How to hire remote Laravel developers

Picture the following:

You've signed up to Laradir.

You've found and met with quality developers from all over the world.

You'd like to bring them onto your team.

However, you're not sure how best to hire them. Are they contractors? Are they employees? How will they get paid? Is this even legal?

In this article we'll explore how to hire awesome developers from abroad, and get them paid on time without hassle. We'll break it down into three parts:

  • Your company's legal relation to the developer,
  • How to pay them,
  • Simplifying it all by using global HR & payroll services

This is not official legal, financial, or labour law advice. Use this as a baseline to cross reference with your own local regulations.

Let's start with the basics of your company's legal stance to the developer.

What is the legal relationship between my company and a developer abroad?

The general rule is that if your company does not have a presence in the country of the developer, you can bring them on as a contractor.

Generally, this means that they will need to send you an invoice every month for their services, as if they were a freelancer. It also means usual employee protections in their own country will not apply.

This depends on your company's legal and commercial presence in the developer's country. If you have shareholders and many customers in that country, adding hiring into the mix complicates things. Especially if you start hiring more than a handful of people in a country.

Governments will likely want you to establish a legal presence in that country if you have significant operations there. That then means you'll be hiring the developer as an employee.

If you're at that point however, it's time to consult financial and legal advisors on how to proceed.

How do I pay them?

The main ways to pay contractors abroad are with traditional global payments (e.g. SWIFT), or neobanking/fintech services.

With the first, both you and the contractor will need to have bank accounts capable of sending and receiving SWIFT transactions. This is easier in some countries than others.

Some countries have exchange controls, making it harder to send and receive money from abroad. It will make the payment process more stringent and a bit slower for the contractor if they have these.

The second way is for your contractor to use a fintech service like Wise. This is especially if your company is registered in the EU, UK, or US.

Wise allows people to get "native" account details for these regions, without having to open a bank account there. This allows you to send a normal bank payment to their Wise balance, using payment details you're already used to day to day.

Alternatives to Wise include Payoneer, OFX, and PayPal.

The contractor can then send the money to their local bank account much faster, or use SWIFT as normal.

Look out for countries with sanctions or trade embargoes! This can make it exceptionally tricky (aka "expensive" and "risky") to send money to contractors. Check for any issues between your two countries before making a commitment with a potential hire and if you're unsure, seek legal advice.

Is there a simpler way to do this?

We now know how to hire & pay developers abroad, but it becomes complicated really quickly.

There are many laws and regulations to keep in mind, and enforcement by governments can be inconsistent and a constant burden. Then there may be delays with SWIFT payments, or Wise goes down, and so on...

Luckily, there is a simpler solution for both hiring and payments: use a global HR & payroll service.

These are also known as Employer of Record (EOR) services. Notable examples of this are Remote and Deel.

These companies handle the legal relationship as well as simplify paying your developer.

The developer will become a contractor/employee for the EOR and get paid by them.

Much in the same way you should consult with experts for financial and legal advice, EORs are the experts for global hiring and payroll.

TL;DR

Most of the time you'll be hiring the developer as a contractor. Have them send you invoices monthly.

You'll pay them using international payments (SWIFT), or fintech services like Wise.

To simplify all of this, consider using an Employer of Record service like Remote and Deel.

Now that you're armed with this knowledge, you'll be in a better position than ever to bring the best talent onto your team—wherever they are!