Best Payroll for Global Contractors in 2025

Businesses today are hiring across borders faster than ever before. Whether it’s a designer in Argentina or a developer in Kenya, global contractors are helping companies scale with agility.

But paying those contractors is another story.

Cross-border payments, shifting regulations, and inconsistent systems turn what should be a straightforward transaction into a complex operation. HR and finance teams often stretch themselves to their limits to ensure they pay freelancers in the correct currency and on time.

That’s why many organizations are turning to payroll for global contractors — technology that allows you to manage compliance, automation, and payments in one seamless workflow.

Deel supports many international organizations looking to streamline global contractor payments. Let us share our insights on the best ways to pay freelancers, leading solutions, and what you should look for in 2025 and beyond.

What is payroll for global contractors?

Payroll for global contractors refers to the systems and platforms companies use to pay independent workers across multiple countries. These help businesses stay compliant with local labor and tax laws while managing the unique requirements that come with cross-border freelancer relationships.

Unlike traditional payroll, which applies to full-time employees on a company’s payroll, contractor payroll must handle:

• Worker classification
• Variable contracts (e.g., hourly, project-based)
• Multi-currency payments
• Local tax compliance
• Documentation like invoices and tax forms
• Invoicing and expense approvals

Modern platforms like Deel automate much of this complexity, helping organizations pay contractors quickly and correctly, without needing local legal entities or manual administration.

The challenges of paying contractors internationally

Let’s take a closer look at the challenges that HR and finance teams encounter when trying to handle global contractors manually:

• Misclassification risk: Every country defines freelancers differently, making it difficult to stay up to date with rules and prevent costly errors. Misclassification can lead to significant fines — for example, some US states charge you up to $25,000 for incorrectly categorizing workers

• Labor and employment law compliance: Global contractor payments must follow each country’s tax, labor, and registration rules, and these can change with little notice

• Currency conversion: Paying contractors manually often leads to inaccurate conversions and delayed transfers

• Payment fees: Bank wire and cross-border transfers can come with hidden charges, increasing your overall costs

• Tax and documentation complexity: Managing paperwork involves a lot of back and forth across time zones, often causing bottlenecks

• Manual admin and reconciliation: Without centralized systems, HR and finance teams rely on spreadsheets, email chains, and disconnected tools. This increases the risk of errors, creates data silos, and wastes hours every month

The best ways to pay contractors in 2025

Businesses have more tools than ever to pay international contractors, but not all methods are equal.

1. Direct bank transfers

Bank wires are familiar and widely accepted, so they’re still popular among international companies. The challenge is that they can take several days, come with steep conversion fees, and only offer limited visibility into payment status. For organizations paying dozens of contractors, this method quickly becomes costly and inefficient.

2. Digital wallets

Digital wallets are faster and cheaper for small teams making occasional payouts. They’re also convenient for contractors with local digital accounts. However, they lack support for compliance documentation or tax filings, making them unsuitable for large-scale operations.

3. Global payroll platforms

The modern solution for scaling teams is payroll for global contractors. These platforms automate key processes such as onboarding, contract generation, and tax reconciliation, while providing your team with a single source of truth.

As your company grows, they can also add more workers from different regions and scale workflows to maintain streamlined operations. Deel customer EEG even managed to onboard workers from 20 different countries at one time during an acquisition.

Top payroll platforms for global contractors

Below is an overview of five leading solutions in the global payroll space:

Deel

Deel is the most complete global contractor solution for international teams hiring, managing, and paying freelancers. We support payments, tax management, and compliance worldwide in over 200 currencies.

Where we stand out most is the depth of our capabilities. Rather than offering simple contractor payouts, Deel provides the compliance infrastructure, workflows, and local guidance teams need to manage contractors at scale with minimal manual intervention.

As part of our contractor solution, Deel offers:

• Misclassification protection
• Automated onboarding with ID checks
• Compliant local contract generation
• Document collection and verification
• Pre-built invoicing workflows
• Tax document management (W-8BEN, W-9, and global equivalents)
• Consolidated pay runs
• Self-service contractor portal
• Centralized reporting
• 24/7 localized compliance support
• Contractor of Record (CoR) services with fully owned entities

For scaling and enterprise companies, Deel’s combination of automation, localized compliance, and owned entities is the only way to standardize operations across borders. Companies know they’re dealing with us, instead of local partners, and get the benefit of our team’s legal, financial, and accounting expertise.

