Bulgarian.LLC – Your trusted partner for company formation, business and legal services in Bulgaria. We build solid foundations for your success!
Company Formation • Legal • Accounting
Bulgarian.LLC – Your trusted partner for company formation, business and legal services in Bulgaria. We build solid foundations for your success!
Hiring across Europe
The same hire costs four times more in one European country than in another. This page puts the official figures for twenty-two countries in one table, explains what drives the gap, and says plainly when an Employer of Record is the wrong answer.
The short answer
An Employer of Record employs someone on your behalf in a country where you have no company. The worker signs a contract with the provider. The provider runs payroll, pays social contributions and carries the employer obligations. You pay one invoice a month and direct the work.
Companies reach for it when they want one or two people in a country and opening a subsidiary there would cost more than the people do. Whether that trade is worth making depends almost entirely on where the country sits in the table below.
Bulgaria, per hour of work, across the whole economy. That is the lowest labour cost in the European Union.
The Netherlands. Austria, Germany, France and Ireland all sit within four euro of it.
Between the two ends. The same salary budget buys four times the hours at one end of Europe than at the other.
Where these numbers come from. Eurostat, labour cost levels for 2025, whole economy excluding public administration. They are collected the same way in every country, which is the only reason a comparison like this holds together at all.
Official figures, 2025
Total cost to the employer for one hour of work, split into what the worker receives and what goes to social contributions, taxes on payroll and other non-wage items.
| Country | Labour cost per hour | of which wages | of which non-wage | Non-wage share | vs Bulgaria |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | €47.90 | €36.30 | €11.80 | 24.6 % | 4.0× |
| Austria | €46.30 | €33.80 | €12.50 | 27.0 % | 3.9× |
| Germany | €45.00 | €34.50 | €10.60 | 23.6 % | 3.8× |
| France | €44.30 | €30.00 | €14.30 | 32.3 % | 3.7× |
| Ireland | €44.20 | €36.60 | €9.00 | 20.4 % | 3.7× |
| Italy | €32.00 | €23.00 | €9.00 | 28.1 % | 2.7× |
| Slovenia | €29.70 | €25.60 | €4.00 | 13.5 % | 2.5× |
| Spain | €26.40 | €19.50 | €6.90 | 26.1 % | 2.2× |
| Cyprus | €21.70 | €17.50 | €4.20 | 19.4 % | 1.8× |
| Estonia | €21.10 | €15.70 | €5.40 | 25.6 % | 1.8× |
| Czechia | €19.80 | €14.90 | €4.80 | 24.2 % | 1.7× |
| Slovakia | €19.80 | €14.20 | €5.70 | 28.8 % | 1.7× |
| Portugal | €19.40 | €15.60 | €3.80 | 19.6 % | 1.6× |
| Poland | €19.10 | €15.60 | €3.40 | 17.8 % | 1.6× |
| Croatia | €18.40 | €16.20 | €2.20 | 12.0 % | 1.5× |
| Greece | €18.20 | €14.50 | €3.70 | 20.3 % | 1.5× |
| Lithuania | €17.80 | €16.90 | €1.00 | 5.6 % | 1.5× |
| Latvia | €16.30 | €12.90 | €3.40 | 20.9 % | 1.4× |
| Hungary | €15.20 | €13.00 | €2.10 | 13.8 % | 1.3× |
| Romania | €13.60 | €12.90 | €0.60 | 4.4 % | 1.1× |
| Serbia | €12.80 | €10.60 | €2.20 | 17.2 % | 1.1× |
| Bulgaria | €12.00 | €10.50 | €1.60 | 13.3 % | — |
What the figure is not. It is an average across every sector, not a quote for a software developer or a warehouse worker. A senior engineer in Sofia costs far more than €12 an hour. Use the table for the shape of the difference between countries, not as a price for one job.
€12.00 an hour, the lowest in the Union. Employer contributions of 18.92 %, and a ceiling at €2,111.64 a month above which they stop growing. The one country here where we operate rather than observe.
€44.20 an hour, but a lighter employer share than most of western Europe at 20.4 %. Employer PRSI of 9 % or 11.25 %, decided by a weekly threshold of €552 that both rates cross again in October.
€26.40 an hour and a heavy employer share of 26.1 %. Contributions stop at a base of €5,101.20 a month, which makes senior hires cost far less than a flat percentage suggests.
Reading the table
Look at the fourth column. In France, 32.3 % of what an employer spends never reaches the employee — it goes to social contributions and payroll taxes. In Romania the same figure is 4.4 %. That is not a small difference in accounting treatment. It is the difference between a payroll that costs a third again on top of salary and one that costs almost nothing on top.
Two countries can therefore sit close on gross salary and far apart on what the hire actually costs you. Spain and Portugal are three euro apart on wages per hour and seven euro apart on total cost, because Spanish employers carry a much heavier contribution.
