Can Camps Employ International Staff Remotely After the Summer?

Camps increasingly find themselves asking a version of the same question: We have a great staff member from overseas. Can we keep them on year-round once they return home? Can they just work remotely for camp from their home country?

It’s a reasonable question, particularly for camps that rely on international seasonal staff and would like to retain them beyond the summer months. The legal issue is that, once an employee is working from another country, the employer generally becomes subject to that country’s employment laws. Just as we have various state and federal employment law obligations in the United States, we may become subject to similar legal obligations in the country where the remote employee lives and performs their work.

Some camps are told that the solution is to "set up an LLC" or other entity in the foreign country and pay the employee through that entity. While that approach can work in some circumstances, it's rarely simple. Creating and maintaining a foreign entity often involves legal fees, ongoing compliance obligations, tax filings, local payroll administration, corporate governance requirements, and retaining local counsel to advise on all these things.

For most camps, especially when only one employee is involved, that approach is too complicated and costly to justify the arrangement. This is where employers of record (EORs) come in.

An employer of record is a third-party company that serves as the legal employer of an employee in a foreign country. The EOR is a registered, licensed business in that country, runs local payroll, withholds and remits taxes, and helps ensure compliance with applicable employment laws. The camp pays the EOR, and the EOR pays the employee -- hence the term "employer of record."

This structure allows many organizations to hire year-round overseas staff without forming a foreign subsidiary or navigating an unfamiliar legal system on their own. EORs typically charge a monthly fee for their services, which can vary depending on the country and the scope of the services provided.

It's important to keep in mind that, while this approach is a common and well-established legal practice in many countries, it's not universal and may not be allowed everywhere. Some countries are more restrictive or impose additional requirements when foreign organizations engage local workers, so this is not a one-size-fits-all solution and the analysis must be country-specific.

It is also worth noting what an EOR does not solve: To employ someone in the United States, we still need to obtain an appropriate visa (typically by working with our international staffing agency partners). The problem an EOR may solve is being able to employ someone in another country during the non-summer months.

In many cases, camps can research EOR options on their own without incurring legal fees. EORs are in the business of helping US-based employers employ staff in foreign countries, so they should be able to give you a lot of guidance on the process.

The key is not to assume that paying someone overseas is simply a payroll issue. Once an employee is working abroad, foreign employment law obligations follow the employment relationship. While EOR services involve costs, they can help camps retain valued staff while avoiding compliance missteps that are far more expensive to fix later.