Switching EOR Providers in Belarus Without Re-Hiring Your Team

Your Belarus team are doing a good job. The issue is the admin around them. The global EOR platform you’ve had for a few years is now responding more slowly, the invoices are much harder to read and they’re charging more per head than the local market would justify. Switching to a different provider makes sense in principle until you get asked the inevitable question: do we have to just fire everyone and re-hire them?

In Belarus, you don’t. The Labour Code has a mechanism designed for exactly this situation: a transfer of the employee, with their consent, from one employer to another. Used properly, it lets your engineers move to a new legal employer from one working day to the next, keep their salaries and roles, and skip the probation period a fresh hire would normally face.

This guide is for companies whose Belarusian employees currently sit on a global platform. It explains what the law allows, the order in which to do things, and the points where switches usually go wrong: notice periods in the EOR agreement, unused leave, employee data and intellectual property.

Why companies move their Belarus team off a global platform

Many global EOR platforms do not employ anyone in Belarus themselves. They sign the client, then hand the actual employment to a local partner company in Minsk. Your employees’ contracts, payslips and work books sit with that partner, while your account manager works from another country and relays questions in both directions. Every answer passes through two companies, and each of them takes a margin.

That structure is fine under normal circumstances. It starts to fall apart when a payroll correction takes weeks, when an invoice comes through with a country fee that makes absolutely no sense, or when the platform decides to deprioritise Belarus and effectively stops onboarding new hires. Clients usually cite the same three triggers:

• Cost. A flat per-employee fee in US dollars, plus FX margins and pass-through charges, often ends up well above what a direct local employer charges for the same work.
• Speed. Simple requests, such as a salary change, a bonus or a leave question, go into a ticket queue instead of reaching a person who knows the team.
• Visibility. The client never sees the underlying payroll register, so it cannot check what it is paying for.

Most clients reach this point after comparing local and global EOR providers and concluding that a direct Belarusian employer suits their team better. The good news is that the people involved do not change. Only the name of the legal employer on their contract does.

What “switching” actually means under Belarusian law

An employment contract in Belarus cannot be re-assigned from one company to another the way you can with a supplier agreement. When the legal employer changes, the old contract comes to an end and a new one starts. What matters is how it ends, as that determines what the employee takes with them.

There are two routes.

Resign and re-hire. The employee leaves the old employer and joins the new one as an ordinary hire. Under an open-ended contract, the employee gives one month’s written notice unless both sides agree to an earlier date. Fixed-term contracts cannot be ended early at will and usually need a mutual agreement or a valid reason. The new employer then hires from scratch, so it may add a probation period of up to three months, and the first annual leave normally becomes available only after six months of work.

Transfer to another employer. Belarus’s Labour Code treats the transfer of an employee, with their consent, to another employer as a separate ground for ending a contract (Article 35, part 2, point 4). It starts with a written invitation from the new employer to the current one and needs agreement from all three parties: the employee, the old employer and the new employer. The route comes with built-in protections:

• The new employer may not refuse, without good reason, to sign a contract with a person it has invited in writing by way of transfer. This protection lasts one month from the date of the invitation unless the parties agree otherwise (Article 16).
• No probation period may be set when someone is transferred to another employer (Article 28).
• Annual leave at the new employer can be granted before the usual six-month mark for the first working year.

Whichever route you take, some things don’t change. The old employer has to issue a dismissal order and pay the final settlement on the employee’s last day at work. That settlement includes cash for every unused day of leave. The work book also goes back to the employee on the same day. On the other side, the new employer signs a new employment contract, which can be open-ended or fixed-term.

So “without re-hiring” is a practical promise rather than a legal one. Nobody reapplies, nobody is re-interviewed, nobody restarts probation and nobody misses a working day. On paper, each person still gets a new contract, which is why the order of the steps below matters.

How to switch EOR providers in Belarus, step by step

Step 1. Map your current setup before anyone gives notice

Begin with a simple spreadsheet (one row per employee). For each employee, record their contract type (open-ended or fixed-term, and the end date where there is one), their gross salary in Belarusian roubles, regular bonuses, voluntary medical insurance, unused leave days, company equipment in their possession and their citizenship. Foreign nationals require special treatment, as their right to work is generally tied to a particular employer.

