China is the market where a global employer of record platform is hardest to run well, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of effort. Employer contributions are not set nationally. Rates, contribution bases, caps and filing deadlines are fixed city by city, revised every year, and published on each city’s own schedule.
That makes provider choice matter more in China than almost anywhere else on your shortlist. This sets out what to check before you sign, whichever provider you are looking at.
Why China Is Different From the Rest of Your Shortlist
In most countries an EOR needs to get one set of rules right. In China it needs to get a different set right in every city where you employ someone.
Three things vary locally, and each one breaks a different assumption a global platform tends to make.
The rates. Employer social insurance and housing fund contributions run to roughly 30% to 40% on top of salary, but the composition differs. Shanghai folds maternity insurance into a 9% medical rate, so adding it separately overstates your cost. Guangzhou still collects it separately. Getting that one detail wrong inflates every estimate you produce for that city.
The base. Contributions are calculated on a contribution base, not on current salary. The base is normally the employee’s average monthly wage over the previous calendar year, and it sits between a municipal floor and ceiling. Beijing’s 2026 declaration notice states this directly and sets a declaration window that ran from 10 June to 25 July. Miss the window and a default base applies, which will not match your payroll.
The calendar. Each city runs its own revision cycle. Shanghai’s runs from 1 July, and the figures are published a few months later and applied retroactively. The 2025 limits were published on 18 September 2025, setting a ceiling of RMB 37,302 and a floor of RMB 7,460 against a 2024 city average wage of RMB 12,434 a month.
The part that catches finance teams. Because Shanghai backdates, a base change creates a shortfall for months already paid. The same notice required employers and employees to settle that difference by the end of October 2025, and waived late-payment fees for the catch-up period.
Ask any provider how they handle the backdated adjustment, and when they will tell you about it. Finding out from an invoice is not the same as being warned in September.
None of this is exotic. It is ordinary Chinese payroll administration. But it is administration that has to be done per city, per year, in Chinese, against notices published on municipal websites. That is the capability you are actually buying. For the full city-by-city picture with each rate linked to the authority that set it, see the breakdown of employer contributions in China.
Five Questions to Ask Any Provider
These work on any vendor, including the one that brought you here. The useful part is not the question. It is what a thin answer sounds like.
| Ask | A strong answer sounds like | A thin answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Which Chinese cities do you administer in, and how do you track rate changes? | Named cities, and a description of who monitors the municipal bureau notices | “We cover China.” China is not a payroll jurisdiction. Cities are |
| How is the contribution base set, and who declares it? | Prior-year average monthly wage, subject to the local floor and ceiling, declared in the city’s annual window | A percentage applied to gross salary. That produces the wrong number for anyone near the caps |
| Where is employee data stored and processed? | A specific answer about where the data physically sits, and on what basis it moves if it moves | “Our platform is secure.” Security and location are different questions |
| What sits outside the headline fee? | A written list: onboarding, offboarding, severance handling, benefit changes, backdated adjustments | A single monthly figure with no exclusions named |
| Who handles a labour bureau query, in which language and time zone? | A named local team who deal with the bureau directly, in Chinese, in China hours | A ticketing system and a support SLA |
The second question is the one worth pressing hardest. An employee on a salary above the ceiling costs less in contributions than a naive percentage suggests, and one whose prior-year wage was low costs less than their current salary implies. A provider quoting from gross salary alone has not modelled either case.
Where Your Employee Data Sits
This is the question that comes up least often on a shortlist and matters more than its billing suggests.
Running payroll for a China-based employee means handling their name, identity number, bank details, salary, social insurance record and housing fund account. Under the Personal Information Protection Law, handling that information in China carries obligations, and moving it out of China is a step with its own conditions rather than a technical detail.
A platform built to serve many countries from one system has to make a decision about where that data lives. That decision may be entirely defensible. The point is that it is a decision, and you should know what it was before you sign rather than when someone in legal asks.
Three things to establish: where the data is physically stored, who inside the provider can access it and from which country, and what happens to it when you leave. NNRoad’s position on payroll data protection in China sets out how we answer those, so you can compare it against whatever else you are being told.
What a China Hire Actually Costs
Use this to test any quote you are given. A Shanghai office employee on RMB 30,000 a month, with the employer at the lowest work-injury benchmark and a 7% housing fund election.
| Item | Rate | Employer cost (RMB) |
|---|---|---|
| Pension | 16% | 4,800 |
| Medical, maternity included | 9% | 2,700 |
| Unemployment | 0.5% | 150 |
| Work injury, office benchmark | 0.2% | 60 |
| Housing fund, 7% election | 7% | 2,100 |
| Statutory cost on top of salary | 32.7% | 9,810 |
| Total before any provider fee | — | 39,810 per month |
Rates verified August 2026 against the Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Shanghai Medical Security Bureau. Base limits are those published for the year to 30 June 2026. Shanghai had not published the following year’s figures at the time of writing, and will backdate them to 1 July when it does.
