Offshore staffing in Australia: how it works and what it costs

Offshore staffing means having dedicated people in another country working exclusively on your business, and for most Australian businesses that country is the Philippines. Together they form your offshore team. There are three ways to do it: a managed provider that hires the person and charges you a monthly fee (one published rate is A$1,099 per person per month plus A$1,200 per hire), an employer of record that handles payroll for a flat monthly fee, or direct hire, where you pay a recruiter once and then hire and pay the person yourself. The salary costs are similar across all three. The fees are not.

This guide explains how each model works, what it costs over one and two years, the benefits and the trade-offs, and how to build an offshore team that lasts.

How does offshore staffing work?

Every offshore staffing arrangement answers the same three questions:

• Who finds the person? A provider, a recruiter, or you.
• Who is the legal employer? The provider, an employer of record, you, or nobody if it is a genuine contractor arrangement.
• Who do you pay, and how often? A monthly fee for as long as the person works for you, or a one-time fee.

The day-to-day work looks much the same in every model. The person works your hours, in your systems, on your tasks. What changes is the cost, who carries the employment obligations, and how close your relationship with the person is.

What is an offshore team?

An offshore team is a group of people based overseas who work exclusively for your business as part of your wider team. They are not a shared pool that also serves other clients. Each person has a defined role, works set hours, uses your systems and reports to someone in your Australian team, the same way a local hire would.

Most businesses build offshore one role at a time. A bookkeeper or an admin assistant comes first, and once that hire is working well, the business adds a second or third person to get more capacity in the areas under the most pressure.

Offshore staffing vs outsourcing vs offshoring

These terms are often used as if they mean the same thing. They don’t.

• Outsourcing means paying another firm to deliver a service or an outcome, such as an accounting firm doing your year-end work or an agency running your marketing. The firm decides who does the work, and its people work across many clients.
• Offshoring means moving work to another country. It describes where the work happens, not who controls it.
• Offshore staffing is a form of offshoring where you get dedicated people, not a service. You define their responsibilities, direct their work and decide their priorities.

In BPO (business process outsourcing), onshore means the provider’s staff are in the same country as the client, and offshore means they are overseas. Offshore outsourcing is therefore an overseas firm delivering a service, while offshore staffing gives you your own staff overseas.

What are the three offshore staffing models?

1. The managed provider

This is what most offshore staffing companies in Australia sell. The provider recruits the person, becomes their employer in the Philippines, usually supplies the desk or equipment, and handles HR and payroll. You direct the work and pay a monthly fee per person for as long as the arrangement runs.

One published rate is A$1,099 per person per month plus A$1,200 per hire, with no lock-in and 60 days’ notice. Ask any provider exactly what its monthly figure covers and how the staff member’s own pay is billed, because pricing structures differ.

The upside is convenience. The provider does more of the work, including office space, IT and HR support. The downside is that the fee never stops, and many providers do not show you what the person is actually paid. Our guide to offshore agency markups explains how that margin works.

2. Employer of record (EOR)

An employer of record becomes the legal employer of your hire in the Philippines. It holds the employment contract and runs payroll, tax, statutory contributions and leave. You direct the work, pay the salary, and pay the EOR a fee.

Tarino EOR, powered by Deel, costs $387 per employee per month, and AUD pricing may vary slightly with exchange rates. Recruitment is a separate one-time $5,000 excl. GST. The salary is not marked up, so you see exactly what your hire earns.

3. Direct hire

With direct hire, a recruiter finds and screens candidates, you choose one, and then you hire and pay that person yourself. There is no ongoing fee. Tarino’s fee is $5,000 excl. GST per placement: $250 upfront, credited back when you hire, plus $4,750 on hire.

You take on more of the admin, such as paying the person each month and setting them up with equipment. In return, you keep the full saving and build a direct relationship with your hire.

What does offshore staffing cost?

Here is a worked example for a full-time offshore bookkeeper. Tarino’s typical salary for the role is about $1,400 a month, or $16,800 a year. The salary is the same in each model, so the table compares the fees on top.

	Managed provider (one published rate)	Employer of record (Tarino EOR)	Direct hire (Tarino)
Upfront or per-hire fee	A$1,200	$5,000 excl. GST	$5,000 excl. GST
Monthly fee	A$1,099	$387	$0
Fees in year one	A$14,388	$9,644	$5,000
Fees over 24 months	A$27,576	$14,288	$5,000
Who is the legal employer	Provider	EOR	You (or a genuine contractor arrangement)

Whichever model you choose, a properly engaged Philippine employee has statutory costs on top of base salary, including employer contributions and 13th month pay. Budget for them in every model.

For comparison, Jobs and Skills Australia lists median full-time earnings for Australian bookkeepers of $1,400 a week, based on the ABS May 2025 survey of full-time non-managerial employees. That is about $72,800 a year before the 12% super guarantee, which the ATO sets as the current rate. General clerks have median full-time earnings of $1,438 a week. Run your own role through the cost calculator to see the numbers side by side.

What are the benefits of offshore staffing for Australian businesses?

