Employer of Record in China: 17 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in China: key facts

China splits employment rules by city rather than province or federal/state lines, so the figures below give the national statutory floor plus Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen — the three cities EOR vendors and this page’s cost examples use.

Minimum wage

China has no national minimum wage; each city or province sets and reviews its own, usually annually in these three.

Published rates exclude overtime pay, night/heat-allowance premiums, meal/commute/housing subsidies, and the employee’s own social-insurance and housing-fund contributions — the same four carve-outs apply in all three cities’ notices (rsj.sh.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

Employer contributions

The mandatory “five insurances + housing fund” (五险一金) bundle, with bases revised annually (typically each July, Shenzhen’s medical/maternity base on a calendar-year cycle instead):

Shanghai’s employer medical-insurance rate has been cut three times since 2021 — 10.5% to 10% to 9% — while every other component held flat (see What it costs below for the effect on the total).

Working hours and overtime

• Statutory floor: 8 hours/day, 44 hours/week (Labor Law Art. 36).
• Market-standard practice nationwide, including all three cities, is a 40-hour, 5-day week under the State Council’s 1995 Provisions on Working Hours (english.court.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).
• Overtime is capped at 1 hour/day (up to 3 hours in special circumstances) and 36 hours/month.
• Premiums: 150% of normal wage for overtime on a normal working day, 200% for a rest day (unless compensated with time off), 300% for a statutory public holiday (no substitute time-off allowed).

Annual leave and public holidays

Annual leave is tiered by an employee’s cumulative years of service across all employers, not just tenure with the current one:

• Under 1 cumulative year: no statutory entitlement.
• 1-10 years: 5 working days.
• 10-20 years: 10 days.
• 20+ years: 15 days.

Public holidays and rest days don’t count against annual leave (gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

China has 13 paid statutory public-holiday days/year nationwide — the same in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, since these are set centrally: New Year’s Day (1), Spring Festival (4), Qingming Festival (1), Labour Day (2), Dragon Boat Festival (1), Mid-Autumn Festival (1), National Day (3). This was raised from 11 to 13 days by State Council Decree No. 795, effective 2025-01-01 (gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

Probation

Probation length is tied to the contract term (Labor Contract Law Art. 19):

Only one probation period is allowed per employer-employee pair, and it counts as part of the contract term, not on top of it (english.court.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

Notice and severance

• China has no general at-will “notice period” model; dismissal must fit a statutory ground.
• For no-fault grounds (Labor Contract Law Art. 40 — unfit after training/reassignment, medical incapacity, fundamental change of circumstances), the employer owes 30 days’ written notice or one extra month’s wage in lieu, plus severance.
• For serious-fault dismissal (Art. 39), no notice or severance is owed.
• Severance: one month’s average wage (last 12 months) per full year of service; 6 months-1 year counts as 1 year; under 6 months pays half a month. If monthly wage exceeds 3x the local average wage, compensation is calculated on 3x that average instead, capped at 12 months of pay regardless of tenure (english.court.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

13th salary and bonuses

No PRC statute mandates a 13th-month payment. A year-end bonus (年终奖, often timed to Spring Festival) is near-universal market practice and commonly written into EOR contracts, but it’s contractual, not a legal entitlement (english.court.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

Mandatory benefits

• The “five insurances + housing fund” bundle itself is the core mandatory benefit (see Employer contributions above).
• Statutory sick-leave pay (病假工资) is also mandatory, typically 60-100% of wage depending on tenure and local rules.
• No mandatory private supplementary health or life insurance; EOR packages commonly add it commercially (rsj.sh.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

Work permits

• A foreign national needs a Work Permit for Foreigners (categorised A/B/C by a points system), a Z visa, and, after entry, a residence permit.
• The “employing unit” on the work-permit application must be a lawfully established PRC entity with a real business location, must pay the worker’s wages, and must withhold IIT and pay social insurance directly.
• The employer named on a foreigner’s labor contract must match the employer named on their work permit, and foreign employees cannot be hired through labor dispatch or business outsourcing at all — not capped at 10%, as for Chinese staff, but barred entirely (China-Briefing, checked 2026-10-01).
• A China EOR’s own licensed entity can in principle be the sponsoring employing unit, but only if it’s genuinely the day-to-day employer and the role is credible against the entity’s own registered business scope (typically HR/staffing/consulting).