Spain publishes the rate directly: employers pay 23.60 % for common contingencies alone, before unemployment, wage guarantee fund and training levies are added. Ireland runs a different model — employer PRSI is low by continental standards and the state funds more from general taxation, which is part of why Irish non-wage costs are 20.4 % while the total is the fifth highest in the Union.
32.3 % of total labour cost is non-wage. The highest share of any country in the table, and the reason French hiring looks more expensive than French salaries suggest.
4.4 %. Romania moved almost the entire contribution onto the employee side in 2018, so employer cost tracks gross salary closely.
The decision
There is no universal answer, but the shape of it is consistent. An EOR wins on speed and on small numbers. Your own entity wins once the headcount grows or the presence becomes permanent, because the provider’s monthly fee never stops while the cost of running a small company mostly does not grow with each additional employee.
Fees are rarely published. Most providers quote privately. One that does publish, Boundless, lists €175 per employee per month for Ireland. At that level, ten employees cost €21 000 a year in fees alone — which is where the arithmetic starts favouring a company of your own.
What you actually pay
Quotes for this service are often compared on the wrong number. The provider fee is the part that gets shopped around, and it is usually the smallest of the three things you pay.
Set by the market for that role in that country, not by the provider. This is the largest layer almost everywhere and the one you control by choosing where to hire.
Set by law. Nothing about them is negotiable and no provider can reduce them. In France they add roughly a third on top of what the employee receives; in Bulgaria and Romania they add far less.
The only layer that is actually a price. Per employee, per month, on top of the other two. This is what quotes differ on, and it is why comparing quotes tells you less than comparing countries.
The consequence is worth stating directly. Moving a role from a country where non-wage costs run around a third of total labour cost to one where they run an eighth changes the bill more than any negotiation over a monthly fee will. The country decision is the expensive one. The provider decision is the cheap one, and it comes second.
Ask what the fee excludes before comparing it to anything. Severance and notice pay, statutory bonuses such as the thirteenth and fourteenth month salaries paid in parts of southern Europe, private health cover where it is customary rather than compulsory, equipment, and the cost of terminating early are all commonly outside the monthly figure.
The case that trips people up
Two different questions get merged here, and merging them is what causes the delays. The first is who employs the person. The second is whether that person is allowed to work in the country at all. An Employer of Record answers the first. It does not automatically answer the second.
Inside the Union, a national of any member state can be hired anywhere in it without a permit, and the arrangement is straightforward. Outside it, the employer normally has to apply for a work authorisation, the process runs on the authority’s timetable rather than yours, and the outcome is not guaranteed. Some providers handle this and charge separately for it. Others quietly do not, and the discovery comes late.
Three questions settle it before you sign. Which legal entity submits the application, since it has to be the employer. How long the authority in that country currently takes, as a real figure rather than a marketing one. And what happens to the contract, and to your obligations under it, if the permit is refused.
For Bulgaria specifically, the routes, the documents and the realistic timelines are set out on our pages about the Bulgarian work permit and the type D long-stay visa, which is the entry route that has to run alongside it.
Permit first, start date second. Companies routinely agree a start date with the candidate and then discover the authorisation runs longer than the notice period they are already committed to. Fix the sequence the other way round.
Five countries in focus
Fifth dearest in the Union, but only 20.4 % of it is non-wage. Employee PRSI is 4.2 % until 30 September 2026 and 4.35 % after. Employer Class A contributions include a 1 % National Training Fund Levy. High salaries, comparatively light employer side.
Almost identical total to Ireland, reached a different way. Wages are €30.00 an hour against Ireland’s €36.60, and the employer carries 32.3 % — the heaviest burden measured anywhere in the table.
Middle of the table. Employers pay 23.60 % for common contingencies alone, before unemployment, FOGASA and training. Non-wage costs are 26.1 % of the total.
Roughly 1.6 times Bulgaria and less than half of France. Non-wage share 19.6 %, among the lighter ones in Western Europe.
Effectively level with Portugal on total cost, with a lighter employer share at 17.8 %. The largest labour market of the group by a wide margin.
The lowest labour cost in the European Union, with a non-wage share of 13.3 %. Inside the single market, and on the euro since 1 January 2026. The full Bulgarian breakdown, fund by fund.
Cheapest is not the same as best. Bulgaria wins on cost and loses on depth of the labour pool for some specialisms. Poland has many more engineers than Bulgaria has people in the relevant age band. Ireland costs nearly four times as much and remains the right answer for a company whose customers, language and regulator are all English-speaking. Cost is one input, not the decision.
We are a Bulgarian firm. We do not operate in the other countries in this table and we do not act as an Employer of Record across Europe, so nothing on this page is a pitch for a service we cannot perform.
