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10 min read

How to Compliantly Send Employees Abroad to Test Markets

Immigration

Global expansion

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Author

Jemima Owen-Jones

Last Update

July 17, 2025

Table of Contents

Top compliance risks of relocating employees for market tests

What visa is required to send employees abroad?

How EOR-sponsored visas can support market testing

Benefits of EOR-sponsored visas for market testing

Why every type of business can rely on EOR sponsorship to test markets

How to choose an EOR visa sponsor

Compliantly test new markets with Deel

Key takeaways
  1. Companies face many obstacles to market testing, such as high setup costs and long visa processes.
  2. An immigration service with Employer of Record (EOR) capabilities like Deel can sponsor workers on your behalf, eliminating the need for extensive setup and lowering the barrier to market entry.
  3. Beyond handling sponsorship, Deel Immigration can take care of eligibility verification, visa applications, and local compliance.

Over half of companies plan to invest more in employee relocations. Business travel and short-term assignments give your organization one of the most efficient ways to get expertise on the ground and test new markets.

But when relocating employees abroad, global mobility teams face a range of obstacles. You must establish an entity, set up physical premises, and obtain a sponsorship license before you can even start visa applications.

Now there’s a faster and less risky alternative. Businesses can outsource hiring to an Employer of Record (EOR) service like Deel and have them sponsor employees on your behalf. This gives you quick access to markets worldwide while skipping all the unnecessary steps at the start.

Deel has successfully relocated thousands of workers for international companies using this approach. Let us break down how our model works and empowers you to move teams quickly without risking compliance issues or increasing costs.

Top compliance risks of relocating employees for market tests

Relocating employees abroad for market testing comes with legal and operational risks, even if it’s only for brief periods. Here are some of the most common pitfalls to watch for:

  • Applying for the wrong type of visa: Business or tourist visas often prohibit hands-on work or revenue-generating activity. Using the wrong visa for employee assignments could lead to a ban for your company
  • Triggering permanent establishment: Sending employees to explore new markets may unintentionally create a taxable business presence in that country, especially if they engage in sales or contract negotiation
  • Overstaying permitted duration: Many short-term visas have strict time limits. Missing renewal deadlines or misjudging stay durations can result in revoked access or legal trouble
  • Worker misclassification: Countries vary in how they define “employment.” If your employee is working locally but not formally hired through local channels, you could face misclassification issues

What visa is required to send employees abroad?

Work visas are required to send employees abroad to test new markets. They’re issued by the government and permit your team to live and work in the country.

To acquire a work visa for a worker, you generally need:

  • A local entity in the destination country
  • The correct sponsorship infrastructure and licensing
  • A valid reason why your company needs to hire internationally
  • A full-time job offer and job description
  • A plan for how long the worker will remain in the country
  • Paperwork like tax documents and background checks
  • Travel and work authorization for the worker

You can use business travel visas for some activities abroad. However, these are limited in scope and are only valid for around three to six months, so they’re unlikely to be suitable for market testing.

Deel Immigration
Get worldwide visas without the legwork
Hire and retain the best global talent, while smoothing out the usual visa hurdles. Deel’s in-house immigration support handles the entire visa process, enabling employees to work from 50+ countries—and counting.

How EOR-sponsored visas can support market testing

An EOR has legal entities worldwide and hires and manages payroll for workers on your behalf. With local infrastructure in place, the provider can also legally sponsor visas where required.

For businesses looking to test demand in a new region, this can dramatically speed up entry. Instead of months spent setting up infrastructure, companies using EORs like Deel can send employees abroad quickly and compliantly — often in a matter of weeks.

EOR-sponsored visas are also built for compliance. Deel’s global mobility and legal teams help ensure visa applications align with local law and that employment contracts, tax handling, and payroll setup meet jurisdictional standards. This reduces the risk of delays, rejections, or noncompliance, freeing your team to focus on learning the market.

Losing out on a candidate or offer stage because we can't support their visa or immigration needs feels really tough. So that was a really good one for us to get over the line because he’s joined and is great.

Leanne Schofield,

Head of People, FORM3

Benefits of EOR-sponsored visas for market testing

Sending employees abroad to test a new market goes beyond securing the right visa. It demands speed, flexibility, and minimal overhead.

EOR-sponsored visas offer a scalable way to explore new regions with less risk, giving companies more room to assess viability before making long-term commitments.

Here are some of the benefits of using this approach:

Expanding your global presence quickly

Navigating unfamiliar business laws, setting up infrastructure, and relocating employees all take time. However, your business may need to move fast to capitalize on opportunities before conditions change or competitors act first.

EOR-sponsored visas offer a faster, lower-risk alternative. Instead of building from the ground up, you can send trusted team members into new regions quickly, using existing internal talent to assess opportunities, build relationships, and gather insights. It’s a faster way to validate potential, allowing your business to become more agile.

Typically [companies] don’t have an entity in the country [where they want to hire], so that’s why they usually leverage our entity…you need to have the right sponsorship infrastructure to sponsor a visa…you don’t want to set up an entity because it’s expensive. You need to be audited, you need to keep up with HR and compliance, there’s quite a burden to it, and you need to report taxes on it at the end of the year (if you’re a US company), so the ability to just being able to hire anyone anywhere without having to set up infrastructure is a game changer for our companies.

