Companies hiring remote workers in Europe: who hires, where and for what

The short answer

Yes, companies hire remote workers in Europe, but far fewer than in the US. On 2 November 2026 we found 849 remote roles open in Europe at 83 companies, out of 8,069 remote roles at the 162 companies we track. That is about one remote role in ten. By comparison, 5,319 roles (66%) were open to US-based candidates only. The largest employers of remote staff in Europe were Carrier, Nebius, Grafana Labs, AbbVie, GitLab and CrowdStrike. Germany was named in more postings than any other country, followed by Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Poland. Engineering and sales made up half of the roles.

Search the live list on our remote jobs in Europe page. It filters by country and is updated every day from each employer's own careers site.

How we counted

• Source: the public careers sites (job feeds) of the 162 companies we track, read on 2 Nov 2026. We keep only roles the employer itself marks as remote, and we drop roles whose text says they are on-site.
• "Open in Europe" means the posting names a European country or "Europe/EMEA" as a place you can work from. The UK is counted separately: 486 roles were open in the UK, and 201 of those were open in the rest of Europe too.
• Countries come from the location lines in each posting. One posting can name several countries, so country counts add up to more than 849. 48 roles named only a region, such as "EMEA", and no country.
• We list up to 80 of the newest roles per company on the site, so a company page can show slightly fewer roles than we counted. Roles are filled and posted every day, so treat these numbers as a snapshot.

Which companies hire remote workers in Europe

Source: our count of roles marked remote and open in Europe on each company's careers site, 2 Nov 2026. A role that names several countries is counted in each.

Three patterns stand out. First, the top of the list is not all software. About half of Carrier's roles (42 of 83) are service roles, mostly field service technicians in Germany who travel to customers, and AbbVie, Thermo Fisher and IQVIA hire sales and clinical staff who work from home within a territory. Second, software companies that were built remote, such as Grafana Labs, GitLab and Mozilla, hire across several European countries for engineering and product. Third, big tech is a small part of the picture: the big tech companies we track had 104 Europe roles between them, led by NVIDIA (30). Our guide to big tech companies that hire remote workers has the full breakdown.

Where you can live: the countries named most

Most remote roles in Europe are not "anywhere in Europe". Of the 849, only 48 named a region without a country. The rest named specific countries, because the employer has a legal entity or an employer of record there. Germany was named in 315 roles, Spain in 171, the Netherlands in 140, Ireland in 124, France in 103 and Poland in 102. Sweden (80), Switzerland (40), Czechia (36) and Italy (34) came next. Smaller markets such as Austria (20), Finland (9) and Norway (8) had few roles.

So the country you live in decides which jobs you can apply for. If you live in Germany or Spain, the choice is wide; if you live in a smaller country, look for postings that say "EMEA" or name your country explicitly. Use the country filter on the Europe jobs page, and check the UK page separately if you have the right to work there.

Which jobs are remote in Europe

Engineering was the largest group with 226 roles (27%), followed by sales and partnerships (192), data and AI (88), product (46), healthcare and clinical (42) and security (32). Customer success and support had 24 roles. Finance, HR, marketing and legal each had 12 to 14, and design only 6. 127 roles did not fit a standard function, many of them field service and consulting roles.

Seniority skews experienced. Our tags put 342 roles at mid level, 182 senior, 203 lead and 67 staff, and only 10 at entry level plus 5 internships. If you are early in your career, a remote role in Europe is hard to land; a hybrid role first, then remote, is a more realistic path. Browse remote engineering jobs, remote sales jobs and remote data jobs, and filter by Europe.

Language matters too. 21 role titles asked for a specific language, for example German, French, Spanish or Dutch speakers, and many sales, support and field roles in Germany, France and Italy are written in the local language. Engineering and product roles were usually in English.

Pay: what European postings show

157 of the 849 roles (18.5%) included a pay range in the data we read. That is lower than for US roles, where several states require pay scales in postings. 101 of the 157 were annual ranges in euros; the rest were in US dollars, pounds or Swedish kronor.

Some employers pay by country, and their postings show it. Grafana Labs posted the same Senior Product Marketing Manager role three times with different ranges: €97,034 to €116,441 in Germany, €104,000 to €124,800 in Ireland and €82,988 to €99,586 in Spain. So "remote in Europe" does not mean one European salary. Your pay is often set by the country you live in.

This is changing. The EU Pay Transparency Directive (EU) 2023/970 gives job applicants the right to receive the starting pay or its range for the position, for example in the job posting or before the interview, and it bars employers from asking about your pay history. Member states had until 7 June 2026 to bring it into national law, so how and when it applies depends on your country. If a posting has no range, it is reasonable to ask the recruiter before the interview. Our remote salary pages show the ranges employers actually posted, with sample sizes, for example remote engineering salaries and remote sales salaries.

Contracts, employers of record and cross-border work

To employ you in a European country, a company usually needs either a local company (an entity) or an employer of record (EOR, also called a PEO), a provider that employs you on the company's behalf and runs local payroll. That is why postings name countries. GitLab, for example, publishes the countries where it employs people through its own entities, including Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, and says it is not currently hiring in locations without an entity or PEO. Other companies hire contractors in some countries. A contractor is usually responsible for their own tax and social contributions, so read the offer carefully.

Working from one EU country for an employer in another raises social security questions. Since 1 July 2023 an EU framework agreement lets people who telework less than 50% of their time in their country of residence stay insured in the employer's country, on request and with both sides' consent, where both countries have signed it. Fully remote workers usually fall under the rules of the country where they live. This is general information, not tax or legal advice; for your own case, talk to a tax adviser (in Germany a Steuerberater) or an employment lawyer before you sign.

Time zones are easier inside Europe, but many employers are US-based. Expect some late-afternoon calls, and see our guide on scheduling meetings across time zones.

How to apply for remote jobs in Europe

1. Filter by the country you live in, not just "Europe". Apply only where your country is named or the posting says EMEA without limits.
2. Put your location and right to work at the top of your CV, for example "Based in Madrid, Spain; EU citizen". Recruiters screen for this first.
3. Match the posting's language and words honestly. Write the CV in the language of the posting, use its job title and key skills where they are true for you, and keep plain headings so the applicant tracking system (ATS) can read it.
4. Prepare for online tests. Many large employers send timed aptitude tests early. Practise with our free 10-question cognitive test, then the numerical, verbal and psychometric practice tests, which feed a simple Job Readiness Score. Our numerical reasoning tips cover the common question types.
5. Ask about pay and contract type early: the range, whether you would be an employee, employed through an EOR, or a contractor, and which country's contract applies.

Want a second pair of eyes? Our written CV review checks your CV against a target role, and a 30-minute remote job strategy call helps you decide which countries and companies to aim for.

FAQ

Further reading

Books we think are worth your time if you want to go deeper. We have not been paid to include any of them.

Sources

All links opened and checked on 2 Nov 2026. Figures are as published by each source on the date shown; we did not run our own benchmarks.

1. Remotely Scaled: remote jobs in Europe (live data), checked 2 Nov 2026
2. EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency (full text, Article 5), checked 2 Nov 2026
3. European Commission: New EU rules on pay transparency explained (5 Jun 2026), checked 2 Nov 2026
4. Belgian FPS Social Security: cross-border telework in the EU, the EEA and Switzerland (framework agreement and signatory states), checked 2 Nov 2026
5. EURES: What's the latest on cross-border telework and social security?, checked 2 Nov 2026
6. GitLab Handbook: Employment Solutions (country hiring guidelines), checked 2 Nov 2026