Hire and pay your global team in 200+ countries — with compliant contracts, IP assignment, and one B2B invoice. The entire back office — without the back office.
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Two ways to engage your global team — depending on who they are and what you need.
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The specific scenarios Kleos solves. From scaling teams across borders to clean IP transfer for due diligence — without the operational layer.
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Industry-specific challenges, solved. Whether you're a SaaS startup, a game studio, or a Web3 protocol — Kleos is built for how you actually operate.
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Ecuador · Employer of Record guide · 2026
Hiring in Ecuador? Here’s what an employee really costs
Calculate what it costs to employ someone in Ecuador: enter a gross salary and see every cost in one place. Below, the first-year dates and three checks before you make an offer.
General information, not tax or legal advice. Ecuador resets its minimum wage every January, updates its income tax scale every year and changes its labour rules often, so treat every number here as a starting point and check the terms of the person’s own contract before you make an offer or sign anything at all.
Four reasons teams switch
Human support
A named expert who knows your setup — no ticket queues.
One dashboard
Contractors and employees, payouts and payroll, together.
Automatic documents
Contracts, tax forms, receipts, filings, generated for you.
The legal side is ours
ISO/IEC 27001:2022, GDPR compliant.
One expert. Your whole setup, in their head
No ticket queues, no re-explaining your case to a stranger. You get a named expert who knows your countries, your team and your history — and answers when something is urgent. Personalised support, tailored to how you actually work.
A year in the life of an Ecuadorian employee’s payroll
Before day 1
Contract and IESS
The employer signs a written contract in Spanish, in dollars, registers the employee with IESS from the first day and files the contract with the Ministry of Labour, which also records remote work.
Every month
Payroll and IESS
Each month the employer pays IESS contributions after month end and withholds the employee’s 9.45% and any income tax, all in dollars. From the 13th month it also pays the reserve fund of 8.33%, into IESS or with the salary if the employee asks.
Each year
Bonus salaries and profit sharing
The 13th salary, one month of pay, is due by 24 December. The 14th salary, one minimum wage, is due by 15 March on the Coast and in Galápagos or by 15 August in the Highlands and Amazon. Companies with profits share 15% of them with their staff by 15 April. After a year the employee earns 15 calendar days of paid vacation.
On termination
Notice and severance
Dismissal without cause costs 3 months of pay up to 3 years of service, then 1 month per year, up to 25, plus 25% of a month of pay per year of service. Unused vacation is paid out.
Before you sign
Three decisions are yours: the gross salary in dollars, whether to use the 90-day probation and how you will budget the bonus salaries and the reserve fund. Kleos issues the Spanish contract through its own entity or a vetted local partner, runs payroll and applies the Ecuadorian termination rules under one framework agreement, with no setup fee and no minimum term. You direct the daily work; Kleos is the employer under the Ecuadorian contract. Go through the three checks below first.
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Contractor of Record
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whenever you pay
This is the whole Contractor of Record fee, with the real service baked in, not priced on top. What you see is what you pay, start to finish.
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G2
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · GDPR
The questions
The ten that come up most when companies hire in Ecuador.
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