Alex Bouaziz,

Co-founder and CEO

Investing fewer resources upfront

Rather than starting from scratch, you can leverage the EOR’s preexisting infrastructure in the target market. This will spare you the costs of forming a local entity, setting up payroll, and researching local regulations.

This lower upfront investment also makes expansion less risky. If a market turns out to be a poor fit, your company will have expended fewer resources. You have more funds leftover to invest in a second attempt or other opportunities.

Seamless worker relocations

Market testing enables foreign employees to emigrate to another country for work. They can lead new divisions and capitalize on exciting new opportunities, giving them more job satisfaction.

EOR services make this process significantly easier, lowering the stress of the experience. This both inspires confidence in your organization and makes employees less likely to reject or cancel relocation requests.

Outsourcing HR, payroll, and compliance

Beyond visas, EOR services like Deel can handle core functions like payroll, benefits, and compliance. Deel has a range of software automation, analytics, and self-service features you can access and use to streamline these operations. This makes your company more scalable as you don’t have to build out these departments as you test new markets and expand your global presence.

Why every type of business can rely on EOR sponsorship to test markets

EOR-sponsored visas serve a wide range of businesses. Even large enterprises that already have the resources to manage compliance across multiple jurisdictions may benefit from a simpler, faster approach.

Some of the most common use cases include:

  • Solopreneurs: Founders can use EORs to sponsor themselves for visas in promising markets for their new venture
  • Startups and scaleups: Small teams with limited legal or HR infrastructure can use EORs to enter new markets quickly without the burden of setting up local entities
  • Global teams expanding operations: Mid-sized and enterprise teams can use EOR support to fill gaps in their international expertise, onboard quickly, and ensure payroll, tax, and visa compliance at scale
  • Organizations hiring international talent: EOR visa sponsorship also works in reverse, letting you compliantly hire skilled workers from around the world and relocate them to your headquarters

Deel saves us around two to four months to hire and relocate in any country where we don’t own an entity. We’ve been able to hire more than 150 people and have also relocated more than 10 employees.

Luka Besling,

HR Manager, Revolut

Choosing an EOR partner is a strategic decision, especially if you’re sending employees abroad to test a market before committing to long-term expansion. You might work with this partner for the duration of any active visas they sponsor, so it's worth getting it right from the start.

Beyond checking case studies and reputation, here are a few practical factors to evaluate:

  • Regional presence and legal infrastructure: Your EOR should have entities in both your home country and the target market. For example, a US-based company expanding into Australia would ideally choose an EOR like Deel with operations in both countries, ensuring familiarity with local laws and integrated payroll processes
  • Visa procurement: Look for an EOR visa sponsor with a proven track record in end-to-end visa processing such as Deel with our over 99% success rate. Deel handles everything from verifying eligibility and compiling the paperwork to supporting workers with embassy appointments
  • Full-service HR and payroll compliance: Visa support is just one aspect of compliance. Choose an EOR like Deel that also manages payroll, taxes, and contracts for your international team
  • Scalability and future-proofing: The services you need today may not be the same in six months. A strong EOR partner should offer options like entity setup and standalone global payroll that support both short-term testing and long-term growth, should the market prove viable
  • Onboarding support: Great EOR sponsors streamline onboarding with a clear checklist, automated reminders, and a self-serve platform where your team can upload documents. This reduces the need for coordination and speeds up relocations
  • Real-time tracking: Prioritize finding an EOR sponsor that gives you clear visibility into every stage of visa processing, for example, Deel includes a live visa timeline and case tracker
  • Updates and notifications: As missing deadlines creates serious issues, your EOR sponsor must send automatic alerts for key milestones for application deadlines, expirations, and renewals
  • Responsive customer service: Leading providers like Deel assign you a dedicated case manager so you have a single point of contact for any issues. Deel enables you to contact your manager directly through our platform

Compliantly test new markets with Deel

Deel combines immigration, EOR, and entity setup services in one place. This gives you an end-to-end solution for global expansion, regardless of your size, location, or long-term goals.

Start with Deel EOR to sponsor and hire workers abroad when you want you want to test new markets. Deel has over 150 locally owned entities, giving you the power to relocate teams anywhere and seize every opportunity.

When you’re ready to establish a local presence, switch to Deel’s Entity Setup service while continuing to rely on Deel Immigration to manage all visa and immigration activities. Our expert teams can compile all the paperwork and handle all the online registration for your business, so you can move to the next stage without delays or issues.

Ready to expand globally? Book a free consultation with the Deel team to learn more about our EOR and immigration services.

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About the author

Jemima is a nomadic writer, journalist, and digital marketer with a decade of experience crafting compelling B2B content for a global audience. She is a strong advocate for equal opportunities and is dedicated to shaping the future of work. At Deel, she specializes in thought-leadership content covering global mobility, cross-border compliance, and workplace culture topics.

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