Remote

Remote is a global HR platform with broad coverage for contractors. Its emphasis on compliance and structured onboarding makes it a good choice for teams looking for a straightforward way to pay freelancers overseas.

That said, Remote has higher starting costs for contractor management than some alternatives while offering fewer currencies. It’s best for companies that want to support workers in multiple jurisdictions, but have standardized payouts in USD or EUR.

Gusto

Gusto is a lightweight US-first payroll platform that also offers international contractor payments. Its simple interface and low starter price make it a natural fit for small mom-and-pop-style businesses with lean resources.

The trade-off is that Gusto has limited reach and fewer features than many alternatives. It doesn’t offer CoR services, deep automation, or the compliance infrastructure that large enterprises need for multi-country operations.

Multiplier

Founded in 2020, Multiplier is the newest global payroll platform on our list. It has already developed a strong reach with contractor management and CoR services in over 150 countries and support for more than 120 currencies.

Multiplier has an aggregator model and relies on local partners instead of owned entities. This model can lead to inconsistencies in the services you receive across different regions and make it more challenging to find the right support. As a result, Multiplier works best for companies that want to extend their reach but already have extensive in-house resources.

Rippling

Workforce management platform Rippling connects HR, finance, and IT in one system. As part of its core payroll modules, it offers both global contractor payments and CoR services.

Global contractor support can be limited because Rippling has a local partner network instead of owned entities. It also has support for fewer currencies than some alternatives. It’s better for organizations that want to prioritize their IT and financial operations over scaling their global workforce.

Key features that define the best global payroll systems for contractors

Understanding what features to expect from global payroll systems can help you compare and evaluate the options. Here’s a quick breakdown of what to look for:

• Worker classification: Compares your agreement against relevant local laws to ensure workers are categorized correctly
• Classification protection: Agrees to cover you for a sum for incorrectly classified workers, eliminating the risk of penalties
• Contractor onboarding tools: Streamlines ID verification, document collection, and contract setup
• Automated compliance updates: Keeps your system updated with changing tax and labor laws
• Multi-currency support: Pays contractors in their preferred currencies with transparent FX rates
• Secure payment processing: Ensures data privacy and regulatory compliance across jurisdictions
• Unified reporting and analytics: Provides finance teams with visibility into spending, headcount, and compliance risk
• Continuous support: Offers 24/7 assistance in different languages to guide you through issues and answer queries

How to choose the right payroll solution for global contractors

When it comes time to decide, the right payroll partner ultimately depends on your organization’s stage, growth goals, and compliance requirements.

Here’s how to check whether a solution is a good fit:

1. Clarify your hiring strategy: Are you contracting across one region or multiple continents? Your answer tells you whether you need to prioritize a solution that enables you to hire and pay freelancers anywhere or if you can settle for a more lightweight alternative at a lower cost

2. Check global coverage: Check whether the solutions you’re considering support your key hiring markets. You should factor in your long-term plans, so you don’t have to switch platforms later to hire in new regions

3. Assess compliance infrastructure: Confirm the provider has a local entity in all the countries where you want to hire, so you can guarantee a high level of specialized support

4. Look at automation capabilities: Check the functionality of the platform to ensure you can automate key processes like onboarding, document management, and tax registration. These features are what will reduce manual work and improve accuracy, minimizing the risk to your business

5. Evaluate integrations: See how the platform connects contractor management tools with its native HR and payroll features. Also, explore its integration marketplace to check that you can connect with popular HR, finance, and accounting systems

6. Compare pricing plans: Balance costs against features and support. Paying more for compliance assurance as part of your monthly fees can prevent costly penalties later

7. Check overall costs: Have lawyers check contracts to look for hidden FX or add-on compliance fees that would increase your monthly fees

8. Test the system: Organize a demo to see how easy it is to add freelancers and use different features on the system. You should be able to organize a guided tour so you can ask questions as you explore the platform

Deel: The best way to pay contractors in 2025

Today’s businesses can’t rely on manual wires or pieced-together systems to pay contractors. You need global payroll solutions that centralize everything — compliance, payments, and reporting.

Deel’s global contractor services bring all these elements together alongside powerful automated workflows and in-country compliance. Our unified platform ensures you have consistent processes for managing freelancers wherever and whoever you hire.

Looking to scale your global workforce? Book a call with the Deel team to see how we can enable you to pay contractors worldwide quickly, compliantly, and cost-effectively.