Canadian SaaS Founder Sets Up Irish LTD for Remote EU Team

Canadian SaaS Founder Sets Up Irish LTD to Replace Four EOR Vendors — Payroll for 7 Engineers in 6 Weeks

Background: EOR fees were eating margin

The founder had grown the engineering team by hiring through Deel, Remote and a smaller European EOR. Total EOR overhead averaged 11–14% on top of gross salary — across seven hires that was over $50,000 a year going to platform margins, plus delays in offering equity (most EORs do not handle ESOPs well) and inconsistent benefits across countries. The founder wanted one Irish operating entity that would employ Irish staff directly under PAYE and contract EU staff under a clean B2B framework.

The challenge: real Irish presence as a non-EU founder

To employ a single person in Ireland, the entity must register with Revenue as an employer (PREM), implement RTI payroll, comply with the National Minimum Wage Act, the Organisation of Working Time Act and the Workplace Relations Act, and operate PAYE / PRSI / USC in real time. As a Canadian-resident founder, the client also had to satisfy Section 137 EEA-resident director compliance. Stitching all of this together via stand-alone vendors typically takes 12 weeks — the client had 6.

The solution: incorporation, employer registration and BrightPay payroll in one engagement

Chern & Co ran the project as a single workstream:

• A1 incorporation, nominee director under Section 137, RBO declaration, registered office in Limerick — week 1
• Revenue registration for CT, VAT and PREM — week 2
• BrightPay payroll deployment, employee contracts reviewed for compliance with Irish employment law, ROS access for the founder — weeks 3–4
• EU contractor framework drafted — uniform B2B services agreement applied to engineers in Spain, Portugal and Estonia — weeks 4–5
• Bank account live, first payroll run executed, P30 monthly return filed — week 6

The outcome: ~38% reduction in third-party fees and a unified equity scheme

Direct employment of the Irish engineer eliminated the EOR fee on that role outright. The unified EU contractor framework cut administrative overhead and gave each engineer a single, consistent contract. The founder rolled out a cap-table-friendly ESOP because equity could now be granted from the Irish parent without EOR intermediation. The Irish LTD now handles invoicing to enterprise customers, EU VAT-OSS, and payroll under one ROS account.

When does it make sense to leave EORs behind?

Rough rule of thumb: once the EU headcount reaches three or more, the math starts to favour direct employment via an Irish LTD. EOR pricing scales linearly; an Irish LTD has a fixed annual cost (statutory filings, payroll administration, registered office) that gets cheaper per employee at scale. As an authorised TCSP and BrightPay reseller, Chern & Co delivers incorporation, employer registration and payroll inside one fixed-fee engagement.