So an RMB 30,000 salary is a commitment of roughly RMB 477,720 a year in statutory cost alone, before the provider’s own fee. Two things move that figure: your work-injury classification, and the housing fund rate you elect from the permitted band. A provider that quotes you one flat percentage for “China” has not asked you either question. To model a specific salary, the China labour cost calculator does the arithmetic.
When a Global Platform Is the Right Answer
Often. It would be dishonest to write this page without saying so.
If you are hiring eleven people across nine countries and one of them happens to sit in Shanghai, a single contract, a single invoice and a single system is worth a great deal. Splitting China out means another vendor, another contract, another reconciliation, and a finance team that now has two sources of truth. That cost is real, and for a small China headcount it can outweigh the accuracy you gain.
The calculation changes when China stops being incidental. A growing China team, employees in more than one city, salaries near the contribution ceiling, a data position your legal team has started asking about, or a first termination: any one of those turns depth in one market from a nice-to-have into the thing you are buying.
The honest version is that this is a trade-off with a crossover point, not a right answer. Work out which side of it you are on before you shortlist, because the two kinds of provider are good at different things.
Global Platform or China Specialist
This compares two models, not two companies.
| Consideration | Global platform | China-focused provider |
|---|---|---|
| Best when | China is one of many countries and headcount there is small | China is a real team, in more than one city, or growing |
| Consolidation | One contract, one invoice, one system across every country | A separate relationship to manage alongside the others |
| City-level detail | Depends entirely on the in-country arrangement. Ask what it is | The core of what is being sold, so ask them to prove it |
| Data location | A single global system has to choose. Find out what it chose | More likely to be in-country, but confirm rather than assume |
| Escalation | Through a global support function | Usually direct to the people who deal with the bureau |
| Where it hurts | The unusual case: a mid-year city transfer, a termination, a backdated base adjustment | Everywhere that is not China, where you still need someone else |
Employment is also not the only structure available. Where the work is genuinely project-based, or where a dispatch arrangement is being proposed, the rules differ again and the labels get used loosely. The distinctions are set out in the guide to contractor dispatching in China.
Check NNRoad Against the Same List
It would be a poor article that handed you five questions and then exempted itself. Here is what we can show you, and what we cannot.
On tracking municipal rates. Our breakdown of employer contributions in China carries rates for Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, with each figure linked to the bureau that published it and dated. That is the same work our payroll team does monthly, published so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
On data. Our position on payroll data protection in China is written down and public.
On cost. The China labour cost calculator produces a figure for a specific salary before you speak to anyone.
On what a blog post cannot settle. Entity structure, client references and how a particular termination was handled are things to ask about directly, with names and specifics. Any provider claiming them in a marketing page, including this one, is asking you to take it on trust. Ask us the same five questions you ask everyone else.
Want the real number before you compare quotes?
Tell us the city, the salary band and how many people, and we will send the all-in monthly employer cost with each element itemised, so you can hold every quote on your shortlist against the same breakdown.
FAQ
Can an employer of record hire in China without a local entity?
Yes. The EOR becomes the legal employer through its own China entity, so your company does not need one. What differs between providers is how that entity is arranged and which cities it can administer in.
How much does an employer pay on top of salary in China?
Roughly 30% to 40% of the applicable contribution bases, depending on the city, the work-injury classification and the housing fund rate the employer elects. A Shanghai office hire at a 7% housing fund election runs about 32.7%.
Is the housing fund rate the same for every employer?
No. Each city publishes a permitted band and the employer selects a rate within it, with the employee matching. Shanghai’s ordinary band is 5% to 7%. It is the single largest source of cost variation between two employers in the same city.
Do EOR employees in China receive the same statutory benefits as directly hired staff?
Yes. They are employed by a Chinese entity under a Chinese labour contract, so social insurance, housing fund and statutory leave apply in the same way. The EOR arrangement changes who the legal employer is, not what the employee is entitled to.
Can I move an employee from one EOR provider to another in China?
It is possible but it is a real employment change, not a transfer of paperwork. The employee is terminated by one legal employer and hired by another, which affects continuity of service, accrued leave and social insurance records. Plan it deliberately rather than treating it as a vendor switch.