Cost efficiency compared with local hiring

Salary is the biggest cost in any hire, and it is where the cost savings come from. In the bookkeeper example above, Tarino’s typical Philippine salary of $16,800 a year is less than a quarter of the $72,800 Australian median, before super: a saving of more than 75% on salary alone. On a 40-hour week, Tarino’s typical $1,200 a month for a customer service hire works out at roughly $7 an hour, and $2,300 a month for a software developer at roughly $13 an hour. Philippine statutory costs and the fees of your chosen model come on top, so compare the full cost of each option, not just the salary.

More capacity for your local team

An offshore hire takes on the processes that fill your Australian team’s week: data entry, reconciliations, scheduling, follow-ups and reporting. That frees your local people to focus on clients, sales and strategic work, and gives your business more capacity to grow without adding the overhead of another desk in your office.

Access to skilled professionals

Hiring offshore widens the pool you recruit from. Tarino builds a pool of 1,000+ candidates per role, which gives you access to skills and expertise that can be hard to find quickly when hiring locally, especially for back office operations such as bookkeeping, payroll support and administrative work.

Working hours that overlap

Manila is 2 hours behind Sydney under standard time, and on the same time as Perth, so an offshore team can work a normal Australian business day.

Which roles suit offshore staffing?

Work that is done on a computer, follows a clear process and can be checked is the best fit. For Australian service businesses, that usually means:

• finance roles such as bookkeepers and accountants
• broking support such as loan processors
• general support such as executive assistants and virtual assistants
• client-facing roles such as customer service
• marketing roles such as marketing assistants and social media managers
• technology roles such as IT support and software development
• healthcare and disability admin such as medical receptionists and NDIS admin assistants

Whatever the industry, the key test is the same: can the work be defined, done remotely and checked?

Roles that need someone physically on site, or that hold regulated sign-off authority in Australia, stay onshore. The offshore hire prepares the work. Your licensed people review and sign it.

When is a managed offshore staffing company the better choice?

To be fair to the model, a managed provider can be the right call when:

• you want the person in a supervised office, not working from home
• you need the provider to supply IT, equipment and HR support
• you are hiring a large team at once and want one provider to run it
• you want to be able to end the arrangement on notice without handling it yourself

If those matter more than the monthly cost, the fee is buying something real. Our direct hire vs offshore staffing agency comparison goes through the trade-offs in detail.

When is direct hire the better choice?

Direct hire tends to suit businesses that:

• want one or a few long-term staff, not a large team
• are comfortable managing the person day to day
• want to know exactly what their hire is paid
• would rather put the monthly fee towards a better salary or a second hire

If you want the direct relationship but not the payroll admin, adding an EOR covers it for a flat monthly fee.

What are the challenges of offshore staffing?

Offshore staffing works well when it is managed well. The common problems are predictable:

• Communication barriers. Written instructions that are clear to you may not be clear to someone new to your business. Language differences can lead to misunderstandings, so confirm tasks in writing and ask the person to play them back.
• Cultural differences. Some staff are less likely to raise a problem or push back on a deadline. Building a unified team culture takes intentional management: invite questions and make it safe to flag issues early.
• Time zone scheduling. The overlap with the east coast is good, but the 2 hour difference, and 3 hours during Australian daylight saving, still affects meeting times and start times.
• Data security and compliance. Remote access to client data is a real risk if logins are shared or access is too broad.
• Hidden costs. Statutory costs, equipment, software licences and any markup in a provider’s fee can erode the expected savings.
• Management and oversight. An offshore hire still needs a manager, clear priorities and feedback, the same as a local hire.

How do you build an offshore team?

1. Define the work. List the tasks that take up the most time and could be done remotely. Write down the responsibilities, software and hours for the first role.
2. Decide what stays local. Keep regulated sign-off, on-site work and the client relationships your business depends on with your Australian team.
3. Choose the right partner. Pick the model that suits your business needs, and check each provider’s or recruiter’s track record with businesses like yours.
4. Find the right people. Test candidates on real tasks, not just CVs and interviews. Skills shown in a practical assessment are a better guide than years of experience.
5. Secure your systems. Set up individual logins, multi-factor authentication and access controls so each person can reach only the data the role needs.
6. Onboard and train properly. Give the new hire a documented process, a named contact and a structured first month. Our first 30 days checklist walks through it.
7. Check in regularly and review performance. Short daily or weekly check-ins keep communication open and catch problems early.
8. Start with one role, then expand. Once the first hire is settled, use what you learned to scale the offshore team one role at a time.

What should you check before you sign?

Whatever model you pick, check these before you commit:

1. Who the legal employer is, and whether the structure matches how the work will be done. Calling someone a contractor does not make them one. The Fair Work Ombudsman says the practical reality of the relationship counts, and our guide to sham contracting explains how the Philippine side looks at it.
2. What the person is paid. If a provider will not tell you, ask why.
3. Notice and exit terms, including whether you can hire the person directly later and at what cost.
4. Data handling. If your hire will see client data, see our data privacy checklist.
5. Replacement cover. Tarino includes 6-month replacement cover for the same role, under the conditions in the guarantee.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm your structure with your accountant or an employment lawyer.

How Tarino works

Tarino is a direct-hire recruiter. We build a pool of 1,000+ candidates per role, screen them through CV, video, practical and interview stages, and send you a shortlist of 3–4, typically within about 2 weeks. You hire and pay the person directly, with one fee per placement and nothing monthly, unless you choose to add Tarino EOR. See pricing and how it works, or book a 30-minute call to talk through your role.