You found the perfect senior engineer. She’s based in Brazil, the role is in the UK, and she needs visa sponsorship. Without a UK entity holding a sponsor license, you can’t sponsor her. Setting up a UK limited company takes 4–8 weeks. Getting a sponsor license takes another 8–12 weeks. That’s 3–5 months before you can even file the visa application. This is the exact problem EOR solves.
Visa sponsorship is when an employer files for a work permit or visa on behalf of a foreign employee. The sponsor takes on legal obligations: confirming the role is genuine, that the salary meets minimum thresholds, and (in many countries) that a local worker couldn’t fill the position through a labor market test.
The costs and timelines vary dramatically by country. A UK Skilled Worker visa requires a sponsor license (£536–£1,476), a per-worker certificate of sponsorship, and an Immigration Skills Charge of £364–£1,000 per year. Total employer cost: £3,000–£8,000 per worker over a 3-year visa. The US H-1B involves a lottery with roughly 25% selection rate, $2,000–$4,000 in legal and filing fees, and 3–6 months processing if selected. Singapore’s Employment Pass costs SGD 105 to file but requires a minimum salary of SGD 5,600 (higher for financial services and older candidates under the COMPASS framework).
Some countries make sponsorship straightforward. The UAE and most Gulf states process work visas in 2–4 weeks with minimal bureaucracy. Others make it deliberately difficult — the UK’s system exists partly to reduce immigration numbers, and the US H-1B lottery rejects 75% of applicants regardless of qualifications.
Why It Matters for EOR
EOR providers sponsor visas through their local entities. This solves the chicken-and-egg problem: you need an entity to sponsor a visa, but setting up an entity takes months. An EOR already has the entity, the sponsor license, and the immigration process in place.
Sponsorship capability varies by provider and country. Remote handles immigration in-house across major markets through their owned entities. Others outsource to immigration law firms and pass through costs of $3,000–$8,000 per case. Before offering a role to someone who needs sponsorship, confirm three things with your EOR: do you support visa sponsorship in this specific country, what’s the total cost, and what’s the realistic timeline — not the marketing timeline.
One critical consideration: the visa is tied to the sponsoring employer — the EOR. If you later switch EOR providers or bring the employee onto your own entity, the visa typically needs to be transferred or re-issued. This creates switching costs and, in some countries, gaps in work authorization during the transition.
For global standards on migrant worker protections and sponsorship frameworks, see the ILO Fair Recruitment Initiative.
For practical use of this concept, see EOR vs PEO explained and remote jobs by country.
Further Reading
- Hiring in the United States: H-1B lottery and visa options — The US visa system is uniquely complex, with lottery-based selection and multi-month processing times.
- Hiring in the United Kingdom: sponsor licenses and the skilled worker visa — The UK requires employers to hold a sponsor license before they can sponsor any worker.
- EOR comparisons
- Read Deel review
- EOR vs PEO explained
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