Then ask your current platform for the actual documentation behind those figures: the signed contracts and amendments, the current leave balances, 12 months of payroll registers and all the IP assignments that the staff have signed. A platform which cannot provide you with that in a matter of weeks is already giving you a very clear indication of how the exit will proceed.

It is also worth finding out whether the local partner is a Hi-Tech Park resident. For HTP companies, social security contributions are calculated from a base tied to the national average salary, and foreign employees do not need special work permits. If one provider has HTP status and the other does not, the same salary can produce a noticeably different invoice, and foreign staff may need new paperwork.

Step 2. Read the exit clauses in your EOR agreement

The legal transfer can be completed in days. The commercial exit is what sets your timeline. Look for:

• the notice period for ending the service, often 30 to 90 days in platform agreements;
• offboarding or termination fees charged per employee;
• refund terms for any security deposit you paid at onboarding;
• conversion or transfer fees that apply when employees move to another provider or to your own entity;
• non-solicitation wording that could be read as covering your own team.

Give notice so it runs out the day before the transfer. If you can, make that the last day of a month, which keeps payroll simple. Also get the platform to confirm in writing that its local partner will sign the transfer letters. Without that signature, the transfer can’t go ahead.

Step 3. Choose the new provider and agree the mechanics

Put the same questions to every provider you’re considering. First, will it employ your people itself, or is it another middleman? Is it a Hi-Tech Park resident? Will it send your current employer a written transfer invitation for each employee? Then ask how payroll gets funded and which bank it uses. Last, ask who your team will deal with day to day.

A direct EOR provider in Belarus can answer all of these without checking with a partner, because it is the legal employer itself. Ask for a cost sheet per employee that shows gross salary, employer contributions, insurance and the service fee as separate lines, so you can compare it with your current invoice line by line. Agree the transfer date with the new provider before you send notice to the old one.

Step 4. Talk to your team before the paperwork starts

A transfer only works with the individual’s written consent, so the conversation has to happen first. If possible, sound out key people informally before you give notice to the platform. You need to tell them what’s going to change and what’s not: same role, same manager, same salary (or better), all unused leave will be paid out in full, no probation and no gap in employment. Share the transfer date and the name of the new employer.

A short group call followed by one-to-one chats usually works best. Some cases need separate handling, including employees on maternity or parental leave, people on long sick leave and anyone whose fixed-term contract expires around the transfer date. Deal with them individually rather than in the main batch.

Step 5. Run the transfer paperwork in the right order

1. The new provider sends a written invitation for each employee to the current legal employer, naming the position, salary and start date.
2. The current employer confirms in writing that it agrees to the transfer.
3. Each employee submits a written request to be dismissed by way of transfer.
4. The current employer issues the dismissal order on the transfer ground, pays the final settlement on the last working day and returns the work book.
5. The new employer signs the new contract and issues a hiring order stating that the employee was hired by way of transfer. Without that wording, the transfer guarantees may not apply.
6. The employee starts work at the new employer on the next working day.

Don’t leave a gap between the two contracts. If someone’s last day at the old employer is a Friday, they should start with the new one on Monday.

Step 6. Budget for leave balances and the final payroll

Something clients often miss: unused leave can’t be moved to the new employer. It’s paid out in cash when the employee leaves the old one, on their last working day. You’ll see it on the platform’s final invoice next to the last salaries and employer contributions. If your engineers haven’t taken much time off, that payout can be large. It’s worth getting the numbers a few weeks before the transfer.

At the new employer, transferred employees can take annual leave without waiting six months. That keeps summer plans intact and removes one of the most common objections.

Step 7. Move documents, data, IP and equipment

Treat the handover of employee data as a project of its own. The cleanest approach is for the new employer to collect hiring documents directly from each employee, while the old provider passes on only what is needed, such as leave history and payroll records the employee has agreed to share. At the end, ask the old provider to confirm in writing which records it keeps for statutory purposes and which it deletes.

