Pay Your International Team in Local Currency

International payroll, in the sense we handle it, is the payment part: taking your pounds, converting them at a clear rate, and getting the right net amount into each person's account in their own currency, on time, every cycle. If you employ or contract people abroad, the salary or invoice is often owed in their currency, and paying it through a standard business account tends to mean a per-payment charge plus a margin buried in the rate. Across a whole team, paid every month, that adds up quickly.

Here's the important boundary. We're a currency and payments service, not a payroll bureau, a tax adviser, or an employer of record. We move the money accurately and predictably. What we don't do is calculate how much tax to withhold, decide whether someone counts as an employee or a contractor where they live, or handle the employment and reporting obligations that come with paying people in another country. Those questions vary a lot by jurisdiction and individual, and they're for your accountant, your payroll provider, or a specialist employer-of-record service. Once you know the net amount each person should receive, we make sure it reaches them cleanly, in their currency, without an unpredictable rate eating into it.

This suits UK businesses paying people who live and work elsewhere. A software startup with remote developers in Portugal, Poland, and Brazil, running the same payroll every month in three currencies. A consultancy that took on a country lead in Canada and needs her paid reliably in Canadian dollars. An agency with a roster of freelance contractors across the Philippines, India, and South Africa, settling invoices at the end of each month. A growing company that's opened a small satellite team abroad and wants their pay to land on the same day, at a cost it can forecast.

The common thread is regular, cross-border people-payments where consistency matters. A team member shouldn't get a different amount because the rate wandered, and you shouldn't be re-checking the true cost after every run. The wider situation, hiring across borders and getting the employment side right rather than just the paying, is covered in our guide to hiring and paying international employees or contractors. If you're weighing up an overseas hire and want to understand the currency side before you commit, our currency risk management page covers how to keep those recurring costs predictable. It sits with the rest of our business FX pages on the hub.