Currency and payroll

• Payroll runs in Chinese yuan (CNY); PBOC’s central-parity fixing was 1 USD = 6.7351 CNY as of 2026-09-30 (tradingpedia.com, checked 2026-10-01).
• Wages must be paid at least once a month, in money, on a fixed pay day agreed in the contract (Labor Law Art. 50); monthly salary is standard market practice (english.court.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

Is Employer of Record legal in China?

Grey area. China has no legal category called Employer of Record. What’s marketed as EOR runs on the labor-dispatch (劳务派遣) regime: a licensed dispatch agency signs the labor contract and “dispatches” the worker to a “using unit” — but that using unit must itself be a registered PRC entity, which a wholly overseas client doesn’t have. Modern EOR vendors sidestep this by having their own licensed PRC entity directly employ the worker under an ordinary labor contract and selling an HR-outsourcing service to the client instead — a structure with no explicit statutory blessing (cbltranslations.com, checked 2026-10-01).

• Labor dispatch is capped at 10% of a using unit’s workforce and limited to temporary (under 6 months), auxiliary or substitute roles (MOHRSS Order No. 22, effective 2014-03-01, compliance deadline 2016-02-29). Representative offices are exempt from the position-type limit, since their staff must be dispatched by law anyway (gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).
• A dispatch licence needs at least RMB 2,000,000 in paid-in registered capital, fixed premises, and runs for 3 years (gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).
• Representative offices can’t sign labor contracts directly; Chinese staff must be seconded through a FESCO-style dispatch agency, which becomes their official employer of record for contract, payroll and social insurance (China-Briefing, checked 2026-10-01).
• Foreign employees can’t be hired via labor dispatch or outsourcing at all: the employer on a foreigner’s labor contract must match the employer on their work permit (China-Briefing, checked 2026-10-01).
• Social-insurance contributions must come from the entity with the genuine employment relationship; an EOR arrangement without one can itself be a violation, independent of the dispatch headcount rules (cbltranslations.com, checked 2026-10-01).

For the client, four risks follow: permanent-establishment and illegal-office exposure if EOR-employed staff conduct sales or other business-generating activity for a company with no PRC registration (pinsentmasons.com, checked 2026-10-01); social-insurance/benefit risk, since an on-paper employer with no genuine employment relationship can see the social-insurance administration refuse to pay out benefits, with cited cases including court-ordered indemnification and a criminal fraud prosecution over falsified enrolment (cbltranslations.com, checked 2026-10-01); enforcement leverage, since authorities can freeze a non-compliant employer’s China accounts and impose exit bans until liabilities are settled; and work-permit risk for foreign hires, since a client can’t use an EOR as a pass-through sponsor for someone whose day-to-day work and direction genuinely sits with the client rather than the EOR entity.

Who actually employs your hire in China

Three names you might expect aren’t in the table below at all: Oyster lists China among countries it won’t hire in at all; Rise’s own China page marks Employer of Record “Coming Soon” (it only offers contractor payments there today); and China doesn’t appear on Justworks’ published list of EOR-supported countries. Native Teams’ China touchpoints — a “China (Hong Kong)” salary calculator and a separate Hong Kong EOR page — point to Hong Kong rather than the mainland, so it’s left out pending clarification from the vendor.

Of the 17 that do offer China EOR, here’s what each vendor’s own China-facing page says about who actually employs your hire:

Thirteen of these 17 don’t say whether China is served by their own entity or a partner’s. That matters more here than in most countries: since labor dispatch is barred for foreign hires and the labor-contract employer must match the work-permit employer, a vague “we handle compliance” answer doesn’t tell you whether the vendor can legally sponsor that specific hire. Before signing, ask directly: “Is the entity that will employ my hire in China your own, and does its registered business scope cover this role?”

How to choose an EOR in China

Hiring in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong or Zhejiang specifically? Remote states it owns its China entity directly, but limits EOR coverage to exactly those four provinces — check this before picking Remote if your hire is elsewhere.

Want the clearest entity evidence? Deel names 14 provinces, including Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, for its own entities and backs it with a published China price; Borderless AI and Remote also name China specifically rather than citing only a global entity count.

Weighing price against completeness? Remote People discloses a city- and salary-based $300-600/month range; Skuad’s discounted $379/month is the lowest single published figure among vendors with other China-specific detail. Most others — Multiplier, RemoFirst, Playroll, Pebl, G-P — only give a global list price.

Bringing in a foreign national who needs sponsorship? Confirm the vendor’s China entity is genuinely the day-to-day employer and that the role fits its registered business scope — the labor contract employer must equal the work-permit employer, and none of the 17 vendors here states explicitly that it meets this test.