The contribution rates, the ceiling that caps them and what a non-EU hire needs are set out in full on our page about the Employer of Record in Bulgaria.
What we do run in Bulgaria is most of the machinery that sits underneath one. Monthly accounting for foreign-owned companies from €120 a month. Payroll at €20 per employee per month and employment documentation at €450 per employee. VAT registration, filings and annual closing. Corporate and employment legal work through a lawyer registered with the Blagoevgrad Bar Association, whose number is published on the pages where her advice appears rather than kept behind a contact form.
For a foreign company that wants people in Bulgaria, that produces two honest routes. Open a Bulgarian company and employ directly, which is cheaper from roughly the fifth employee onward and gives you the relationship outright. Or place the employment with a licensed provider here and pay a fee per head for the convenience of not having one.
Which of the two is right depends on headcount, on how long you expect the presence to last, and on whether anyone on your side wants to own filing obligations in Bulgarian. We will say which one the arithmetic favours in your case, including when the answer is that you do not need us.
One legal point that applies to any provider here. Employing a worker for another company’s account touches Bulgaria’s rules on labour provision, which are administered by the Employment Agency. Ask any provider in this market, us included, which registration they hold and under what number. A provider that cannot answer that quickly is not the one to carry your employment risk.
Before you sign
The market is crowded and the pages all read alike. These are the questions that separate the providers that carry risk from the ones that pass it back to you.
Permanent establishment is the quiet risk. Using an EOR does not automatically stop you creating a taxable presence in the country. If the person concludes contracts in your name or acts as your fixed place of business, tax authorities can look through the arrangement. That question belongs to a tax adviser in the country concerned, before the hire, not after.
Said plainly
Every provider page explains when to use one. Far fewer say when not to, so here it is.
When you already have a company in the country. Paying a provider to employ someone you could employ directly is a fee for nothing.
When the person is genuinely a contractor. If they work for several clients, set their own hours and carry their own risk, an employment wrapper adds cost and removes flexibility that suited both sides.
When you plan to grow past ten people there. The fee is per head and never ends. Run it over three years against the cost of a subsidiary before signing.
When the work requires a licence you cannot hold at arm’s length. Regulated activities — financial services, gambling, transport, security — often require the employer itself to be licensed. An Employer of Record does not solve that.
When the country is the wrong country. Choosing a jurisdiction because the labour cost is low, when the skills are not there, produces a cheap hire and an expensive year.
Questions we are asked
The provider. The employment contract is between the worker and the provider’s local entity, which registers them with the social security authority, runs payroll and files the returns. You direct the work day to day, but you are not on the contract.
Most providers quote privately, per employee per month, and the fee sits on top of gross salary and employer contributions. Published figures are rare: Boundless lists €175 per employee per month for Ireland. Expect the fee to be the smaller part of the bill — in France, employer contributions alone add roughly a third on top of salary.
Bulgaria, at €12.00 per hour of labour cost across the whole economy in 2025, followed by Romania at €13.60 and Hungary at €15.20. Serbia, outside the Union, sits at €12.80. The dearest is the Netherlands at €47.90.
Because 32.3 % of the total labour cost is non-wage — the highest share in the table. French wages per hour are €30.00, below Ireland’s €36.60, yet the total lands within ten cents of it.
Sometimes, and it is a separate service with its own timeline and cost. Do not assume it is included. Ask specifically which entity applies, what the processing time is in that country, and what happens to the arrangement if the permit is refused.
It can. The arrangement does not by itself create a permanent establishment, but the facts can: someone habitually concluding contracts in your name, or a fixed place of business at your disposal, may be enough. This is decided under the treaty between the two countries and belongs with a tax adviser there before the hire.
Weeks rather than months, which is the main reason companies pay for it. Registering a company, opening a bank account and appointing an accountant takes longer in every country in this table.
The employee is transferred from the provider’s entity to yours. Continuity of service, accrued holiday and notice entitlement usually carry over, and in several countries a transfer of undertaking applies. Agree the exit terms at the start, not when you need them.
No, though the law often treats them under the same licensing regime. A staffing agency finds the person; an Employer of Record employs a person you have usually already chosen. That distinction matters commercially and not at all to the regulator, which is why the licence question is worth asking.
No. We work in Bulgaria, where we already run payroll, employment documentation, accounting and legal work for foreign-owned companies. This page exists because the question that comes before choosing a provider is choosing a country, and that question is answerable with public figures.
Which country you are considering, how many people, and what they will do. That is enough to say whether an Employer of Record fits, whether your own entity is the cheaper answer over three years, and what the Bulgarian option would actually cost.
Every figure, traced
Figures were checked against these pages on 25 August 2026. Contribution rates change at least annually, and several of the Irish rates above change on 1 October 2026.