How to Hire in Chile From the US

Yes. US companies have three legal paths to hire in Chile: setting up a local entity, using an Employer of Record (EOR), or engaging independent contractors. A hiring partner acting as contractor of record adds recruiting on top. All employment relationships are governed by the Código del Trabajo and enforced by the Dirección del Trabajo.

Pick a route first: an EOR or a contractor of record that employs or contracts people on your behalf, your own entity (usually an SpA with a RUT from the SII and a Chile-domiciled legal representative), or contractors for short, deliverable-based work. Then sign a written contract within 15 days of the start, register it with the Dirección del Trabajo and run monthly payroll with pension, health, unemployment insurance and tax withholding.

Use a written contract under the Código del Trabajo, register it with the Dirección del Trabajo, pay the employer pension contribution, unemployment insurance and work-accident insurance each month, withhold the employee’s AFP, 7% health and income tax, and provision the gratificación and severance. Remote engineers also need a registered telework agreement covering hours, equipment and the 12-hour right to disconnect. LatamCent recruits and vets the engineers and carries the compliance under one USD invoice.

Source in Santiago, Valparaíso and Viña del Mar and Concepción, where the back-end, cloud and data pools run deepest, and screen English and remote preference explicitly. Then hire through an EOR, a contractor of record or your own entity. LatamCent shortlists pre-vetted developers in about 21 days on average.

Employer contributions on an indefinite contract run about 6.8% above salary from August 2026: 3.5% employer pension contribution including SIS, 2.4% unemployment insurance and 0.93% work-accident insurance, up to the contribution caps. Most employers also pay the gratificación, up to about CLP 213,000 a month, and the EOR adds its own fee. A 2,500,000 CLP monthly salary is about $2,546 at the October 2026 rate, or about $2,720 with contributions.

Senior software engineers in Chile earn approximately USD 3,558 to 6,115 per month in the local market, and junior profiles USD 1,223 to 2,224. Senior engineers working remotely for US companies usually earn more, around USD 5,500 to 7,600 a month, still roughly two to three times less than US equivalents.

Check that the provider employs people through its own Chilean entity, registers contracts and telework agreements with the Dirección del Trabajo, and shows the employer pension contribution, unemployment insurance, work-accident insurance and gratificación separately from its fee. Ask how it handles terminations and the Ley Karin protocol. An EOR doesn’t recruit, so if you still need to find the person, a hiring partner that covers sourcing and compliance may fit better.

No. An Employer of Record or a contractor of record lets you hire compliantly in Chile without opening a local entity, which fits teams of one to ten people. A local entity makes sense when you plan a larger team, need local invoicing or a permanent presence.

Mainland Chile runs on UTC-4 from April to early September and UTC-3 the rest of the year. On a 9 to 5 schedule that gives US Eastern teams 8 hours of overlap from April to September, 6 hours in the US winter and 7 in the weeks between.

The maximum working week is 42 hours since April 26, 2026, and it falls to 40 hours on April 26, 2028 under Law 21.561. Overtime needs a written agreement, is capped at 2 hours a day and is paid at a 50% surcharge.

Yes, for project-scoped work billed with a boleta de honorarios, which carries a 15.25% tax retention in 2026. If the Dirección del Trabajo or a court finds the contractor works under subordination and dependence (Código del Trabajo articles 7 and 8), the relationship is reclassified back to day one, and the company owes social security contributions, vacation, severance and fines.

Incorporating an SpA usually takes one to three months once you add a Chile-domiciled legal representative, the RUT and inicio de actividades with the SII and a local bank account, which is often the slowest step. An Employer of Record lets you hire in days to two weeks without that setup.

Yes. Many teams start with a contractor or contractor-of-record engagement to test a role, then move the person onto a compliant employment contract through an EOR or their own entity once the fit is confirmed. LatamCent can carry both stages under one partner.

There is no statutory 13th-month salary in Chile, and aguinaldos around Fiestas Patrias and Christmas are customary rather than required. Employers do owe the gratificación legal: 30% of liquid profits shared among workers, or 25% of each employee’s annual pay capped at 4.75 minimum monthly wages (CLP 2,560,250 in 2026), which most employers pay monthly.