Employer of Record Greece: 6 Providers Compared

The first Athens offer I put together was wrong by about a third, and the mistake was entirely mine. A customer success hire who had invoiced us as a contractor for a year wanted to move onto payroll, the monthly euro figure she named looked modest next to the US equivalent, and I multiplied it by twelve.

Three lines explained the gap. The Greek year runs to fourteen payments rather than twelve. Employer contributions take another fifth on top of all fourteen. And the exit, the part nobody models at offer stage, comes with a published table rather than a two-week notice email.

An employer of record handles the mechanics. The provider employs your hire through its own Greek entity, files what the state expects, runs euro payroll into a bank account, and carries the employer obligations, while you keep the work and the relationship.

What it does not do is change the arithmetic underneath, and Greece adds one question worth asking before price comes up: what the provider's Greek entity is actually authorized to do, because supplying workers to another business is a licensed activity here. This guide takes the arithmetic and the licensing question first, then compares six providers on the prices they publish. Every legal and contribution figure below was checked against Greek government sources in September 2026.

How an employer of record works in Greece

An employer of record employs your Greek hire through a Greek entity it already holds, so you can put someone on a compliant local payroll without registering a company in Greece. You choose the person and agree the money; the provider signs the contract and absorbs the employer obligations.

Greece runs the paperwork through one state system, and that system changed recently. ERGANI II replaced the old ERGANI platform outright on 16 February 2026, carrying the simplifications in Law 5239/2025, which cut a hire down to a single form instead of four. Working time then reports itself: the digital work card, introduced by Law 4808/2021, sends the start and end of each shift into the system in real time.

Read the right-hand column twice, because it is the half no vendor puts on a slide. Everything a provider takes off you is administrative or legal; none of it is judgment. You still choose the person, still set the objectives, and still own whatever onboarding experience they actually get in week one, which is the part they will remember.

Fourteen salary payments, not twelve

Greek pay runs across fourteen payments a year: twelve monthly salaries, a Christmas bonus worth a full month, an Easter bonus worth half a month, and a leave allowance worth another half. Annual gross therefore runs about 16.7 percent above a budget built on twelve months, before a single contribution is added.

None of the three extras is a bonus in the US sense. Ministerial Decision 19040/1981 fixes the Christmas payment at a full month for salaried employees, earned over the period from 1 May to 31 December, and the Easter payment at half a month, earned from 1 January to 30 April. The leave allowance comes from the annual leave rules, equals the pay for the leave itself with a ceiling of half a month, and falls due before the leave starts.

All three are settled in fractions when someone joins or leaves mid-year, and all three carry contributions and income tax exactly like ordinary pay. The national pay floor shows the size of the effect: EUR 920 a month is EUR 12,880 a year across fourteen payments, not EUR 11,040.

Who is allowed to employ someone on your behalf

Greece licenses the business of supplying workers to another company, so the first question to put to any provider is what its Greek entity is authorized to do. Law 4052/2012 built that regime around temporary employment undertakings, and the conditions attached to it are not nominal.

The Ministry of Labour sets out the route on its own page for private employment services. The undertaking notifies the Directorate of Individual Regulations, files a full documentary dossier, submits to an on-site inspection by a three-member committee that includes a labor inspector, and may carry on the activity freely three months after a complete notification, unless the ministry prohibits it first.

Two bank guarantees sit behind that, both of unlimited duration and both set by Ministerial Decision 23863/506/2012. One of EUR 60,000 secures the pay of the temporary workers and is lodged with the ministry. One of EUR 30,000 secures their contributions and is lodged with EFKA. A licensed undertaking also files an activity report on ERGANI in the first fortnight of January and July each year, and it is barred from running unrelated businesses alongside the supply of workers.

None of this makes the employer of record model unusable in Greece, and people are employed through it every month. It does mean the arrangement sits nearer a regulated activity here than it does in most of Europe, particularly where the provider employs on its own books while you direct the work daily. Ask which entity signs, ask what that entity is authorized to do, and get the answer in writing before the commercial conversation starts.

