The region’s payroll landscape is evolving rapidly. While trends toward automation, technology integration, and pay-on-demand services are growing, progress varies significantly by country. Nevertheless, the Americas offers substantial opportunities for businesses seeking to expand and access cost-effective talent pools.
In this guide, CloudPay’s Director of Operations for the Americas, Carlos Maroto, shares his strategic insights on regional payroll operations. With over 20 years of industry experience starting in Costa Rica and expanding continent-wide, Carlos brings deep expertise in multinational payroll and system implementation across customers, in-house operations, and service providers. He has guided organizations from single-country to trans-Americas payroll operations, making him uniquely qualified to discuss both current practices and future trends.
AMER Payroll: Regional context
“The sheer scale of the Americas often gets overlooked. Brazil alone is twice the size of the European Union! We span from G7 nations to developing countries, encompassing diverse economies and socio-economic realities. Payroll complexity varies significantly, whether due to state-by-state rule variations in the United States or frequent political changes in Argentina.
Unlike other regions such as EMEA where monthly payroll is standard, many countries in the Americas run weekly or bi-weekly cycles. Brazil offers an interesting exception — while most organizations pay monthly, they must also process mid-month advances based on union agreements.
Latin American countries typically favor relationship-focused payroll, contrasting with the direct approach seen in the USA and Canada. This often means traditional processes and systems remain in place, as automation and technological advancement often aren’t considered a top priority.
Interestingly, while the USA leads in technology adoption and automation, some traditional preferences persist. For instance, many US employees still prefer paper W-2s (wage and tax statements) over digital versions.
Strategic challenges for payroll in America
“Operating Americas-wide payroll presents unique challenges due to regional variations. Organizations must navigate different tax jurisdictions (even within countries like the United States), languages, time zones, and unexpected complications.
Take Argentina’s recent experience: in 2024, the government twice delayed the year-end process while implementing changes and allowing additional individual tax deductions. This created significant compliance challenges, pushing year-end closure several months past the original date.
Compliance varies considerably across the region. Social security numbers are highly confidential in the USA but treated more casually elsewhere, while Brazilians use multiple ID numbers for social security, taxes, and other purposes. Union agreements and collective bargaining heavily influence many Latin American companies, affecting payroll at short
notice — particularly in high-inflation countries
like Argentina.
Organizations often stumble when expanding into the Americas by not securing proper local expertise, which leaves them lacking in regulatory knowledge and cultural context.
For instance, did you know that Costa Ricans typically start work at 7am? Or that Argentina often declares last-minute public holidays that can affect the payroll cycle? Even experienced payroll professionals need cultural context to succeed.
Technology & innovation landscape
“Payroll practitioners across the Americas recognize automation’s benefits: reduced manual errors, improved real-time visibility, streamlined team operations, and consolidated data.
However, implementation requires both strong technology and country-specific expertise — resources that vary in availability across the region. While the USA and Canada show high tech adoption rates (despite some traditional preferences), Latin American countries often take a more conservative approach to new technology. Aside from the cultural factors mentioned previously, that’s often because stable regulatory environments and consistent payroll cycles are easier to automate than volatile ones, where automated tools need frequent manual updates — partially defeating their purpose.
Integration with HCM systems through APIs has become a key focus, requiring real-time, bidirectional data flows and proven integrations with leading HR platforms. Organizations operating in the Americas increasingly seek unified experiences across regions and systems, demanding seamless data flow between HR and payroll systems.
Future outlook for multi-country payroll in America
“Pay on-demand shows tremendous global potential but needs faster development in Latin America. The ability to access earnings as needed, rather than waiting for month-end, represents the future of payroll. While Latin American companies tend toward conservative approaches, pay on demand should be a relatively smooth transition, as many blue-collar employees already receive weekly payments.
We’re seeing more multinational companies move payroll operations to Latin America, attracted by both cost advantages and abundant talent. Costa Rica, for example, offers well-educated professionals with strong English skills who can work effectively with US and European businesses, while maintaining a focus on innovation, automation, and integration.
Countries like Costa Rica have relatively straightforward payroll rules that make them ideal entry points to the region. They can serve as a stepping stone to other countries — which is where having a global provider with a global portfolio of local expertise becomes crucial.