What it costs to employ someone in China through an EOR

China has no small-employer relief on social insurance or the housing fund — an EOR’s payroll is modelled here as its own PRC entity with a large combined payroll, so every component applies at the stated rate up to each city’s base ceiling. Work-injury insurance uses each city’s lowest office/IT industry-risk tier, and housing fund is set at 7% for all three cities for comparability — Shanghai’s statutory ceiling is 7%, but Beijing and Shenzhen allow up to 12%, so a real EOR could cost more there.

Source: rsj.sh.gov.cn · beijing.gov.cn · hrss.sz.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01.

Shanghai’s total employer contribution on this salary has eased only slightly since 2021 — from CNY 10,260/month to CNY 9,810/month now — because the medical-insurance employer rate was cut three times, from 10.5% to 10% in 2022 and to 9% in 2024, while every other component held flat (ybj.sh.gov.cn, checked 2026-10-01).

The EOR’s own fee is on top of the above. Published China-specific figures in our data run from about $300/month (Remote People’s low end, up to $600 depending on salary, city and visa status) to RMB 4,296/month (roughly $638) at Deel; Skuad’s discounted China rate is $379/month and Borderless AI’s is $579/month. Most other vendors — Multiplier, RemoFirst, Playroll, Pebl, G-P and more — publish only a global list price ($199-$599/month) or none at all, quote-based.

Hidden costs, where published: Deel states a one-off setup cost of RMB 0 for its China EOR option, against RMB 20,000-100,000+ to set up your own China entity, per the same comparison table (Deel, checked 2026-10-01). RemoFirst, Pebl and Boundless all state no setup fees and no minimum contract globally, though none of the three gives a China-specific figure to go with it.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. Stays outside the labor-dispatch problem described above entirely, since no PRC labor-contract employer needs to be named at all. See our contractor misclassification glossary entry for where that line generally sits.
• Your own PRC entity. The route with the clearest statutory basis for employing staff directly and sponsoring a foreign hire’s work permit yourself, since an EOR can’t be a pass-through sponsor for someone whose day-to-day work sits with the client rather than the EOR entity.
• A PEO. Papaya Global runs a separate China PEO product alongside its EOR; see our PEO glossary entry and EOR vs PEO for how the liability split differs.

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01 — Shenzhen Tier-1 basic medical insurance employer rate rises from 5% to 6% (plus 0.5% maternity, unchanged), as the city’s phased pandemic/cost-relief rate reduction expired on 2025-12-31.
• 2026-03-01 — Shanghai holds its phased-reduction medical insurance employer rate at 9% (8.5% basic + 0.5% local supplementary) for a further 12 months, through 2027-02-28 — the third consecutive year at this rate.
• 2026-07-01 — Annual social-insurance contribution-base reset in all three cities: Shanghai CNY 7,546-37,731/month, Beijing CNY 7,270-36,348/month, Shenzhen pension base CNY 4,775-27,549/month and housing-fund base CNY 2,520-48,471/month.
• 2026-09-01 — Shenzhen’s full-time minimum wage rises from CNY 2,520 to CNY 2,700/month (part-time hourly rate from CNY 23.7 to CNY 25.4/hour), following a Guangdong provincial directive — the only one of the three cities’ minimum-wage moves that falls inside 2026.

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

• Deel states Shanghai’s minimum wage as RMB 2,690 (dated June 2025) and Beijing’s part-time rate as RMB 26.4/hour; the current figures are CNY 2,740/month in Shanghai (from 2025-07-01) and CNY 27.7/hour in Beijing (from 2025-09-01).
• RemoFirst says China’s minimum wage “hovers around CNY 2,590/month” without naming a city or date; current city rates range from CNY 2,540 (Beijing) to CNY 2,740 (Shanghai).
• Playroll states “around CNY 2,690 in major cities like Shanghai”; the current Shanghai rate is CNY 2,740/month, in force since 2025-07-01.

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-10-01 against city-level government sources (rsj.sh.gov.cn, beijing.gov.cn, hrss.sz.gov.cn) and, for the labor-dispatch and work-permit rules, China-Briefing and cbltranslations’ legal commentary. Vendor entity claims were checked against each vendor’s own China-facing page; no Chinese corporate registry (qcc, tianyancha, gsxt) was checked, since all three require a login, so where a vendor states only a global entity model, we recorded China as not disclosed rather than assuming. The ranking above puts vendors with a China-specific entity statement and price first. Nobody pays for placement on this page.