What a Greek hire costs on top of gross

Employer contributions to EFKA are 21.79 percent of gross for a standard private sector employee, the worker pays a further 13.37 percent out of their own pay, and both sides stop at a monthly ceiling of EUR 7,761.94 for 2026. There is no municipal payroll tax and no regional surcharge sitting on top.

Those rates have been stable since the start of 2025, when the health branch was cut and the standard coverage package settled at a combined 35.16 percent. The ceiling is the part that moves: e-EFKA circular 4 of 2026 raised it by 2.5 percent, matching the 2025 change in the consumer price index, which only bites on salaries large enough to reach it. Heavy and hazardous occupations sit in separate coverage packages several points above the standard one, so a warehouse role and a desk role are not the same arithmetic.

Put numbers on it. A EUR 3,000 monthly salary is EUR 42,000 of annual gross once all fourteen payments are counted. Employer contributions at 21.79 percent add EUR 9,152, which brings the employment cost to about EUR 51,150 a year before the provider charges anything. A $599 monthly platform fee then adds $7,188, billed in dollars against a payroll paid in euros, so the currency markup is a line rather than a rounding error.

This is why a shortlist built on headline fees misleads. The fee is a small share of the total, and the true cost of employing someone is set by Greek law long before you pick a vendor. Ask about the deposit as well, because one or two months of gross salary held as security moves your cash position more than the monthly fee does.

Leave, notice, and dismissal in Greece

Greek statute fixes floors and ceilings both: 20 working days of paid leave on a five-day week, nine compulsory public holidays, a contractual week of 40 hours, and a probationary period that cannot run beyond six months. The floors cannot be cut by agreement, the ceilings cannot be stretched, and no provider can soften either for you.

Leave grows with service and then jumps. The base is 20 working days on a five-day week for twelve months of employment, granted pro rata in the first year and due by 31 March of the following year under Article 61 of Law 4808/2021, rising by one day for each year beyond the first until it reaches 22. The national general collective agreement of 23 May 2000 then takes it to 25 days for anyone with ten years at the same employer or twelve years of service anywhere, and a further day arrives after twenty-five years.

Public holidays are shorter than the tourist calendar suggests. Article 60 of Law 4808/2021 makes nine days compulsory: 1 January, Epiphany, 25 March, Easter Monday, 1 May, the Dormition on 15 August, 28 October, Christmas Day, and 26 December. Clean Monday and Good Friday are customary rather than compulsory in the private sector, the Minister of Labour may designate up to five more days a year, and a regional governor may add local ones, so the exact calendar depends on where your hire sits.

Working time carries two ceilings rather than one. Forty hours is the agreed week, the statutory limit is 45 hours on a five-day week, and the hours in between count as extra work paid at the hourly rate plus 20 percent. Overtime above the statutory limit is capped at 150 hours a year and four hours a day under Article 7 of Law 5239/2025, and pays the hourly rate plus 40 percent, while overtime that was never declared pays 120 percent on top.

Exits are where the money is, and Greece publishes the number rather than leaving it to negotiation. Severance becomes due once twelve months of service with the same employer are complete, and the Ministry of Labour publishes both ladders on its frequently asked questions page. Written notice runs one month from twelve months of service, two months from two years, three months from five years, and four months from ten. Give that notice and you pay half the severance table; skip it and you pay the whole of it.

The table itself starts at two months of pay for one to four years of service and climbs a step at a time: three months at four years, four at six, five at eight, six at ten, then one further month for each additional year to a ceiling of twelve months at sixteen years and above. It is calculated on the regular pay of the last month at full-time rates. Technical and manual staff run on a separate ladder counted in daily wages rather than months, from seven daily wages at one year to 165 at thirty.

For a small team the practical reading is reassuring. An exit is arithmetic you can do in advance: decide, give written notice, halve the table, and pay. What is not arithmetic is the ground for the dismissal, which still has to hold up, and a provider that cannot explain how it documents one is the wrong provider to discover that with.

Employer of record providers for Greece compared

Six providers publish an employment fee for Greece, and the band runs from $199 to $699 per employee per month. All six publish a contractor rate as well, which makes this an unusually easy category to line up on list price.

