Peru employment facts at a glance
Before you make an offer, you need to know what that offer actually costs and what obligations come with it. Peru's statutory framework is detailed, and the numbers matter.
The numbers that shape every hire in Peru
Employers contribute 9% of gross salary to EsSalud, Peru's national health system. Employees may alternatively choose the private health system (EPS), in which case contribution structures vary. Payroll runs monthly in PEN.
Peru observes 12 public holidays annually. The tax unit value (UIT) increased to PEN 5,500 for 2026 per Supreme Decree No. 301-2025-EF, which affects income tax bracket calculations.
There is no tax treaty between Peru and the United States, meaning employees and employers cannot rely on treaty relief. US-based companies with Peruvian employees may use Foreign Tax Credit or FEIE mechanisms, but this is worth discussing with a tax advisor before you make your first hire.
Working hours are capped at 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week. Overtime premiums start at 25% for the first two hours and 35% for each additional hour beyond that. Pension contributions are subject to verification before publishing, so confirm current rates with your EOR before finalizing offer math.
What hiring in Peru actually looks like
The theory is straightforward. The practice is where most companies run into trouble.
A real scenario of onboarding a Peru-based employee
You've found a strong software engineer in Lima. You want them onboarded within two weeks, but your company has no legal entity in Peru, no local payroll registration, and no familiarity with EsSalud enrollment.
Without an EOR, you're looking at entity incorporation costs, local legal counsel, and payroll registration with Peruvian authorities. That process takes months before your new hire can receive a compliant paycheck.
With an EOR, you issue one contract and the platform handles onboarding. Oyster manages EsSalud enrollment and schedules the 13th and 14th month salary payments automatically.
Oyster can onboard new employees in as little as 48 hours from contract signature.
What an EOR is and why it works in Peru
An employer of record is a third-party provider that becomes the legal employer of your workers in a given country, while you retain full control over day-to-day work. Using an EOR to hire in Peru is fully legal under Peruvian labor law.
What an employer of record actually does for you
An employer of record is a company that employs workers on your behalf in a country where you have no legal entity, taking on the legal and compliance obligations of employment so you don't have to. In Peru, that means your EOR drafts the employment contract in Spanish, runs monthly payroll in PEN, files required tax submissions, enrolls employees in EsSalud, and administers statutory benefits including the 13th and 14th month salaries. You direct the work. The EOR handles everything that touches Peruvian labor law.
This matters because Peru's General Labor Law is not a template you can copy from another country. Contracts must be in Spanish, benefits must be calculated correctly, and payroll must run on a monthly cycle. An EOR with in-house Peru specialists (not an outsourced network) gives you compliance confidence without building a local HR function from scratch.
EOR versus setting up your own entity in Peru
Setting up a legal entity in Peru requires navigating incorporation costs, local legal counsel, ongoing accounting and tax compliance, and corporate governance obligations. The timeline and cost vary, but the administrative burden is real and ongoing.
An EOR removes all of that. You pay a flat service fee, Oyster absorbs the compliance risk, and your employee is onboarded in days rather than months. There are no hidden fees and no termination charges with Oyster.
That said, EOR is not the right fit for every situation. If you plan to hire 50 or more people in Peru over the long term, entity setup may eventually make more financial sense. Oyster can help you think through that decision honestly, including when the math tips in favor of your own entity.
Peru labor laws your EOR manages for you
Peru's labor framework is employee-protective and specific. Here's what your EOR handles so you don't have to.
Employment contracts and probationary periods in Peru
All employment contracts in Peru must be written in Spanish. Both fixed-term and indefinite contract types are available under Peruvian law. The probationary period is a maximum of 3 months. If you extend the relationship beyond probation without formalizing the employment status, the employee may acquire full employment protections by default.
Non-compete agreements are enforceable in Peru but must be limited in scope and duration. They must also include reasonable economic compensation paid after contract completion or termination. Broad, uncompensated non-competes are unlikely to hold up.
