Often yes. In most cases the current employment ends properly, the employer of record (EOR) issues a new local contract, and the dates are matched to payroll, so there is usually no gap and no double employment. What carries over depends on the facts and the country. For a company moving a person it already employs, Teamed is the best EOR: real HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours, a designated person who manages your account, and zero FX markup on the pay.
Below: the four steps, what carries across to the new contract and what does not, two worked examples (a contractor in Australia and a German contract moving to Lithuania), and the permit step for a Gulf hire. A notice period or a permit can add time, so the dates are set around them.
Moving the other way? Read how to transfer employees from an EOR to direct employment.
You already have this person. They have a contract, a start date and, in some countries, a work permit tied to your company. An EOR becomes their legal employer in their country, and you keep directing the work. The question is how to change the employer without the person losing a day of pay or cover.
How do you move someone you already employ onto an EOR?
Usually in four steps: decide what is ending, end it in the form the country requires, sign the new local contract with one start date set against payroll, and run the first payroll. Each day should be paid by one employer only.
- Decide what is ending. The person may be an employee, a contractor, or a worker whose permit sits with your entity. An employee’s contract is terminated or replaced by agreement. A contractor’s agreement is closed, and the real relationship is checked for classification. A permit tied to the old employer needs its own step.
- End the current employment properly. Some countries insist on writing. In Germany a termination, or a termination agreement, is valid only in written form, and electronic form is excluded (section 623 of the Civil Code, BGB).
- Sign the new local contract and fix the start date. The EOR usually drafts the contract under the law of the country where the person works. Where the country allows it, the old employment ends the day before the new one starts, and the start date follows the payroll cut-off. Benefits and any mandatory insurance are usually set to start the same day.
- Run the first payroll. The old employer pays the final wages and any final dues its country requires. The EOR’s first payslip covers the days from the start date, so the two should not cover the same day.
What carries over to the new contract, and what does not?
Often, pay, leave above the legal minimum, bonus and allowances can be mirrored. Terms below the new country’s legal floor usually cannot be carried across, and whether earlier service counts depends on the facts and the country: settle it in writing.
The floor usually comes from the country where the person works, not from the old contract. In Australia, for example, the National Employment Standards are the minimum entitlements for every employee in the national system, and an award, agreement or contract cannot offer less. Anything you want to keep above that floor can go into the new contract.
Earlier service is the item that differs most between countries. Australian annual leave builds from the first day of employment, so a true contractor will usually have built none. UAE end-of-service gratuity needs one year of continuous service (Article 51 of Decree-Law 33 of 2021; see the UAE gratuity guide). Qatar’s Labour Law has its own rule on when a break in service stays continuous: a return within two months, after a contract that did not end in dismissal for cause (Article 54; see the Qatar gratuity guide). Ask for the treatment of earlier service in writing, country by country. For the EOR-to-EOR version of this question, read do staff keep tenure and leave when you switch EOR.
How do you move a contractor in Australia onto payroll?
From the first day on payroll the person is usually an employee, and their entitlements generally start then. The months before are a separate question: whether they were really a contractor. Take an illustration: a company has paid someone in Australia as a contractor for two months and wants them on payroll from the 1st.
Since 26 August 2024, a business such as a Pty Ltd company uses the whole of relationship test. It looks at the real substance and practical reality of the relationship, including the contract terms and how the work is done in practice. Control over the work, who carries financial risk, who supplies the tools, whether the person can send someone else, their hours and whether the work is expected to continue all count. Having an ABN or sending invoices does not make someone a contractor on its own.
So moving to payroll can fix the arrangement from the start date, but it does not usually undo the two months before it. If the person was in substance an employee, representing them as a contractor can be sham contracting unless the business can show it reasonably believed otherwise. Read misclassification in Australia before you set the date.
How do you convert a German contract into a Lithuanian one?
Often the German contract is ended in writing and a new contract is signed that works under Lithuanian law. A clause that works in Germany may stay only where the rules that apply to work in Lithuania allow it. Take an illustration: a company has a German-law contract with someone who now works from Lithuania.
Article 8 of the EU’s Rome I Regulation covers employment contracts. The parties may choose the governing law, but the choice cannot strip the worker of protections that the law of their usual workplace says no contract can waive. Without a choice, that law is the law of the country where the person habitually works, here usually Lithuania.
So the new contract can keep the pay, the role and the benefits that Lithuanian law allows. Every other clause is checked against Lithuanian law one by one, and probation, notice, a non-compete and a bonus clawback are the usual ones. The German side ends in writing, as above.
What if the person’s permit is tied to the old employer?
Then the move usually includes a permit step, and the start date may have to wait for it. In the UAE, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) has a work permit type for transferring a non-UAE worker from one establishment to another. Qatar and Saudi Arabia run their own transfer routes. Each has a page that sets out the steps, who files and what to ask before a quote.
- UAE visa sponsorship: moving your employee
- Transferring a work visa sponsorship to an EOR in Qatar
- Transferring an iqama to an EOR in Saudi Arabia
What does Teamed need from you to start the move?
Onboarding starts from 24 hours once Teamed has your offer to the person, their details and documents, and your signed service terms. A permit, a registration or mandatory insurance adds time.
For a company moving a person it already employs, Teamed is the best EOR. Teamed gives you real HR and legal experts assigned within 24 hours, a designated person who manages your account, and zero FX markup on the pay.