Two patterns show up immediately. The spread is $6,000 a year on a single Greek hire, which is real money at small headcount and almost nothing next to the employment cost sitting underneath it. And not one of these pricing pages names the Greek entity that would hold the contract or says what that entity is authorized to do, which is the answer that decides whether the arrangement is sound.

The six providers reviewed

Deel publishes its employment rate at $599 per employee monthly, which sits $100 below the two platforms at the top of this group. For a US company making a first Greek hire, the practical draw is the shape most small teams are already in: one employee in Athens, a couple of people invoicing from elsewhere, and contractor management in the same account rather than in a second vendor relationship.

Press hard on the Greek specifics, because the pricing page answers none of them. Ask which entity employs, what it is authorized to do, who files in ERGANI II, and how the digital work card is operated for a remote hire whose hours nobody is watching. Ask for the Greek contract template too, and read the intellectual property assignment, because your hire contracts with the provider rather than with you.

Remote states on its pricing page that it directly owns all of its legal entities and never relies on third parties to employ workers. That is the vendor's own claim rather than a verified fact, but if it holds for Greece it buys something concrete in a market that licenses labor supply: one named party to put the authorization question to, rather than a partner standing behind a partner.

What you pay for that is $100 a month, or about $1,200 a year on one hire, since $699 is the joint top of the published range. What you get back is a visible exit route: a payroll product at $29 per employee monthly for companies that already hold a local entity, which is where you land if you eventually open a Greek company of your own.

Oyster prices in public, waives the contractor fee for a first 30 days before charging $29, and sells HR advice by the hour instead of folding it into the subscription. The buying flow is the most self-serve of the six, which suits a founder who wants one Greek employee and no account management relationship to maintain.

That hourly rate is the tell. At $300 an hour, advice is a metered product, so budget for it if you expect to lean on the provider at the end rather than at the start. A Greek dismissal needs a valid ground, a notice period counted in months, and a severance figure taken off a table, and that combination is worth a named adviser rather than a support queue.

Papaya Global starts from payments and reporting rather than from employment, and its published entry rate of $499 per employee monthly undercuts everything here except Multiplier's and RemoFirst's. The product line is priced in pieces rather than as a bundle: employment, contractor of record, plain contractor payments, and managed payroll each carry a separate number, so you buy only the one you need.

Reporting depth is the real argument for it, and Greece gives it something to report on. A Greek payslip carries the contribution split, the ceiling once a salary is large enough to reach it, and the extra payments that land in particular months and distort a quarter. A report that keeps those apart earns its keep the first time a finance lead asks why December cost what it did.

Multiplier sells employment in tiers, and its entry rate of $459 per employee monthly on an annual contract, rising to $499 if you pay month to month, undercuts every established platform above it. The higher tier costs more again, so the headline figure buys the smallest package rather than the whole product.

The question to settle is what Greece costs on the tier you would actually buy. Providers price by country, and an entry rate is a starting point rather than a quote, so ask for the Greek figure in writing alongside the deposit and the currency markup. Greece is a well-served market with one national pay floor and published statutory rules, which makes a standard quote more plausible here than in a jurisdiction with sector pay grids.

RemoFirst publishes the lowest fee in this group by a wide margin, starting at $199 per employee monthly, and describes it as a fixed flat rate with no hidden fees and no minimum company size. On one Greek hire that gap is roughly $4,800 a year against the $599 tier and $6,000 against the $699 tier, which is real money at small headcount.

It is also the one platform here that markets the partner question rather than hiding it, publishing its own case for employing through in-country partners. That is a legitimate model and part of why the fee is low, but in a market that licenses labor supply it adds a link to the chain. Ask which Greek partner holds the contract, ask what that partner is authorized to do, and ask what the deposit is, because a low fee paired with a large deposit is not a cheap arrangement.

A provider or your own Greek company

Use a provider while your Greek headcount is small, and cost out your own company once it is not. Greece makes the incorporation itself unusually cheap, which is exactly why the decision deserves a spreadsheet rather than an instinct.

