You have to really want that person because it is a trade off in terms of admin overhead and cost.
Today, we have one full time team member in Germany and in the past we had someone in the Netherlands too.
In both cases, we used specialised payroll companies who charge a fee to be that person’s legal employer. They take care of taxes, health insurance, and other legal requirements. The cost of such a service has varied between €350 and €450 a month.
The real cost though is in covering the different payroll taxes in other countries. Add that to the payroll company’s fee and it costs us at least £10,000 more each year to employ someone in Germany than if they were in the UK.
I’ve seen confusion here and on twitter as to why more companies won’t hire remote outside their own country. The reason might be that it’s relatively expensive and outside the company’s competence.
Details on tax optimization vary depending on your country of residence and the country where you opened your company.
For the "employer" company this is also very simple as they're just paying the invoices you send them.
Some countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, specifically prevent this in either law or regulation.
I know because I've been looking recently..