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Global Equity Vesting Guide
A finance manager in Berlin opens a Slack message from a senior engineer hired through Deel last quarter. The engineer’s first RSU tranche just vested, and her German payslip shows roughly 47% withheld against the spread. Her US colleague on the same grant kept far more.
The finance manager has 24 hours before the next payroll cut-off, an EOR contract that does not mention equity, and a CFO asking why an employee in Munich now has a tax liability the company did not budget.
This is what global equity vesting looks like when nobody mapped the chain before the grant went out.
Whichapp has reviewed 20 EOR providers and read 50+ EOR master service agreements over the past year. The pattern is consistent: equity is the part of the contract everyone skips until it matters, and by the time it matters the choices are bad.
This guide walks through how vesting actually flows when the issuing entity sits in one country, the employee sits in another, and an EOR sits in between.
It covers the four jurisdictions we get asked about most (UK, Germany, France, Israel), the contract clauses that decide who runs payroll on the vesting event, and what to look for when your team compares EOR platforms for equity-heavy hires.
What global equity vesting means for internationally distributed employees
Global equity vesting is the moment a stock-based award (an RSU, an option, or restricted stock) moves from contingent to owned for an employee who lives in a country other than the one where the parent company is incorporated.
The grant itself was issued under a US (or UK, or Cayman) plan. The vesting event triggers tax in the employee’s country of residence. Those two facts are the whole problem.
How global equity vesting differs from domestic equity plans
A domestic RSU vest is mechanical. The employer runs payroll, the broker sells shares to cover withholding, the employee gets the net. The plan administrator (Carta, Shareworks, Fidelity) and the payroll provider already share data.
There is one tax authority, one set of social security rules, one currency.
Global equity vesting breaks every part of that loop. The plan administrator usually has no payroll integration in the employee’s country. The EOR running the local employment contract is rarely a party to the equity plan.
The issuing entity (the US Delaware C-corp, say) has no payroll registration in Germany or France or Israel.
Yet the local tax authority still expects the spread to flow through local payroll, withheld at the local marginal rate, with social contributions where applicable, on the date of vest.
The result: a five-party dance between the employee, the EOR, the plan administrator, the issuing entity, and the local tax authority. If any party assumes another is handling reporting, your employee gets either a surprise tax bill or a double withholding.
Where the EOR sits in the global equity vesting chain
The EOR is the employer of record for local employment law. That makes it the legal payer of compensation, including the deemed compensation arising from a vesting event.
In every jurisdiction we have examined, the EOR is the entity that must report the vest income on the local payroll, withhold local income tax and social security, and remit. The issuing entity does not have a local payroll number; it cannot file directly.
But the EOR did not grant the equity, does not hold the cap table data, and almost never has a feed from the plan administrator.
So the EOR’s role in the chain is reactive: it depends on the issuing entity sending vesting data (number of shares, fair market value at vest, employee identifier) to the EOR’s payroll team in time to land in the next cycle.
Miss that handoff and the vest goes unreported until the employee files personally, at which point penalties accrue against your company.
The payoff: if the EOR contract does not name a vesting-data process, you are buying a black box. Get that clause written before the first grant goes out, not after.
How does global equity vesting taxation vary by country?
The four jurisdictions below cover roughly 80% of the global equity questions Whichapp fields each quarter. The detail matters because the right answer in Germany is wrong in France, and getting it wrong costs your company, not the tax authority.
Global equity vesting in the UK: HMRC approved vs unapproved schemes
The UK splits sharply between HMRC tax-advantaged plans and everything else. EMI (Enterprise Management Incentives) is the gold standard for early-stage companies: gain taxed as capital gains at 10% Business Asset Disposal Relief if held for two years from grant.
Global equity vesting in Germany: income tax + Kirchensteuer + social security
Germany taxes the spread as Arbeitslohn (employment income) on the vest date. Income tax follows the progressive scale to 45% (Reichensteuer kicks in above 277,826 EUR for 2026). Solidarity surcharge of 5.5% on the income tax above the exemption threshold.
Church tax (Kirchensteuer) at 8% or 9% of the income tax for registered church members.
Section 19a EStG (introduced 2021, expanded 2024) defers tax on certain start-up equity for up to 15 years if conditions are met: employer is a small or medium enterprise under EU criteria, employee was not previously a shareholder over 1%, grant is from the employer or affiliated entity.
Most US-parent EOR hires fail the affiliated-entity test because the US parent grants the equity, not the German EOR. So Section 19a rarely applies to EOR scenarios.
Social security up to the ceiling: pension 18.6% split, health insurance 14.6% plus average 1.7% additional contribution, unemployment 2.6%, long-term care 3.6%. Employer share roughly 21%.
The vesting event pushes most senior employees past the contribution ceilings inside the calendar year, so the marginal social cost on a large vest may be lower than on regular salary.