Mandatory benefits and 13th and 14th month salaries in Peru
Peru mandates two additional salary payments beyond regular monthly wages. The 13th month salary is paid in July, and the 14th month salary is paid in December. Each equals one full month's gross salary. These are not discretionary bonuses; they are statutory obligations.
Additional statutory benefits include:
- 30 days of paid annual leave per year (a minimum of 15 days must be taken; the remaining 15 may be cashed out)
- Household allowance of 10% of the monthly minimum wage for employees with children under 18, or up to 24 if the child is in higher education
- 98 days of state-paid maternity leave
- 10 days of employer-paid paternity leave
Oyster tracks and administers all of these obligations automatically inside the platform, including scheduling the July and December salary payments so nothing falls through the cracks.
Payroll taxes and social contributions in Peru
EPS (Entidad Prestadora de Salud) is Peru's private health system. Employees may choose it as an alternative to EsSalud, the national health insurer. Employers contribute 9% of gross salary to EsSalud. When an employee opts into EPS, the contribution structure changes, so your EOR needs to track each employee's election accurately.
The UIT (Unidad Impositiva Tributaria) is Peru's tax reference unit, used to calculate income tax brackets and various thresholds. For 2026, the UIT increased to PEN 5,500 per Supreme Decree No. 301-2025-EF.
This affects how income tax is calculated for your Peruvian employees.
There is no tax treaty between Peru and the United States. Employers and employees cannot rely on treaty relief to avoid double taxation, though mechanisms like the Foreign Tax Credit or FEIE may apply depending on individual circumstances.
Pension contribution rates require verification before publishing. Confirm current figures with your EOR. Payroll runs on a monthly cycle.
Leave entitlements and parental protections in Peru
Maternity leave in Peru is 98 days, fully paid by the state, split as 49 days prenatal and 49 days postnatal. Paternity leave is 10 days, paid by the employer. Sick leave details require verification before publishing.
Managing leave tracking and coordinating state reimbursement claims manually is time-consuming and error-prone. An EOR handles both, ensuring leave is recorded correctly and state reimbursement processes are initiated on time.
Severance and termination rules in Peru
Terminating an employee incorrectly in Peru can trigger significant liability. Severance obligations depend on the grounds for termination and the employee's tenure, and the exact formula requires verification before publishing. Notice period requirements also require verification.
What is clear: Peru's General Labor Law provides strong employee protections, and departing from the correct process creates exposure. Oyster handles offboarding within the platform and provides guidance on compliant separation. There are no termination fees charged to you by Oyster.
Who you can hire in Peru
Peru's talent market is active, and the companies already hiring there are proof of concept.
Peru's workforce and what to expect when hiring
Lima is the primary hub for engineering, design, and digital marketing talent in Peru. US- and UK-headquartered companies hire Peruvian talent at higher rates than most other origins, per Oyster data. Spain-based companies also hire Peruvian talent at high rates. Spanish-language fluency is universal; English proficiency varies by sector and seniority, with higher proficiency common in tech and professional services roles.
Working hours are 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week. Overtime premiums start at 25% for the first two hours and 35% for each additional hour. Oyster's platform surfaces local compensation benchmarks to help you build competitive offers without overpaying or undervaluing the market.
How to choose an EOR in Peru
Not all EOR providers are built the same. Here's what actually separates them when you're hiring in Peru.
Four things that separate EOR providers in Peru
When evaluating EOR providers for Peru, apply these four criteria:
- Compliance infrastructure: Are employment agreements legal-reviewed and country-specific? Peru's contracts must be in Spanish and comply with the General Labor Law. A generic template won't cut it.
- Pricing transparency: Is the fee flat or percentage-based? Percentage-of-salary pricing scales against you as salaries grow. Look for flat, predictable pricing with no hidden fees and no termination charges.
- Speed to hire: How quickly can a new employee be onboarded legally? The difference between 48 hours and 4 weeks matters when you're competing for talent.
