TL;DR: Switching employer of record (EOR) providers is a well-worn path, but it hides three money traps: deposits stuck at your old provider, severance-style payouts that a termination can trigger in some countries, and benefits gaps between entities. Plan the cutover around a payroll cycle and get your old provider's exit terms in writing before you give notice. If you're switching for cost, Shor is $299-449/month per employee and $19/month per contractor, with pricing you can read before you sign, some of the lowest published prices in the market. There is no lock-in on our side either: month-to-month, 30-day cancellation, no early termination fee, no offboarding fee. If you don't like us, you leave. The one cost you can't cancel away is statutory: ending an EOR employment relationship still follows local labor law, so notice and severance depend on the country and, in many of them, on how long the person has been employed.
Disclosure up front: we build Shor, and companies switching to us is how we grow. That's exactly why this guide is conservative. A switch that breaks someone's paycheck helps nobody, least of all the new provider.
Why companies switch
The reasons are boringly consistent: cost (the gap between a $299 and a $699 monthly fee is real money at ten employees), support responsiveness at small account sizes, and pricing transparency, especially around FX margins and deposits that only surface after signing. We've compared the published numbers in detail in our EOR pricing comparison, so this page skips the price table and covers the part nobody prices: the migration itself.
How a switch actually works
There's no legal mechanism to "transfer" an EOR employee in most countries, because your team member is legally employed by the provider's local entity, not by you. So the standard mechanics are resign and rehire: the employee formally ends employment with EOR A's entity and is hired by EOR B's entity, ideally effective the next day.
Justworks describes the process plainly: the employee resigns from the current EOR as of their start date with the new one, signs a new employment agreement, and the previous EOR handles final payments including paid time off, severance, or bonuses where applicable. Oyster's migration guide frames it the same way, and RemoFirst notes that whether it's structured as resignation-and-rehire or formal termination-and-reonboarding is decided in the legal review, country by country.
On timing: Justworks suggests budgeting 60-180 days for most EOR transitions including your current provider's notice period, while RemoFirst says simple transitions finish in a few weeks. In practice, one country with a handful of employees is a 30-90 day project; the long tail is visas, notice periods, and slow statutory deregistration.
The one rule everyone agrees on: cut over on a payroll cycle boundary. The old provider runs the final payroll and settlement through the last day; the new provider's first payroll starts the next cycle. Splitting a month across two entities is where paychecks break.
The five money traps
1. Your deposit at the old provider. Many EORs hold a deposit per employee, often around a month of total employment cost. Getting it back is not instant: Deel's own help center states that EOR deposit refunds are returned within 60 days after the termination process completes and all invoices are paid (often sooner). Meanwhile your new provider may require its own deposit before onboarding, so you can be double-parked on deposits for a month or two per employee. Ask your current provider, in writing, exactly when and how deposits are refunded after offboarding.
2. Severance and end-of-service triggers. In some countries, ending an employment relationship, even as part of a friendly migration, crystallizes a payout. As one independent migration guide puts it, "in countries with mandatory severance accrual (Italy's TFR, Brazil's FGTS, UAE's end-of-service gratuity), terminating the employment relationship with the old EOR may trigger a payout obligation." If the old EOR accrued those funds correctly, the money exists; if not, you may owe a lump sum you didn't budget. Related traps to ask about explicitly: whether tenure-linked entitlements (gratuity clocks, seniority-based notice) restart from zero at the new entity, and whether the new contract puts the employee back on probation. Ask both providers, in writing, for a per-employee statement of accrued end-of-service liabilities before you commit to a date.
3. The contract you signed with the old provider. Master service agreements vary, and we won't speculate about any specific provider's terms. But the same migration guide notes that "some providers charge early termination fees if you leave before the contract term ends. Others charge per-employee offboarding fees." Before you give notice, search your own MSA for "initial term", "auto-renewal", "notice period", and "offboarding fee", and ask your account manager to confirm in writing what leaving will cost and how much notice is required.
Run that same search on whatever you sign next, including ours. On our paper the answers are short: month-to-month, 30-day cancellation, no initial term, no auto-renewal to catch, no early termination fee, no per-employee offboarding fee. Separate that from the employee's side of the ledger, which no provider can waive: on EOR, ending the employment relationship follows local labor law, so what you owe in notice and severance depends on the country and often on the person's length of service. Our notice periods by country table shows how wide that spread is, from no statutory notice in some markets to tenure-based tiers in others.
4. Benefits gaps between entities. Health insurance and pensions are attached to the employing entity, so they don't travel. Oyster flags this directly: benefits packages are tied to the local employment entity, and specific plans may change with the provider. The risks are a coverage lapse between the old plan ending and the new one starting, and waiting periods on the new plan. Ask the new provider to match or better each benefit line, confirm enrollment dates against the cutover date, and ask whether waiting periods can be waived for transferring employees.
5. Accrued leave. Untaken vacation is a liability someone has to honor. RemoFirst's guidance: "in some countries, accrued leave balances can transfer to the new employer, while in others they may need to be paid out before onboarding." A payout is fine for you but can surprise the employee (it's taxable income, and their balance resets to zero). Get the per-country treatment in writing and tell each employee which one applies to them.
