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Not specifically freelancing, but this list fit the bill better than any others!

If an American business wants to employ someone in, say France (who is French), for example, do they need to have an office in France? Are there specific hoops they must jump through in order to employ a foreign national? This would be a full-time employee, not a part-time contractor.

Are there resources for this sort of thing? Cheers!

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    I guess this is proscribed in the Law of some country. In my country if you want to employ a local coder full-time and pay him his pension funds and taxes, then you must have a registered country here.
    – Peter MV
    Mar 4, 2014 at 9:41

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Depends on what you mean by "employ." Depends on the type of business and the work you are asking "employees" to do. There's a big difference between asking people to build 500 widgets, or do programming on a web application.

Many American businesses hire foreign freelancers on a contract basis. You provide steady work like an employee would receive, but do not provide benefits, and work is technically on a longterm contract basis. You cannot legally control other work they take on. Research the concept of corp-to-corp. There are less hoops to jump through. You are a business, paying their business to perform some service.

Definitely consult your tax advisor in this area.

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  • Thanks, I will be. The concern is the 'longterm contract' concept... and how specific one needs to be, I guess. I'm supposing 1-yr at-a-time contract, reviewed and renewed at the year.
    – abenrob
    Mar 11, 2014 at 5:32
  • If you do not propose restrictions on how and when a person works, contract employment should be OK (please consult a legal and/or tax professional in your jurisdiction).
    – ruffrey
    Mar 11, 2014 at 15:15
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Many people are doing the same thing but using some tricks.

They are contacting offshore development centers. You don't need to tackle all the things, depending on the particular country. You just need to some company based in the country, and hire the employees of that company. All the other things for that country will be taken care by that offshore development center.

I have been running an offshore development center in India for the last 4 years. I am handling all the tax and other benefits of employees. I have allocated some employees to 1 USA-based client, and some to 1 UK-based client. The employees seem to be directly working for the client, but they are in our environment, and using our resources. Clients just need to contact project managers in our offshore center, and he gets their work done!

You can also do such things to hire developers from foreign countries.

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