Meet My Assistant
US-based virtual assistant vs overseas VA: what's the difference?
A US-based virtual assistant lives and works in the United States. An overseas virtual assistant lives and works in another country and supports a US company from there.
- Top 1% applicants
- Time-zone aligned
- 98% retention
Locations
Hire a virtual assistant by state
Same US-managed match. Pick the page for where your business operates.
Updated October 2026. Meet My Assistant is the overseas model with US management. Assistants are college-educated and based in Latin America. Matching, onboarding, and a Customer Success Manager sit with our team in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. This is the national page for hiring a virtual assistant in the USA under that model. It is not a US-staffed agency, and it is not a freelance board.
Who this is for — and who it is not
A fit if you:
- Run a US company and need a full-time or part-time assistant inside your existing tools
- Want someone to interview before they touch your inbox, CRM, or calendar
- Want English/Spanish coverage on the US Eastern or Central business day
- Prefer a Customer Success Manager on the account instead of managing a marketplace vendor
Not a fit if you:
- Need the assistant physically in a US office or on a US employment contract
- Want the cheapest hourly poster on a freelance marketplace
- Need licensed work (clinical care, showing homes, practicing law). Those stay with you; we take the operational load around them
If you only need a social, healthcare, real estate, or legal seat, go straight to that pathway. This page is the national hiring model.
US-based VA vs overseas VA
Use this table to see the difference before you pick a model. Dollar figures below are public US employment costs, not a Meet My Assistant rate. We quote full-time or part-time after the role is mapped.
| Factor | US-based virtual assistant | Overseas virtual assistant |
|---|---|---|
| Time zone | Already on a US clock. As of October 2026, Eastern Time is UTC−5 in standard time and UTC−4 in daylight time. Central Time is UTC−6 and UTC−5. | Depends on the country. Colombia is UTC−5 year-round, so the US business day still overlaps. Philippine Time is UTC+8 year-round: 12 hours ahead of US Eastern daylight time and 13 hours ahead of Eastern standard time. As of October 2026. |
| Culture and communication | US holidays and a US business day. English is the local working language. | The workflow still has to be written down. A Latin America assistant can work in English and Spanish on the US day. A UTC+8 seat is usually a written handoff unless that person works a US shift. |
| Data security | A US address is not a security control. Access, logins, and the ability to revoke them are the control. | The country is not a security control either. If protected health information is disclosed to a business associate, HIPAA requires a business associate contract and safeguards. As of July 30, 2026. This is not legal advice. |
| Cost | US employee benchmark, not a bill rate. As of May 2025, the median wage for secretaries and administrative assistants was $23.23 an hour. As of June 2026, benefits were 30.0% of private-industry compensation ($14.07 of $46.89 an hour). | No overseas hourly rate is printed here. The marketplace ranges we checked do not agree, so the figure is cut. Compare a written quote with the US wage plus benefits. |
Peers that sell US-based virtual assistants (Time Etc, BELAY-style firms, VirtualAssistUSA) are a different product. If that is the requirement, say so on the call and we will tell you we are not that.
The wider list of what any virtual assistant takes off your plate, and the way to compare a quote with a local hire, is on benefits of hiring a virtual assistant.
Time zone
As of October 2026, US Eastern Time is UTC−5 in standard time and UTC−4 in daylight time, and US Central Time is UTC−6 in standard time and UTC−5 in daylight time (NIST Local Time FAQs; timeanddate Eastern Time).
Colombia’s legal time is UTC−5 year-round, with no daylight-saving switch (Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio; Instituto Nacional de Metrología). During US daylight time, Colombia is one hour behind Eastern and matches Central. During US standard time, Colombia matches Eastern. A person on that clock can cover a US Eastern or Central business day without working overnight.
Philippine Time is UTC+8 year-round (timeanddate; IANA time zone database, zone Asia/Manila, standard offset 8:00). That is 12 hours ahead of US Eastern daylight time (UTC−4) and 13 hours ahead of US Eastern standard time (UTC−5). Live calls then fall at the edge of the US day, or the assistant works a US shift.
Latin America is not one time zone. The Colombia offset is the nearshore example we can cite. Meet My Assistant schedules the default overlap on US Eastern and Central time.
Culture and communication
A US-based assistant shares the office calendar: US business hours, US public holidays, and English as the local working language. That is the practical benefit when the work is live conversation with your clients all day.
An overseas assistant does not remove the need to write the job down. Tools, owners, and what “done” means still have to be explicit. Where the countries differ in a way you can plan for is language and when you can talk.
Meet My Assistant places college-educated assistants who work in English and Spanish. That is a product fact about who we match, not a claim about every country. A far-offset hire can still do the work. The difference is that feedback arrives on the next US morning unless you have agreed a US-hours shift.
Data security
Where someone sits is not the safeguard. The safeguard is which systems they can open, with which login, and how fast you can turn that access off. We do not place someone you have not interviewed, and we do not ask you to change software. After you approve the person, access is granted in the tools you already use: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, your CRM, or your phone system. Share access with role-based logins. Do not send passwords in email.