A UK-specific flag: TUPE. In the United Kingdom, the resign-and-rehire framing may not even be the legally correct one. Under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations, employees can transfer automatically to a new provider on their existing terms, and a service provision change between contractors serving the same client can qualify. If TUPE applies, terms are protected and the process (including consultation duties) is different. If you have UK employees, ask both providers how they handle TUPE and get specific legal advice rather than assuming resign-rehire.
The right way to sequence it
- Before giving notice: get your old provider's deposit refund policy, offboarding fees, and required notice period in writing. Get a per-employee statement of accrued leave and end-of-service liabilities.
- Pick the cutover date: a payroll cycle boundary, far enough out to clear the old MSA's notice period and the new provider's onboarding time in the slowest country.
- Paper early: have the new provider issue employment agreements weeks before cutover, so any negotiation over terms happens before anyone has resigned from anything.
- Overlap benefits: confirm new coverage start dates in writing before old coverage ends; ask for waiting-period waivers.
- Communicate before the paperwork lands: a short meeting explaining that this is a payroll-provider change, not a job change (same role, same manager, same pay), plus what will look different: a new contract to sign, a new payslip portal, possibly a leave payout. An unexplained termination letter from an entity your employee has never heard of is how you lose people.
- Verify the first payroll: check the first run at the new provider line by line, then chase the deposit refund from the old one.
Switching to Shor
Our migration process follows the same mechanics above, so we'll describe it the way we'd want it described to us: typically, contractors move in about a week (new contracts re-signed, payment details verified, next invoice paid through Shor), and EOR employees are sequenced around payroll cycles per country, usually one to two cycles from kickoff. We put the exit questions from this guide into a written migration plan per person before anything is signed.
Pricing is the part you can verify yourself before talking to anyone: $299-449/month per employee by country, $19/month per contractor, a flat disclosed 2% FX margin on every receipt, month-to-month billing, and deposits that are country-dependent and quoted up front, so the cash-flow picture is known before you sign. The pricing calculator shows every statutory line item per country.
The exit works the same way in reverse, which matters more than it sounds after reading trap three. There is no initial term to serve out, no auto-renewal, no early termination fee, and no per-employee offboarding fee. Month-to-month, 30-day cancellation. If you decide we aren't the right fit, you give notice, we run the offboarding properly, and you leave with your records and your people intact. We would rather earn the next month than hold you to the last eleven.
Be clear about which lock-in is which, though, because we can only remove one of them. The commercial side is ours to waive and we do. The employment side belongs to the country: on EOR, ending the relationship runs through local labor law, and the notice and any severance owed depend on where the person works and often on how long they have worked there. Some markets require no statutory notice at all; others tier it by tenure and add an accrued end-of-service payout. That bill is the same whichever provider is holding the employment contract, which is why trap two above is worth pricing per person before you set a date, and why we put those numbers in the written migration plan rather than discovering them at cutover.
All third-party information referenced here is from each provider's published pages or the cited independent guides as of August 2026 and may change; confirm current terms directly with each provider and with your own counsel, since employment rules vary by country. All trademarks belong to their respective owners, and no provider mentioned here is affiliated with or endorses Shor.
FAQ
How long does it take to switch EOR providers? Vendor guides quote wide ranges: Justworks suggests 60-180 days for most transitions, while RemoFirst says simple cases finish in a few weeks. A single-country migration with no visas typically lands in 30-90 days. Contractor migrations are much faster, usually days. The floor is set by your old provider's notice period plus one clean payroll cycle.
Will I get my deposit back from my old EOR provider? Deposits are generally refundable after offboarding completes and final invoices are paid, but not instantly. Deel's help center, for example, states refunds are returned within 60 days of completed termination. Get your provider's specific refund timeline in writing before you give notice, and budget to fund the new provider's deposit before the old one is returned.
Can switching EOR providers trigger severance payments? It can, depending on the country. Independent migration guides flag mandatory severance-accrual regimes (Italy's TFR, Brazil's FGTS, UAE end-of-service gratuity) where ending the employment relationship with the old EOR's entity may crystallize a payout. In the UK, TUPE can instead transfer employees automatically on existing terms. Ask both providers for a per-employee liability statement before setting a date.
Does Shor lock me into a contract term? No. Month-to-month with 30-day cancellation, no initial term, no auto-renewal, no early termination fee, and no per-employee offboarding fee. Independent migration guides note that early termination and offboarding fees do exist in this market, so it is worth searching for those clauses in any provider's agreement before you sign, ours included. One honest caveat: leaving is free on the platform side, but ending an EOR employee's employment is governed by local labor law, so statutory notice and any severance depend on the country and often on the person's length of service. Contractors have no such exposure.
Do my employees have to do anything during the switch? Yes: formally resign from the old EOR's entity effective the cutover date, sign a new employment agreement with the new provider's entity, re-complete onboarding documents (ID, tax, and payment details), and enroll in the new benefits plans. Their role, manager, and pay stay the same, which is why the announcement should come from you before any paperwork arrives.