Contractor or employee? What changes about how you pay someone in Africa, Latin America or Asia

Storspay moves money; it does not decide employment status, and this is not legal advice. But the question comes up on every onboarding call, so here is the practical map finance leads have found useful. Confirm the specifics with local counsel or an employer-of-record.

The questions that usually decide it

• Does the person set their own hours and methods, or do you?
• Do they work for other clients, or only you?
• Is the engagement for a project, or indefinite?
• Whose equipment, whose email address, whose management chain?
• Does the local law in their country presume employment after a period or a share of income?

Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina all have their own tests, and several have become stricter about misclassification. If most answers point to "employee", talk to an EOR or a local payroll provider before you pay another invoice.

What each answer means for the money

Employee: statutory deductions, benefits and filings apply in their country. The net salary still has to reach their account — and an EOR or your local entity usually still moves it by wire. Many use Storspay to fund the local payroll account or pay the net salaries directly, at 2% instead of a wire.

Contractor or supplier: they invoice, you pay the invoice. This is the case Storspay was built for: batch payouts to bank or mobile money, entered in USD or local currency, with a statement that matches each invoice. Contractors keep their own tax affairs; you keep the invoice and the completed statement.

Three habits that keep things clean

1. Get an invoice for every contractor payment and reference it on the Storspay line — the statement then documents itself.
2. Pay in the currency the contract states. Storspay's "they receive exactly this" field fixes a local-currency amount; the USD bank payout option fixes a dollar amount.
3. Review the relationship yearly. Contractors who become indispensable become employees in the eyes of most laws.

When the money side is the only side left to fix, the calculator shows what it costs.

Who this is for — and who it is not for

Storspay is for businesses, and a sole trader counts as one. If you are a freelancer or sole proprietor trading in your own name, you open a business account of the sole-trader type. You can be paid by companies abroad, and you can pay other businesses on Storspay — including other sole traders — for work they have done for you.

What Storspay is not is a personal money-transfer service. We do not open personal accounts, and every payment has to be a business transaction: an invoice, a contract, work delivered. Money to family, gifts and personal transfers are not what this is, and we would rather say so now than at verification.