Health information has a separate rule. As of July 30, 2026, HHS describes a business associate as a person, other than a member of the covered entity’s workforce, who creates, receives, maintains, or transmits protected health information for that covered entity. A covered entity needs a business associate contract before disclosing that information, and the contract has to limit use and require safeguards. The guidance does not make the duty depend on the assistant’s country. The same contract standard is in 45 CFR 164.504(e) (HHS business associate guidance). This page is not legal advice. If the work includes patient information, ask counsel which agreement you need before access is turned on.
Cost
Two public US figures agree, and both are employment costs for a US worker, not a virtual-assistant bill rate.
As of May 2025, the median wage for secretaries and administrative assistants was $23.23 an hour. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook publishes that median as $48,310 a year as of May 2025. BLS OEWS Table 1 (released May 15, 2026) lists the same median hourly wage, $23.23 as of May 2025. The Handbook notes that some administrative assistants work from home as virtual assistants. That hourly median is the wage benchmark. It is not what a US-based VA agency invoices.
As of June 2026, benefits were 30.0% of compensation for private-industry workers, $14.07 of $46.89 an hour. That figure is in the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation news release (USDL-26-1494, released September 9, 2026) and in ECEC Table 1. A US W2 seat pays the wage and that benefit load, plus whatever recruiting and equipment you add. The benefits of hiring a virtual assistant guide shows how to lay a quote next to that local-hire cost.
No overseas hourly rate appears on this page. Staffing-marketplace guides published for 2025 and 2026 do not agree on a US range or a Latin America range, so those dollar figures are cut rather than averaged. Meet My Assistant quotes after the discovery call maps hours, tools, and the work. Ask for that quote if cost is the gate.
Benefits of a US-based virtual assistant
The benefits of a US-based VA are the ones in the table: the person is already on a US clock, the holiday calendar matches the office, and English is the local working language. Choose that model when a client, a contract, or the work itself requires the human to be in the United States. We will say so if we are not the right vendor.
Choose an overseas assistant when you want the operational seat — inbox, calendar, CRM, follow-up — without putting that person on US payroll. Our version of that seat is in Latin America, with US management and bilingual coverage, on the Eastern and Central overlap described above.
For the task list, the five-step start, and the local-hire comparison, use benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. This page stays on the US-based versus overseas difference.
Which hiring model you are buying
| Factor | US W2 hire | US-based VA agency | Meet My Assistant | Freelance marketplace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where the person works | Your office or US remote | United States | Latin America | Wherever the freelancer is |
| Who employs or manages them | You (payroll, HR, backup) | The agency | US-managed matching plus a Customer Success Manager | You, deal by deal |
| Backup if someone leaves | You recruit again | Usually yes | Replacement is part of the model | You post the job again |
| You interview the person | Yes | Often | Yes. We do not place someone you have not approved | Optional |
| Best when | You need an in-house employee | You specifically want US-based talent | You want managed Latin America talent for a US company | You have a tiny, well-specified task |
Cost for the US employee column is the May 2025 wage and the June 2026 benefit share in the comparison above. The other columns are quotes. We do not print a rate for them.
What you can hire
- Administrative and executive support
- Real estate support
- Healthcare / front-desk support
- Legal admin and intake
- Social media virtual assistant
- Marketing assistant
- Lead generation and sales support
- Customer service
State and city pages are local proof for teams in those places. The hiring process is the same: Florida, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Texas, and California.
Related reading: Why Virtual Assistant Services Are Essential for Modern Businesses and 5 AI Integrations That Turn Your Virtual Assistant into a Growth Engine.
How it works
How hiring works
When you know which column you need, use the contact page. We map the role before anyone is placed.
A call to map workflows, tools, hours, and what “good” looks like before we search.
We source and vet bilingual, college-educated assistants in Latin America against that brief — not a generic bench.
You meet shortlisted candidates. We only proceed with someone you approve.
We handle access, workflow alignment, and a Customer Success Manager so the seat stays accountable. If availability changes, we replace.
FAQ
FAQ
No. Assistants live and work in Latin America. Meet My Assistant is a US-managed agency in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Operations, matching, and customer success are in the US. If you need a US-based human on a US employment contract, this is not the right model.
A US-based virtual assistant lives and works in the United States. An overseas VA lives and works in another country. The differences that change the work are time zone, when you can talk live, and whether a contract requires the person to be in the US. Data access rules are yours either way.
As of May 2025, the median wage for US secretaries and administrative assistants was $23.23 an hour, which the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook also publishes as $48,310 a year as of May 2025. BLS OEWS Table 1 reports the same median hourly wage, $23.23 as of May 2025. As of June 2026, private-industry benefits were 30.0% of compensation, $14.07 of $46.89 an hour, in the BLS ECEC news release and Table 1. Those are employee costs, not our price. We quote after the role is mapped. No overseas hourly rate is printed here.
A US address does not, by itself, make the account safer. Safety is the access you grant and how you revoke it. As of July 30, 2026, HHS still requires a business associate contract when protected health information is disclosed to a business associate, and 45 CFR 164.504(e) requires that contract to limit use and require safeguards. The duty is about the work, not the country. This is not legal advice.
You are not the recruiter. We match, you interview, we onboard, and a US manager stays on the account. A marketplace hire leaves sourcing, quality, and replacement with you.
Yes, after you grant access. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, your CRM, EHR, MLS, practice software, or phone system. We do not require you to switch stacks.