The private company, the IKE, was designed for this. Law 4072/2012 sets its minimum capital at EUR 1, and in the ordinary case it is formed through the general commercial registry rather than by notarial deed. What follows the registration is the real cost: Greek bookkeeping, monthly contribution remittances, ERGANI II filings, digital work card administration, and corporate income tax at 22 percent under Article 58 of the Income Tax Code.

The contractor row carries a warning rather than a recommendation. Article 1 of Law 3846/2010 presumes an employment contract where the work is provided personally, exclusively or mainly to the same employer, for nine consecutive months. As with any misclassification question, what decides the outcome is how the work is actually controlled, not what the agreement is called.

One question belongs with your tax adviser rather than with any vendor. Someone working from home in Greece can create a permanent establishment for your US company depending on what they do and how they do it, and that is a question about your business rather than about the provider you pick.

What to ask before you sign

Before you choose

FirstHR is not an employer of record. We hold no entity in Greece, employ nobody on your behalf, and take on no employer liability, so if you need someone on a Greek payroll next month, the providers above are the category to shortlist. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider.

This section exists because the provider decision and the HR decision are separate, and people conflate them. A provider settles the legal employment question. It does not run the first week, own the signed documents, deliver the training the role requires, or keep employee records in a state where you can find them a year later.

That layer stays yours whichever route you take, and it is what we built FirstHR for: onboarding with e-signature, document management, training with completion tracking, and an employee record that holds together for a small business without a dedicated HR person, at a flat $98 to $198 per month.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an employer of record in Greece?

The provider that already holds a Greek entity and puts its own name on the contract, so the payslip and the EFKA file point at it rather than at you while the person works for you in every practical sense. It registers the hire in ERGANI II, runs the digital work card, remits tax and contributions, and absorbs the legal exposure a US company with no Greek presence has no way to carry.

How much does an employer of record cost in Greece?

Published fees among the six providers here run from $199 to $699 per employee monthly. Add employer contributions at 21.79 percent of gross, a gross figure spread across fourteen payments rather than twelve, a deposit each provider sets privately, and a currency markup, since every fee in this category is billed in dollars against a payroll paid in euros.

What is the minimum wage in Greece?

The floor is EUR 920 a month for salaried work and EUR 41.09 a day for blue-collar work, both in force since 1 April 2026 and both about 4.55 percent above the figures they replaced. Because pay runs across fourteen payments, that is EUR 12,880 a year rather than EUR 11,040, and a collective agreement covering the job can set a higher floor for the grade.

What are employer social security contributions in Greece?

Two rates matter, and only one of them lands on your budget. The employer pays 21.79 percent of gross under the standard private sector coverage package and the worker pays 13.37 percent, a combined 35.16 percent, with both sides capped at EUR 7,761.94 of monthly pay for 2026. Contributions apply to the bonuses and the leave allowance as well as to the twelve monthly salaries.

How many salary payments does a Greek employee get?

Fourteen, and none of the extra two months is discretionary. A Christmas payment worth a full month and an Easter payment worth half a month come from Ministerial Decision 19040/1981, and the leave allowance adds another half month under the annual leave rules. Each one is settled pro rata for part periods and carries contributions and income tax exactly like ordinary pay.

Does an employer of record need a license in Greece?

Settle it in writing with every provider on your shortlist, because Greece treats the supply of workers to another business as a licensed activity. Law 4052/2012 sets the framework, the Ministry of Labour takes the notification and inspects the premises, and two bank guarantees of EUR 60,000 and EUR 30,000 stand behind the pay and the contributions of the workers supplied.

How much does it cost to dismiss an employee in Greece?

Every exit past the first twelve months carries a number from a published table, calculated on the regular pay of the last month. Without notice it runs from two months of pay at one year of service to twelve months at sixteen years and above. Give written notice of one to four months, by length of service, and the amount halves, which is why the notice decision is a financial one as much as a courteous one.

Should I use an employer of record or set up a Greek company?

Provider now, company later, and the switch point is arithmetic rather than ambition. An IKE can be registered with capital of EUR 1, but it also needs Greek bookkeeping, monthly contribution filings, ERGANI II administration, corporate income tax at 22 percent, and ongoing administration, against a fee that scales with every head you add.