I wonder why Spain, France, Portugal, Ireland, Sweden… are excluded, but not Germany or the United Kingdom or many other EU countries.

Disclaimer: Working for GitLab since March.

Several countries are on hiring stop currently, mainly those that you have listed. This is due to administrative reasons, as people from those countries work as contractors, as we have no entities there. In Europe we currently have an entity in NL, BE, UK and DE. Furthermore we have an Indian, Chinese and of course US entity.

We don't have an entity in India and China put can hire people there as employees via other companies.

The page specifies that even contractors from these countries are excluded.

I think leipert is saying that people from those countries only work as contractors, and that involves specific administrative problems/burden which Gitlab can't cope with at the moment.

@aissen this is a temporary roadblock for us. As we scale, we are working on a better payroll solution in these locations. We are hoping to remove some of these roadblocks in future entirely. We have already moved a few successfully, like Australia and Canada.

GitLab would love to hire from the places above but I guess taxes and government policies are a big barrier IIRC

Seems like my country it's excluded. Gotta look for another company then