Strategic recommendations for AMER payroll
So, to summarize the key factors that will guide success with payroll in the Americas region:
Secure local expertise, for cultural, regulatory, and linguistic challenges
Consider time zone implications, both within the Americas region and globally
Plan for varying technology needs, including gradually introducing automation, AI, and APIs where possible
Named account and growth managers providing consistent support
Plan ahead for economic and political volatility
Consider compliance requirements, and how they may vary substantially from one territory to another
Meeting these challenges while capitalizing on regional opportunities may require external support, expertise, and technology. CloudPay provides these critical elements through high-performance payroll solutions. Our global infrastructure provides a fully integrated solution encompassing payroll, payments, and pay on-demand across over 130 countries and more than 110 currencies, helping solve these challenges through:
A centre of excellence model by region that ensures local expertise
Industry-leading SLAs (not targets) to manage complexity
Single-platform integration of payroll, funding and payments
Seamless integration with major HCM systems
Named account & growth managers providing consistent support
The highest levels of global compliance thanks to our unified platform
If you’d like to find out more on making your payroll future-ready, in the Americas and beyond, get in touch with the CloudPay team today.
Summary
Strategic payroll expansion insights: AMER region
What are the risks associated with global payroll?
Every country within the Americas has its own unique payroll characteristics, so understanding the context of each country is essential for payroll success. For example, in certain countries in Latin America, if a public holiday is on a Thursday, the Friday may become a holiday too. And in the United States, social security numbers are highly confidential, whereas in Brazil people use three or four different numbers for identification. Understanding these differences, and putting compliance as a top priority, is therefore very important.
How does payroll work in the Americas compared to other regions?
In the Americas, it’s common to get paid twice a month, and a lot of blue-collar workers still get paid weekly, whereas in Europe, monthly pay cycles are more standard. Payroll in the United States also uniquely very complex as regulations differ across all 50 states — every state has its own local taxes, minimum wage rates and so on.
What are the key challenges for running payroll in Brazil?
Brazil is a developing market of 220 million people, and they like to embrace their own culture, so you’ll likely need to deal with employees in Portuguese. Handling different ID numbers for tax, social security and so on can add some complexity to statutory filing. And some collective bargaining agreements require employees to get 40% of their salary advanced to them in the middle of the month — add in supplemental runs for holiday pay, and you can easily end up running a payroll almost every week.
What are the biggest challenges in Latin American payroll?
There are huge differences across Latin America, from BRICS countries like Brazil to developing countries. You also have economically turbulent countries like Argentina with a lot of political change, high rates of inflation and lots of new union agreements. This means that regulations can change dramatically in a very short space of time, and there’s a lot for payroll teams to keep up with.
What are the future trends in Americas payroll?
I think pay-on-demand is definitely the future, so that employees don’t have to wait to get paid — whether for a week or for a month. But it needs quite a bit more development in Latin America, where companies tend to be more conservative. We’ll see more use of AI and automation too, which will free up skilled payroll experts to invest more time in analyzing the payroll instead of clicking buttons.
What are the biggest challenges in United States payroll?
Doing payroll in the US is like doing payroll in 50 different countries at the same time. Across the 50 states there are federal taxes, local taxes, different minimum wage rates and laws, and compliance with all of them is essential. And while the US probably has the most access to payroll technology and innovation of any country in the world, many organizations are still sticking to traditional manual, paper-based processes because of employee resistance to digital change.
What is the most common mistake when expanding payroll into the Americas?
Sending people into new markets who speak the language, but don’t understand the culture. For example, an American company might expand into Uruguay, and send a couple of US payroll professionals who speak Spanish. They can communicate with the workforce, but they won’t have knowledge of the cultural characteristics of the country, which will play a huge role in how payroll operates. This is why there is no substitute for genuine local expertise.
How important are HR system integrations for payroll in the Americas?
Very — it’s the first question most customers ask when looking for a new payroll provider. But there’s a lot of work behind the scenes that ensures data can flow easily and securely from HR systems to payroll (and vice versa), and results in a final, accurate payment and record. It’s something the payroll industry in general has been focusing on because there are great rewards that can be achieved from a smooth integration, across value, efficiency and insights.