IP needs a clean chain. Any work created by your engineers whilst they were employed by the platform’s partner must already be owned by your company. Get written confirmation of that prior to the transfer and ensure the new contracts have IP clauses in them from the outset.

The last thing to deal with is equipment. If the old provider still owns the laptops, you can buy them or send them back. Either way, update your asset register afterwards. Code repositories and other tools aren’t affected, because they belonged to you from the start.

Step 8. Check the first month at the new provider

The first payroll after the switch is the real test. Check each employee’s net pay against their last payslip and make sure the new employer has all of them duly registered with the Social Security Fund and Belgosstrakh. A quick check-in with each individual after the pay day will pick up any little problems as they arise.

Compare the first invoice with the cost sheet you signed off on. If something doesn’t add up, the payroll register is where you’ll find the reason. It’s a good habit to reconcile each invoice with the true employer cost for the first few months. After that, the figures usually become predictable. Close things off with the old provider at the same time: settle the final invoice, recover the deposit and get written confirmation that they’ve deleted your data.

A realistic timeline

Most switches fit into six to eight weeks, and the platform’s notice period decides most of that. A typical sequence, assuming 30 days’ notice, looks like this:

1. Weeks 1–2: map the team, collect documents from the platform, review the EOR agreement and shortlist new providers.
2. Weeks 3–4: sign with the new provider, agree the transfer date and give notice to the platform.
3. Weeks 5–6: brief the team, collect written consents and exchange transfer invitations and confirmations between the two employers.
4. Transfer day: last working day and final settlement with the old employer; new contracts start on the next working day.
5. First month after: check the first payroll, compare the first invoice with the agreed cost sheet and close out the deposit and data handover with the old provider.

If your agreement asks for 90 days’ notice, give notice earlier and keep the rest of the plan as it is. The paperwork itself does not take longer.

Frequently asked questions

Will employees lose their unused leave when we switch providers?

No. The old employer pays out every outstanding leave day in cash on the last working day. At the new employer, transferred employees can take annual leave without the usual six-month wait.

What if the old provider refuses to agree to a transfer?

A transfer requires the agreement of all three parties, so the old employer can in principle block that route. The alternative is to terminate the old contract by mutual agreement or, in the case of an open-ended contract, by resignation with one month’s notice. Probation in Belarus can only be set by agreement, so the new employer can simply leave it out of the new contract. The employee loses the transfer-specific guarantees on paper, but the terms stay the same in practice.

Do employees on a fixed-term contract have to wait until it expires?

No. A transfer simply terminates the fixed-term contract early with all parties agreeing to it, and the new employer then signs a new fixed-term or open-ended contract. Check whether the current contract provides any additional pay or additional leave days, and make sure those are replicated in the new one so that no one is worse off as a result.

Can we move only part of the team?

Yes, transfers are individual, so you can transfer one person, a pilot group or indeed everyone at once. Many clients move a small group first to test the new provider’s payroll, then transfer the rest.

Do employees need to consent to their personal data moving?

Belarusian law lets employers process staff data for employment purposes, but passing it to another company is a separate step. The simplest route is for the new employer to collect hiring documents directly from each employee and for the providers to share only the minimum, with the employee’s knowledge. The National Personal Data Protection Center supervises how this information is handled and issues permits for transfers to countries that lack an adequate level of protection.

How long does the whole switch take?

Once the invitations are signed, the legal steps take just a few days. In practice it’s the notice period in your EOR agreement that dictates the speed of things, so most switches will take six to eight weeks from the first audit to transfer day.

Conclusion

Switching EOR providers in Belarus is mostly a matter of sequence. Read the exit terms before you announce anything, fix the new provider and the transfer date, win each employee’s consent, and then let the transfer route in the Labour Code do the rest. Done in that order, your team moves to a new legal employer from one working day to the next, with the same salaries, no probation and every leave day accounted for.

The parts that cause trouble are rarely legal. They tend to be an unread notice clause, a leave payout nobody budgeted for or an IP assignment that was never signed. A few hours spent on those early saves weeks of friction later.

If you’re planning a move away from a global platform and want someone to look over your current EOR agreement and headcount first, talk to our EOR team. We’ll map out the transfer for your case and suggest a realistic date to work towards.