contractors are paid in their desired currency with speed and accuracy.
You should search for a global employment partner that can help you create localized contracts. This means you minimize misclassification risk and stay fully compliant with local US tax and labor laws. Remote’s contractor management platform comes with pre-configured templates created by US employment law experts to protect you and your contractors from fines and penalties.
You can remove the significant time and uncertainty of managing US contractor invoicing and payments in-house. Remote's contractor payroll services allow you to simply accept invoices and pay American contractors with one-click. Remote's intuitive platform makes this process frictionless for you and for your contractors.
Contractor management platforms protect your business and sensitive data with industry-leading security, data protection, and compliance. Remote offers the strongest protections in the industry for your intellectual property (IP) and invention rights in the US. Our Remote IP Guard two-step transfer process ensures you always protect the full rights of your company’s IP under any international law.
The best global employment partners provide you with everything you need for effortless contractor management. This doesn't stop at simply managing payroll for local and international contractors. If you need expert advice relevant to the local market, Remote’s support team of employment law experts are always available to help you with your global HR challenges.
This is particularly important for instances of employee classification. Remote’s product is designed to alert us before you may be at risk. Our team can proactively work with you to convert contractors into employees to avoid misclassification penalties.
Opening your recruitment pipeline to US contractors gives you access to some of the world’s best global talent. Contractor agreements give you flexibility, speed, and access. Many of the most highly skilled professionals in the United States act as freelancers and consultants, working exclusively under contractor agreements. You can onboard and pay contractors fast, keeping the momentum of your business growth.
A contractor payroll partner in the US simply allows you to avoid the huge time and cost commitments of building international HR capabilities in-house so you can spend more time growing your business. Ongoing contractor management costs are reduced with multiple efficiencies.
A global HR partner like Remote allows you to create and manage payments and invoices with a single click. We offer a variety of payment methods in more than 100 currencies. The platform even allows you to schedule and batch payments of contractor invoices across multiple countries.
Remote's contractor payroll solution also provides cost savings by reducing or eliminating sizable bank transfer and currency conversion fees. That way, you can automatically pay contractors in US dollars without worrying about exchange rates or manual currency conversions.
Unfortunately, misclassifying employees as contractors or not converting contractors to employees on time can result in expensive fines. In some cases, the government can revoke your authority to operate. However, working with a trusted provider like Remote can give you peace of mind. Our contractor management services ensure compliance when hiring contractors in the US, so that you won't expose yourself to unnecessary risk.
Staying compliant while managing independent contractors in the US is not easy, especially if you don’t have local HR experts inside your organization.
Labor laws frequently change, and new legislation is often added. Managing all of the required tax forms and obligations is another major challenge in the United States. Even though you are not responsible for statutory employee benefits in the US, you do need a solid understanding of US misclassification rules.
Collecting and processing invoices can be a very time-consuming process. Every US contractor operates as an independent business. If you work with multiple contractors across different nations, payroll can become a complex logistical exercise filled with all sorts of due dates, currency conversion fees, and unique taxation requirements.
The IRS requires companies to report total payments to contractors who earned more than $600 within a given tax year. The company must first collect the contractor’s taxpayer information, including their taxpayer identification number and all relevant personal details. Companies must also collect a Form W-9 from each contractor within the country. Local US companies must collect a Form W-8 BEN from each contractor working outside the United States.
Managing international contractors in-house without expert knowledge each country’s local labor laws carries significant risk. You must understand US employee misclassification rules or you may inadvertently find yourself misclassifying a contractor who is deemed to be an employee under US law.
If your company has misclassified a worker under US law, you may face significant financial punishment. In the US, the IRS may levy penalties against the employer, including:
If the IRS determines that you misclassified employees willfully, the penalties are even greater.
Fortunately, Remote's US independent contractor management services can manage the whole process for you, from onboarding to payments — all from our intuitive platform. We manage compliance on your behalf. Our local experts in covered countries create country-specific contract templates based on US employment law to protect you and your contract workers from fines and penalties.
Contractor compliance checklist
Work through this checklist to help determine if a new hire should have a contractor or employee relationship.
Webinar
Join three of Remote’s top experts in a webinar that discusses all you need to know about international contractor management.
Our panel of remote experts includes:
They will discuss the challenges of international contractor management and address topics including contractor classification, managing invoices, contractor payments, and much more.
We’re experiencing a massive shift in how workers and employers are approaching work. Recent research shows that nearly 30% of Americans are self-employed and roughly 14% of workers said being an independent contractor was their primary job. If you are planning on hiring and onboarding contractors in the US and abroad, you should consider partnering with a global employment provider to reduce the cost, risk, and complexity.
Process
Before you engage an international contractor, you must understand your requirements under local laws and tax codes. This keeps you compliant with the specific requirements of each country, including when and how to pay contractors, when and how to withhold local taxes, and how to file and paying taxes. At a minimum, establish contact with local HR, legal and tax expertise you can consult when needed.
You can’t simply duplicate a universal contract for each country. Your team is responsible for compliance with local labor laws. This protects you from legal action in the event there’s any kind of dispute with your contractor.
The treatment of taxation should be addressed in your contracts, but you’ll need to ensure you collect the required tax forms from your contractors as part of your onboarding process. In addition, you must report and pay taxes in each country where you have contractors within the locally stipulated time frame.
Employers must be able to receive invoices and pay contractors on time and with accuracy. Collecting invoices is the first step, and you might experience complications if you have multiple contractors in different countries. You’ll need a way to manage foreign exchange and pay people in different countries with minimal fees and delays.
Opening your recruitment pipeline to international contractors can supercharge business growth. You can’t afford to hamper your HR team with ever-increasing administrative burdens as you scale. Build a plan to manage global employment with speed, efficiency, and security. A partner like Remote can take the hassle out of the entire process so your team can focus on strategic work
How Remote makes global contractors easy
Remote helps growing businesses employ top talent from around the world. Our payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance solution allows companies to access and empower a global workforce, no matter where they operate.
If this guide has done its job, then you’re now much more familiar with the steps required to hire legally in the United States. Remote can offer not just an employer of record in the US to bring new talent on board, but we’ll also help manage those overseas hires too.
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