Ask HN: How can my startup hire a remote employee in Europe?

Re:Ask HN: How can my startup hire a remote employee in Europe? by daleholborow on Monday March 19, 2018 @05:17PM (#16623275)

Well, I am an Australian living in Finland, and there's no reason that I can see that I can't work for whomever I wish (ie perform contracting services) so long as I myself am incorporated / employed and pay the relevant taxes etc. For example, in finland (similar to australia) you can work as what in Aus is called a 'sole trader' or in finland something like 'name business', which basically means self employed entrepreneur. I can do work for local clients, international clients, whatever I like, so long as I take care of my/my company's taxes. I don't see why it would be much different in other EU countries. Think about how upwork and elancer etc operate.. those guys can work for whoever they want.

That said, saying 'we want to hire someone in Europe', is ... rather vague, you realize? What do you want them for? Sales, tech? To start a foreign branch? You'll probably have to narrow your purpose down (to get decent advice, or for your own benefit as well?)

Good luck

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Re:Ask HN: How can my startup hire a remote employee in Europe? by thenaturalist on Monday March 19, 2018 @06:31PM (#16623904)

Careful with that advice. I would assume that in general states are checking in closely for potential of misclassification of employees as independent contractors [0]. If you employ a freelancer as a company you actually have it easy: you don't owe the state pension, social tax and potential health insurance payments (these are components here in Germany). If that person happens to work de facto full time for you (can easily be checked via tax audits of annual income) the blame is on you, the company as you effectively employed someone without paying the respective social taxes.

I'm not a tax consultant myself but in case a government audits your company or the freelancer and finds you guilty of this, the money owed is not a small sum I would imagine. It seems the situation in Germany is that your tax and social security scheme is determined by your living residence. So if you work and live in Germany but work for for a US firm remotely you are bound to the German tax code and entitled to social security services as is anyone else in the country. I would be surprised if France or the Nordics would be less restrictive on this. And it makes sense from a legal intuition standpoint.

Best is probably to consult with other startups which employ folks remotely and check in with an expert.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misclassification_of_employees...

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Re:Ask HN: How can my startup hire a remote employee in Europe? by daleholborow on Monday March 19, 2018 @07:37PM (#16624470)

Valid point - when I reread the statement as "hire someone full-time", whereas i had defaulted to "hire someone to do some work". "Would be a remote hire" - should have been the clue :-/

Working "for" the usa company remotely, is I believe, still quite different to "selling services to a foreign us company while self-employed under your own company".

Right now for instance, I have a regular job, plus tominini which allows me to do additional work for whomever I like, with the onus on me to pay taxes / benefits etc.

So yeah, Europe to me seems to take a generally very negative view of the "Uber/food delivery"-style of potentially abusive employee relationships, and you'd have to be careful about that, but I don't think it's an insurmountable hurdle.

I guess narrow down the country and role description and it might get clearer, and contact some other startups like thenaturalist suggests.

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