Greece · Employer of Record · Payroll Services · PEO
You have found the person you want to hire in Greece — now you need a compliant way to employ them. JN Recruitment is the expansion partner that connects international companies with vetted Employer of Record and payroll partners in Greece — plus the employment lawyers, tax advisors, payroll bureaus and accountants a Greek expansion actually needs — and delivers the boutique recruitment that finds the candidate in the first place.
for an EOR to issue a compliant Greek employment contract once documents are complete
employer EFKA contributions on a Greek gross salary — budgeted before you make the offer
no Greek subsidiary required — with an Employer of Record, the partner is the legal employer in Greece
our recommendation is free — the best specialist from our vetted Greek network, matched to your case
Payroll partner Greece
Greece rewards companies that get employment right — and punishes improvisation. Every hire must be declared on the ERGANI platform before the first day of work, salaries are customarily paid in 14 instalments with statutory Christmas, Easter and holiday bonuses, EFKA social insurance adds roughly 22% to every gross salary, and the digital work card now tracks working time in real time across a growing list of sectors. Companies that have already found their candidate lose weeks here — or worse, improvise with a freelance invoice that Greek authorities later reclassify as employment.
There are two clean routes. If you have (or will build) a Greek entity, a payroll service provider in Greece runs the monthly payroll, ERGANI filings and EFKA registrations for you. If you have no entity and don’t want one yet, an Employer of Record (EOR) employs your hire legally in Greece while you direct the day-to-day work — what many US companies would call a PEO. The market for both is crowded and opaque; licences, service depth and pricing vary enormously. And sooner or later a Greek expansion also needs an employment lawyer for the contract, a tax advisor for the registrations and an accountant for the books. We vet all of it for you.
JN Recruitment is a boutique recruitment firm headquartered in Mannheim, with offices in Poland and Cyprus — and our Greek-speaking consultants in Larnaca work the Greek-language market daily. Years of placing people in Greece have built us a network of the best employment lawyers, tax advisors, payroll bureaus, accountants and licensed EOR providers in the country. We recommend exactly the specialists your case needs — free of charge, at the partner’s standard rates — and stay your single point of contact. What we deliver ourselves is the headhunting: the sales recruitment agency for Greece that international machinery, industrial-technology and recycling companies already use to enter the market.
What we arrange
Whatever stage your Greece plans are at — first hire without an entity, or a full team on an existing Greek company — this is what our vetted Greek network delivers: EOR providers, payroll bureaus, employment lawyers, tax advisors and accountants, matched and introduced by us:
The partner becomes the legal employer of your hire in Greece — Greek employment contract, ERGANI declaration, EFKA registration, payroll with all 14 statutory payments — while you manage the work day-to-day. Live within days, no Greek entity required. The standard route for a first hire in Greece.
For companies with a Greek entity: a specialised payroll bureau runs the monthly payroll, ERGANI filings, EFKA contribution statements, withholding-tax remittances, payslips and the Christmas, Easter and holiday bonus calculations — no in-house Greek payroll expertise needed.
Searching for a “PEO Greece”? The US-style PEO doesn’t exist 1:1 under Greek law — the compliant equivalents are EOR employment or outsourced payroll on your own entity. We translate what you actually need into the right Greek construct.
Specialised employment lawyers for watertight Greek contracts and terminations, tax advisors for registrations and filings with the Greek tax authority (AADE), accountants for the books — the advisory bench every Greek expansion eventually needs, already vetted and briefed.
Onboarding paperwork, digital work card compliance, absence tracking and statutory registrations — plus audits of Greek freelance setups: labour inspectors reclassify disguised employment, and partners convert contractors into compliant employment before that happens.
The part we deliver ourselves: executive search for technical sales and leadership roles in Greece. If you don’t have the candidate yet, we find them — then plug employment and payroll in behind the signed offer.
Market knowledge
Greek employment is bonus-heavy and increasingly digital — predictable, if you know the numbers before you sign. The essentials we brief every company on before a Greek hire:
Greek private-sector salaries are paid in 14 instalments: twelve monthly payments plus a Christmas bonus, an Easter half-bonus and a summer holiday half-bonus — all statutory, all attracting EFKA contributions. Any EOR or payroll quote for Greece must budget the annual cost on 14 payments, not 12. We make sure yours does.
Every hire must be declared on the ERGANI digital platform before the employee’s first day — retroactive registration is treated as undeclared work and fined heavily. Contract terms, working-time schedules and overtime run through the same system, and the digital work card adds real-time clock-in tracking sector by sector.
Greece’s statutory minimum wage was raised to about €880 gross per month in 2025 — paid 14 times a year — and the government has signalled further increases. Professional salaries sit well above it, but the floor moves often, and sectoral collective agreements can set higher minimums that also bind an EOR.
Greek law allows a probationary period of up to six months, and statutory notice for white-collar employees scales with tenure to a maximum of around four months — with the option to pay severance in lieu. Compared with Germany’s standard, a Greek hire is on board fast and separations are arithmetic, not litigation.
Employer cost benchmarks
Payroll quotes in Greece are built on EFKA social insurance, paid by both sides on gross salary — across all 14 annual payments. The current picture — the source of the “roughly 22% on top” rule every employer budget should use:
| Contribution | Employer pays | Employee pays |
|---|---|---|
| Main pension (EFKA) | ≈13.3% | ≈6.7% |
| Health insurance (in kind & in cash) | ≈4.6% | ≈2.6% |
| Supplementary pension (auxiliary fund) | ≈3% | ≈3% |
| Unemployment & ancillary funds (DYPA) | ≈1.2% | ≈1.2% |
Orientation figures, rounded: recent contribution cuts have moved the totals slightly year to year, a monthly contribution ceiling caps the base for high earners, and hazardous-occupation surcharges apply in some sectors. Remember the 14 payments: a “€50,000” Greek package costs the employer roughly €61,000 all-in per year. Your payroll or EOR partner’s quote is the binding number.
