How Can a European Company Hire Employees in the U.S.?
The four practical routes to employing people in America, what each one costs you in control and complexity, and how to choose before your first offer letter.
Read →U.S. Employment
U.S. Employment for International Companies
Same company. Two very different employment worlds.
Hiring people in the U.S. from outside the U.S.? We help international companies work out how to employ people in America without discovering every complication through trial and error. From deciding between an EOR and your own U.S. employment infrastructure to building or fixing the People side of a U.S. operation, GSD provides the U.S. HR expertise your team doesn't have in-house.
Home country vs America
What changes the moment you hire an American
Where you're basedIn the U.S.
Ending employment
Where you're basedNotice periods, documented process, sometimes works councils.
In the U.S.At-will in most states — and wrongful-termination risk is still very real.
Healthcare
Where you're basedLargely public. Not your problem to design.
In the U.S.Employer-provided. Your benefits plan is part of the offer.
Leave
Where you're basedStatutory holiday and parental leave.
In the U.S.No federal paid leave. A patchwork of state rules instead.
Jurisdiction
Where you're basedOne country, one set of rules.
In the U.S.Fifty states, each with its own registrations, taxes and requirements.
Pay
Where you're basedCollective frameworks and transparent bands.
In the U.S.Market-driven, equity-heavy and increasingly disclosure-regulated.
You don't need to become an American company. You need to employ Americans properly, without importing assumptions that don't translate.
Sound familiar?
Hiring Americans from overseas raises questions fast.
Do we need a U.S. entity, or can we use an Employer of Record?
How do U.S. benefits compare to what we offer in Europe?
Which U.S. states create additional employment requirements?
Who actually runs U.S. payroll and answers employee questions?
What happens when a U.S. employee moves to another state?
What does at-will employment mean in practice?
How should we handle a performance issue or termination?
How do we keep U.S. employment practices aligned with our company culture?
These questions are cheap to answer before you hire and expensive once you have employees in multiple states. We answer them, build the infrastructure, and stay involved for as long as you need.
Decide. Build. Transition.
Where are you in your U.S. journey?
01
Decide
U.S. Employment Strategy
You're planning U.S. hires and need to understand how you should employ them.
- EOR vs. establishing your own U.S. employment infrastructure
- Expected U.S. headcount and growth
- Employee locations and state complexity
- Operational implications
- Internal HR capability
- Provider requirements
- Future-state People infrastructure
The outcome is a practical U.S. employment strategy and roadmap. Sometimes an EOR is the right answer — we don't recommend infrastructure just to create consulting work.
02
Build
U.S. Employer Build
You've decided to become a direct U.S. employer. Now the People infrastructure needs to exist.
- U.S. policy architecture
- Employee handbook framework
- Employment processes and the employee lifecycle
- Onboarding and offboarding
- Payroll requirements and provider coordination
- Benefits strategy and broker coordination
- HR systems
- Multi-state People requirements
- Manager practices
- Performance and employee relations infrastructure
- Compliance processes
- Specialist and provider ecosystem
We coordinate the HR workstream while the appropriate specialists handle regulated services.
03
Transition / Fix
U.S. Employment Transition & Remediation
You already employ people in the U.S., but the setup you started with no longer works.
- Moving U.S. employees from an EOR to direct employment
- Scaling beyond an early-stage U.S. employment model
- Fixing incomplete U.S. HR infrastructure
- Expanding into multiple states
- Improving inconsistent U.S. employment practices
- Building infrastructure that never properly existed
- Aligning U.S. People practices with a growing international organisation
Relevant whether you're changing employment model or cleaning up gaps that accumulated after you set one up.
How it usually runs
One path, a few forks.
- 01Planning U.S. hiring
- 02Decide — U.S. employment strategy
- 03If an EOR is the right fit: implement with the provider, with a clean handover from us
- 04If direct employment is the right fit: Build — U.S. employer build
- 05As the U.S. organisation grows: Transition & remediation
- 06Where ongoing senior People leadership is needed: Fractional People Leadership & Operations
EOR or U.S. entity?
An Employer of Record is often the right first step for one or two hires, and sometimes it stays the right answer. It can also become the wrong long-term choice as headcount grows. We model cost, control, benefits quality, equity, state spread and your planned trajectory — then give you a recommendation you can take to your board or investors.
Fifty states, not one country
U.S. employment law is a patchwork. A remote hire in a new state can trigger registration, tax, benefits and leave requirements. We track where your people work and what that means for you, so nothing falls through the cracks.
Built for how you already run
European, UK, Canadian, Australian and APAC-headquartered companies all hit the same wall: U.S. employment practice doesn't match what they're used to at home. We help you design policies that are compliant in the U.S. and consistent with how you run the rest of the company — without importing assumptions that don't translate.
A single point of contact
Your HQ team shouldn't be chasing payroll providers, benefits brokers and state agencies across time zones. We act as your U.S. People function, with clear ownership and operator-level judgment on the decisions that matter.
Wherever you're headquartered
European, UK or further afield?
We work with international companies hiring U.S. employees from anywhere — a UK company opening a New York office, a German scaleup expanding to the U.S., an Australian or Canadian business moving off an EOR. The common thread is U.S. employment, not where your head office sits.
Tell us what you're planning in the U.S.Related reading
EOR vs U.S. Entity: When Should You Switch?
The signals that tell you an employer of record has stopped being the cheap option, and what setting up a U.S. entity actually requires of your People function.
Read →How to Build HR Operations Across Multiple Countries
What to standardize globally, what to localize, and how to keep multi-country People operations from becoming a collection of exceptions.
Read →Planning U.S. hiring? Let's talk.
Tell us where you're based, where you're hiring, and what's already in place.