Article
7 min read
3 Global Payroll Trends to Pay Attention to in 2025
Global payroll

Author
Shannon Ongaro
Last Update
February 14, 2025

Key takeaways
- Finance teams are under pressure to manage increasingly complex global payroll operations with fewer resources, making modern payroll solutions essential for efficiency and scalability.
- Compliance is becoming more challenging due to evolving regulations and the rise of remote work, requiring businesses to adopt automated systems to mitigate risks.
- HR and finance ecosystems are rebundling, as companies move toward integrated platforms that streamline payroll, accounting, and compliance for better decision-making and operational efficiency.
This article was written by Stephen Hedlund, CFA, Head of Finance at Rillet.
When an organization scales—especially across borders—backend complexity grows exponentially. And nowhere is this more evident than in global payroll.
As you know, payroll isn’t just about cutting checks. It’s also about making sure your employees are paid accurately, on time, and in compliance with local laws. For high-growth companies, it’s one of the most critical functions, but also one of the most complex.
To stay ahead, companies need to understand the forces reshaping global payroll and how they can adapt. At Rillet, we have a 10,000-foot view of the various trends affecting our customers —and these are the three we believe will significantly affect payroll this year.
Trend #1: Finance teams are being asked to do more with less
The finance industry is at a pivotal moment.
Startups are scaling globally at an unprecedented rate, fueled by post-pandemic growth and international policy changes designed to promote entrepreneurship. But this comes at a time when finance teams are grappling with shrinking budgets and a significant talent shortage.
This combination means finance teams are now tasked with managing increasingly complex operations—like global payroll—with fewer resources. And the tools they’re often stuck using, built decades ago, weren’t designed to handle the demands of modern, international payroll.
Why this matters
For already stretched finance teams, managing global payroll without the right tools is unsustainable. It creates inefficiencies, increases the risk of errors, and limits an organization’s ability to scale efficiently.
Think about the challenge of managing legal entities in different countries. All-in-one payroll and HR platforms like Deel make the process vastly easier by bypassing the need for local entities—saving finance, HR, and legal teams massive resources.
In cases where companies still require entities for permanent operations or larger-scale expansions, solutions like Deel and Rillet—with our multi-entity functionality—can still consolidate your operations and enable your finance team to focus on what matters most: driving growth and making smarter decisions.
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Trend #2: Compliance is becoming more complex
Global payroll compliance has always been challenging, but the industry is getting even more complicated. Two major forces are driving this shift:
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A rise in remote and hybrid work: Even five years after the pandemic, remote and hybrid workforces remain the norm. As of 2024, 81% of companies were either exclusively remote or hybrid. While this unlocks access to a global talent pool, it also creates significant payroll hurdles. Each employee is subject to unique tax laws, social contributions, and labor regulations based on their location, making compliance across distributed teams a logistical minefield.
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Massive regulatory shifts: Regulations themselves are tightening across the globe. For example, data protection laws like GDPR in Europe impose strict guidelines on how employee payroll data must be handled. In the US, the expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could potentially introduce significant changes. Emerging markets are also implementing new tax rules, further complicating compliance for businesses operating across borders.
Why this matters
Compliance isn’t just about avoiding fines—it’s about safeguarding your organization’s reputation and maintaining employee trust. A single mistake, such as a late tax filing or incorrect payment, can lead to financial losses, legal exposure, and frustrated employees.
For growing companies, managing compliance across multiple jurisdictions becomes unsustainable without modern systems to automate and streamline these processes.
Deel’s Compliance Hub helps businesses stay on top of global regulations with automatic updates on labor laws and tax changes in over 150 countries.
The Deel platform also includes tools for classifying workers correctly and reducing compliance risks, making it easier to manage legal requirements across borders.

Trend #3: HR and finance ecosystems are rebundling
Over the last decade, businesses leaned into point solutions for their finance and accounting tech stack—specialized tools for specific needs like payroll, expense tracking, or benefits management.
While these solutions offered flexibility, they also introduced complexity, leaving companies juggling disconnected systems that don’t always work well together.
Now, thanks to advances in technology, the pendulum is swinging back toward rebundled solutions—platforms that unify payroll, HR, and finance into a single ecosystem. Businesses are recognizing that integrating these functions leads to better efficiency, fewer errors, and stronger decision-making.
And even in cases where bundling isn’t possible, vendors are increasingly collaborating to build integrations and find solutions that make it easier for data to flow seamlessly between systems.
Why this matters
At the end of the day, what this move toward rebundling signals is the need for payroll, HR, and finance systems to work seamlessly together to support global operations.
Disconnected tools create inefficiencies, making it harder to manage payroll across regions, track labor costs, and stay compliant. But businesses shouldn’t have to compromise between flexibility and efficiency. That’s why more vendors are prioritizing direct integrations and data interoperability, allowing companies to scale globally on their own terms.
Rillet supports this shift by providing a single source of truth for payroll and accounting, whether companies manage payroll in-house, rely on trusted partners, or use a mix of both.

Is your organization ready to address these global payroll challenges?
From shrinking finance teams to evolving compliance regulations and fragmented tech stacks, the challenges of global payroll are more significant than ever. Companies that don’t adapt risk falling behind, but those that invest in modern solutions can position themselves for long-term growth.
At Rillet, we’re all about simplifying accounting for high-growth companies. By automating workflows across multiple entities, geographies, and currencies, we make global payroll easier, faster, and more scalable for finance teams.
Ready to see how Rillet can transform your global payroll? Schedule a call with our sales and product team here.

About the author
Shannon Ongaro is a content marketing manager and trained journalist with over a decade of experience producing content that supports franchisees, small businesses, and global enterprises. Over the years, she’s covered topics such as payroll, HR tech, workplace culture, and more. At Deel, Shannon specializes in thought leadership and global payroll content.