Who employs your hire in a country where the EOR has no entity of its own?

Summary

A local partner company. The employer named on your hire's contract is then not the EOR you pay but a separate firm in that country. Remote says it owns the entity in every country where it offers EOR. Oyster says it uses both its own entities and partners, Deel gives a smaller count for owned entities than for countries covered, and neither labels the model on its country pages.

Remote: no entity, no EOR

Remote's help center says it "fully owns the local entities in all our available countries." The catch is in the word "available." Its country explorer lists 190+ locations, but many are tagged for contractor management or payroll only, and the EOR pricing card says 90+ countries. Where Remote has no entity, it doesn't offer EOR at all.

Owning the entity doesn't mean doing everything in-house. The same page that talks about fully owning and operating its infrastructure says Remote "partners with the top payroll providers, labor law attorneys, HR specialists, and accountants in each country."

Deel and Oyster: two numbers each

Deel's EOR page makes two claims a few lines apart: "We own entities and payroll engine in 130+ countries" and "We handle everything from contracts, minimum wage, terminations, and local laws in 150+ countries." The page doesn't say who the employer is in the countries between those two numbers. A September 2025 post on Deel's blog put its owned entities at 100+ countries and said an owned entity gives Deel "complete oversight and control over compliance, technology, tools, and customer support." Its country guides, such as the one for Spain, don't say whether the entity is owned.

Oyster hires "through our owned entities and vetted partners." Its 180+ figure covers all its products; the EOR product page says 120+ countries. The country availability list shows products only, with a note on some countries that EOR "might require more time and/or a minimum number of hires."

The contract tells you

Remote's help article for employees puts it plainly: your contract "will be with the local entity of Remote where you are based," so a UK employee's is with Remote's UK entity. In a partner country, that line carries the partner's name.

Sources

• https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/categories/4410374653837-Using-Remote
• https://remote.com/why-remote/global-infrastructure
• https://remote.com/country-explorer
• https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407322012941-Who-will-my-employment-contract-be-with
• https://www.deel.com/solutions/payroll/eor/
• https://www.deel.com/hiring/employees/spain/
• https://www.deel.com/blog/deels-owned-infrastructure-and-entities-are-now-available-in-over-100-countries/
• https://www.oysterhr.com/direct-plus
• https://www.oysterhr.com/country-availability
• https://www.oysterhr.com/product/employer-of-record

Related on this site

• If the big EOR providers charge about the same, what actually separates them?
• Does "130+ countries" mean an EOR can hire in the country you need?
• Which EOR providers put a number on how fast support will answer?
• Whose name is on the employment contract when you hire through an EOR?