Yes. An Employer of Record (EOR) employs your candidate in Greece on your behalf: the EOR holds the Greek employment contract, files the ERGANI declaration, registers the employee with EFKA, runs the 14-payment payroll and withholds income tax — and you direct the day-to-day work. No Greek subsidiary, no Greek bank account, no registrations on your side. It is the standard route for a first hire in Greece, and the one most of our clients use while they test the market.
The EOR is the legal employer under Greek law. It issues a compliant Greek employment contract, declares the hire on ERGANI before day one, registers the employee with EFKA, withholds income tax for the Greek tax authority, pays the statutory Christmas, Easter and holiday bonuses, administers leave and sick pay, keeps the digital work card compliant where it applies, and handles terminations with the correct notice or severance. You remain in charge of the work itself — targets, tasks, tools — and reimburse the EOR for gross salary, employer contributions and a service fee.
Typical Greek EOR pricing is a flat €200–600 per employee per month, or a percentage of gross salary — on top of the salary itself and roughly 22% employer EFKA contributions across 14 payments. Compare that with the alternative: forming and running a Greek IKE or EPE means formation costs, accounting, annual filings and a local payroll setup — rarely worth it below three to five employees. We match you with a partner whose pricing fits your head-count and flag the all-in monthly number before you commit.
Budget roughly 22% employer EFKA contributions: main pension (≈13.3%), health insurance (≈4.6%), supplementary pension (≈3%) and unemployment and ancillary funds (≈1.2%) — applied to all 14 annual salary payments, with a monthly ceiling capping the base for high earners. The bigger trap for foreign budgets is the 14-payment structure itself: a salary agreed as “€50,000 a year” in Greek terms costs the employer roughly €61,000 all-in. We quote every Greek package in annual gross so nothing surprises you.
In the US, a PEO co-employs your staff while you keep your own entity; an EOR employs them fully so you don’t need one. Greek law has no 1:1 equivalent of the US PEO model — the compliant Greek constructs are EOR employment through a licensed provider (no entity needed) or outsourced payroll and HR administration on your own Greek company. Providers use both labels loosely, which is precisely why we check what a partner actually delivers before we introduce them.
Yes — through properly registered providers. Where the arrangement qualifies as temporary agency work, Greek law requires a licensed temporary employment agency, equal-treatment rules apply, and assignment durations are capped — commonly at 36 months including renewals — before the employment is deemed to belong to the end user. Every declaration still runs through ERGANI, so shortcuts are visible to the authorities. Provider structure and registration status are the first things we verify in our partner vetting.
Yes. If your Greek company or branch already exists, a Greek payroll partner takes over the monthly run: payslips, ERGANI filings, EFKA contribution statements, withholding-tax remittances to the tax authority, the Christmas, Easter and holiday bonus calculations, and year-end certificates. Typical pricing runs per payslip per month. The same partners handle the employer registrations if your entity has never employed anyone in Greece before.
Via EOR: the Greek employment contract and ERGANI declaration are typically ready within three to five working days once the candidate’s documents are complete — the fastest compliant route into the Greek market. Building your own entity first takes weeks including registrations. In practice the binding constraint is usually the candidate’s notice period — rarely more than a few months in Greece, and employers can buy it down against severance — which, as recruiters, is the part we actively manage for you.
Only if they are genuinely self-employed. Greece polices disguised employment through the labour inspectorate and ERGANI’s data trail: a “freelancer” with one client, fixed hours and integration into your team risks reclassification, with back-dated EFKA contributions and fines landing largely on you. Greek freelancers also carry their own social-insurance burden, so seasoned professionals increasingly prefer proper employment anyway. If the working reality is employment, EOR employment costs little more and removes the risk; our partners also audit and convert existing contractor setups.
No — and that is deliberate. JN Recruitment is a boutique recruitment firm and your expansion partner for Greece: over years of placing candidates here we have built a vetted network of the best employment lawyers, tax advisors, payroll bureaus, accountants and licensed EOR providers — and we recommend exactly the specialists your case needs. You contract directly with the partner at their standard rates; the recommendation costs you nothing, and we stay your single point of contact. What we deliver ourselves is the search: if the candidate doesn’t exist yet, our Greek-speaking headhunting finds them.
Across Europe
The same specialised technical sales search opens every market on the continent — pick the country you are expanding into.
Hiring in several markets at once?
Hiring at leadership level? Our executive search practice:
Candidate found — and now need a compliant way to employ them?
Talk to us — no strings attached. We get back to you within 24 hours.
Our mission is simple: placements that open new markets.
30-minute intro call
Two quick steps — tell us what you need and how to reach you. Within one business day you get an intro call and, where it fits, a direct introduction to the right specialists from our vetted network.
Your contact person Jonas Strambach Director & Senior Recruiter, JN Recruitment +49 1525 2077583 [email protected] Thank you — we’ll get back to you within one business day to schedule your intro call.
An honest read on your vacancy & market — in your first call.
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Before you go
Every month a key sales seat stays empty pushes your expansion plans back — and leaves serious revenue on the table. We fill technical sales positions within weeks, so you hit your expansion targets on schedule.
Jonas Strambach Director & Senior Recruiter, JN Recruitment Free vacancy check · reply within 24 hours
