Global EOR Coverage & Infrastructure Index 2026

HR.software analysed 73 Employer-of-Record providers and the structured country-coverage records attached to them — 1340 records across 51 countries, backed by 1512 source-linked evidence edges. The question is not whether providers claim global reach, but how clearly they disclose how that reach is delivered.

Only 48.1% of country-coverage records state a delivery model. Where it is recorded, native (owned-entity signal) leads partner-delivered roughly 2:1 — but 51.9% of records carry no model at all. Unknown means not disclosed in available sources — not that delivery is absent or partner-run. The legal employer and the responsibility split depend on this, not on the country flag alone.

Coverage is densest in Europe and APAC (63.9% of records combined). Africa accounts for 3.6% of records across 6 countries and 38 providers — thinner, and needing more country-by-country verification for mining and project-based hiring. This reflects which countries the research captured as priorities, not the limit of any provider's footprint.

The median provider documents 11 countries; the broadest documents 36 of the 51 captured. Breadth here is bounded by what the research captured, so a provider's full claimed footprint may be larger — Filta and peers lead within this dataset, not necessarily in absolute reach.

Payroll delivery is disclosed by 98.6% of providers and contractor support by 47.9%. Benefits (31.5%) and especially visa/immigration (38.4%) are the least consistently recorded. Low disclosure is not evidence a capability is missing — many providers deliver it without structured tagging — but it marks where buyers should verify directly.

90.4% of coverage records were verified within 12 months and conflicts are negligible (0.1%). But 84.4% of evidence edges cite vendor-owned sources. That is normal for capability claims; it simply flags where independent corroboration adds the most. Vendor-owned is a sourcing note, not a quality judgement.

Each provider is scored on 8 disclosure dimensions — country coverage, delivery model, payroll, benefits, visa, contractor, evidence recency, and independent sourcing. The mean is 5.56/8. The score measures how much a provider discloses and how verifiable it is — not how good, compliant, or affordable they are. A lower score means thinner public disclosure in this dataset, nothing more.

Treat a country on a coverage map as the start of diligence, not the answer. For each target country, confirm who the legal employer is, whether delivery is owned or partner, who runs payroll, who administers statutory benefits, and whether visa support is included. Keep contractor and employee workflows distinct, and get pricing, setup fees and deposits in writing with a validity date. Disclosure makes a provider easier to evaluate — it does not by itself make them the right fit.