- Human support: Do you get a dedicated contact or a shared queue? Self-service platforms work until they don't. When a compliance question arises at 9pm before a hire starts, you need a real specialist, not a chatbot.
The PAA question "How much is an employer of record?" comes up constantly, and the honest answer is that pricing varies widely across providers. See pricing to understand what Oyster charges before you commit.
How Oyster keeps you compliant in Peru
Compliance in Peru is not a checkbox. It's an ongoing operational requirement.
What compliance in Peru actually requires from your EOR
Staying compliant in Peru means Spanish-language contracts, monthly payroll submissions, and 9% EsSalud contributions. It also means correct administration of 13th and 14th month salary obligations, leave accrual tracking, and compliant termination procedures. Miss any one of these and you're exposed.
Oyster handles each of these automatically through the platform. When edge cases arise (and they do), in-house specialists step in.
Oyster is the only B Corp-certified EOR. Ethical employment practices are built into how the service runs, not added as a marketing claim. That matters when you're trusting a provider with your employees' livelihoods and your company's compliance posture.
What transparent EOR pricing looks like in Peru
Pricing transparency is one of the clearest signals of whether an EOR is worth trusting.
How to evaluate EOR costs before you commit in Peru
EOR pricing across the industry varies widely because providers structure fees very differently. Total cost of employment in Peru includes the employee's gross salary plus approximately 9% for EsSalud and other statutory obligations. Your EOR fee sits on top of that.
Flat pricing is better than percentage-of-salary pricing. Percentage models scale against you as your team grows and salaries increase. Oyster publishes pricing transparently at Oyster pricing. See pricing to understand exactly what you'll pay before you commit. There are no termination fees with Oyster.
How fast you can hire in Peru
Speed matters when you've found the right person and your competitor is also making an offer.
The steps to hire your first employee in Peru with Oyster
- Add your new hire's details in the Oyster platform
- Review and issue the Spanish-language employment contract
- Oyster registers the employee and manages EsSalud enrollment
- Set up monthly payroll in PEN with 13th and 14th salary scheduled automatically
- Oyster manages compliance, leave tracking, and ongoing reporting
Oyster can onboard new employees in as little as 48 hours from contract signature. When questions arise during the process, in-house specialists step in. There is no self-service abandonment when things get complex.
Why Oyster is your EOR for Peru
The EOR market has grown fast, and not every provider has kept pace with what compliant, ethical employment actually requires.
How Oyster compares to other EOR providers for Peru hiring
Deel and Remote both lean on platform breadth over hands-on support. Based on their public documentation, Deel is more product-led, with support that often runs through AI chat rather than a named specialist and an ownership experience that can feel less direct, while Remote's standard plans route questions to self-serve email and chat, pricing dedicated experts as an add-on. Oyster gives every customer one dedicated in-house point of contact and country specialists as standard, not an upsell.
Rippling's EOR sits on top of a broader HR platform covering around 60+ countries, with heavier reliance on self-serve tools and a pricing structure that layers add-ons onto its base platform fee. Oyster covers 180+ countries with clear, predictable pricing and no surprise add-ons, and is the only Certified B Corp of the three, backed by SOC 2 Type II certification, a G2 Leader badge (Summer 2026), a 9.3/10 Everest Group customer relationship score, and 91% CSAT.
Oyster's proof points for Peru hiring:
- Only B Corp-certified EOR operating in 120+ countries
- In-house specialists, not outsourced compliance partners
- 48-hour onboarding from contract signature
- No termination fees
- Flat, transparent pricing with no hidden charges
- Legal-reviewed, Spanish-language employment agreements specific to Peru
Hire in Peru with Oyster now
Book a demo and hire your first Peru employee this week
You found the right person in Lima. Oyster handles the contract, payroll, EsSalud enrollment, 13th and 14th salary, and compliance so you can focus on the work. Book a Demo to connect with an in-house specialist.