Global equity vesting in France: PEA and qualifying vs non-qualifying RSU regimes
France distinguishes qualifying (qualifiees) and non-qualifying RSUs sharply. The qualifying regime under the 2015 Macron Law (Article L225-197-1 of the Code de commerce) requires a minimum two-year vesting period and has been amended several times.
Global equity vesting in Israel: Section 102 and capital gains treatment
Israel’s Section 102 of the Income Tax Ordinance is the workhorse for employee equity. Two tracks matter: Section 102 trustee capital gains track (most common for ordinary employees) and Section 102 trustee ordinary income track.
What do EOR contracts say about global equity vesting administration?
We have read 50+ EOR master service agreements. Roughly 60% are silent on equity. Another 25% have a single line saying the EOR will report equity income if the client provides data in a mutually agreed format.
The remaining 15% have a real schedule with data fields, cut-off dates, and fee terms. When you are reviewing your own EOR contract, look for which bucket yours falls into before the first grant vests.
Who runs payroll reporting at the global equity vesting event
Your contract should name the party responsible for providing vesting data, the deadline relative to payroll cut-off (we recommend 10 working days minimum), and the consequence of late delivery.
A clean clause reads: “Client shall deliver to EOR by the 15th of each month a vesting report covering all equity events for the prior calendar month, in CSV format including employee identifier, share count, FMV at vest in local currency, and grant identifier.
EOR shall include the resulting compensation in the next payroll cycle and remit applicable taxes and social contributions.”
If the contract does not name a deadline, the EOR can legitimately claim the data arrived too late to process and push the report into the following month.
That late report shows up to the local tax authority as a missed RTI submission in the UK or a Lohnsteueranmeldung correction in Germany, both of which carry interest and small penalties.
Recharge agreements between the issuing entity and the EOR at vesting
The economic cost of the vest sits with the issuing entity (the US parent), not the EOR client country. But the EOR pays the local tax and social charges through its payroll and needs reimbursement.
Standard recharge agreements pass the gross spread plus employer social contributions back to the issuing entity, with the EOR retaining only its administrative fee.
Without a recharge agreement, the EOR is funding the tax payment from its own working capital and reconciling later. Most EORs will refuse to handle equity at all without a recharge clause in place.
If your EOR has not asked you to sign one, ask why; the answer is usually that they have not run an equity event for any other client in that country either.
How do EOR platforms handle global equity vesting?
Equity capability is the single biggest spread we see between EOR providers. The same provider that runs flawless monthly payroll for 50 countries may have no playbook for a vesting event.
What strong global equity vesting support looks like
A capable EOR has: a named equity operations contact (not the general support queue), a published data template for vesting reports, integrations with at least Carta and Shareworks for the larger plan administrators, country-specific guidance documents for the top 10 jurisdictions, and a recharge agreement template ready to sign.
They will quote a per-event fee (typically 50 to 200 USD per vesting event per employee) on top of the standard EOR fee.
Deel, Remote, and Velocity Global all have published equity workflows in 2024 to 2025. Multiplier and Oyster have added capability in the last 12 months. Skuad and Globalization Partners have variable provision: strong in some countries, silent in others.
Whichapp’s review of Deel and Remote cover their equity workflows in detail.
What weak global equity vesting support looks like
The signals: support team routes equity questions to a generic mailbox with 5+ day response times, no named template for vesting data, vesting events processed as ad-hoc bonus payments rather than a dedicated equity line, no recharge agreement on file, country-specific tax treatment unclear from the platform documentation.
If you are running 10 to 50 employees on equity grants, this fails by month 3.
The payoff line: ask for a sample equity payslip from a real prior client (anonymised) and a sample recharge invoice. Anyone genuinely running global equity events can produce these inside a working day.
Frequently asked questions about global equity vesting
Does the EOR have to be a party to the equity plan?
No. The plan is between the issuing entity and the employee. The EOR’s role is local payroll reporting and remittance of withholding.
The plan administrator (Carta, Shareworks) sends vesting data to the EOR; the EOR processes it through local payroll. The EOR does not need to sign the plan document.
Can an EOR-employed worker hold equity in the parent company?
Yes. The EOR provides the local employment relationship; the equity grant is a separate contract from the issuing entity directly to the employee. There is no legal conflict between the two.
Tax treatment on vest still flows through the EOR’s local payroll.
Methodology and disclosure
This guide draws on Whichapp’s review of 20 EOR providers conducted from 2024 to 2026, 50+ EOR master service agreements read for equity clauses, and primary tax authority guidance from HMRC (UK), Bundeszentralamt fur Steuern (Germany), URSSAF and DGFiP (France), and the Israel Tax Authority.
Provider equity capability claims are based on published documentation, sample contracts, and direct conversations with provider operations teams between January 2025 and May 2026. Tax rates and thresholds reflect 2025 to 2026 publication dates and are subject to change.
This guide is informational only and does not constitute tax or legal advice; engage a qualified local tax adviser before issuing equity to employees in any jurisdiction.
Whichapp is independent. We do not sell EOR services, equity administration, or tax advisory. We do not accept payment for placement in reviews or rankings.