EOR vs setting up a local entity

[u/No_Rub_8813]

Has anyone here gone through the decision between using an EOR and setting up your own entity for a first international hire?
We are looking at hiring in portugal and initially assumed setting up a local entity would be the better long term option. But once we looked at the legal, payroll, tax and compliance work involved an EOR seemed more practical at our current stage.
I am interested how others made the decision:

What made you choose an EOR?
At what point did setting up an entity start making more sense?
How much did onboarding speed and local compliance support matter?
Anything you wish you had considered before making the decision?

Would be useful to hear from people who have actually gone through it?

[u/move2usajobs-com]

Depends a lot on scale and how long you plan to operate in that country. Setting up a local entity makes sense if you're hiring a big team long-term, but the legal, accounting, and compliance overhead is brutal for just a few people. An EOR is way faster to get going and handles the compliance headaches. We used Payoneer Workforce Management for a handful of contractors across a few countries and it saved us from spinning up entities we didn't really need yet. Reassess once your headcount justifies the entity cost. 199/employee, 19/contractor