Employees working abroad
New rules on the expatriation of employees within the EU
European rules on the coordination of social security in cross-border work are set to become significantly stricter. Employers will, in particular, have to take into account a longer minimum period of insurance in the home country prior to posting, which is set to be extended from one to three months, as well as a mandatory two-month break between individual postings. This will now apply not only to repeated postings to the same country, but generally to consecutive postings within the EU. Companies will therefore need to systematically monitor the complete history of individual employees' postings across countries and ensure better coordination between HR, the payroll department and other teams.The amendment also clarifies the conditions for determining the relevant country for persons working in two or more countries. In practice, this may result in an employee's social security affiliation changing to that of a different country than before. Greater emphasis will also be placed on the employer's actual place of business and on more detailed records of where and to what extent the employee actually physically carries out their work.
The changes will also affect A1 forms, relating to "postings of up to 24 months", for which it will now be required to submit an application before the cross-border work commences, with limited exceptions for short business trips. At the same time, the rules for employees working in multiple countries will be clarified, and a higher level of scrutiny and faster exchange of information between the institutions of individual Member States can also be expected.
The new rules have yet to be formally adopted and published in the Official Journal of the EU and will only come into force after a two-year transition period. However, we already recommend that companies with frequent cross-border staff movements review their internal records of secondments and the cooperation between their HR and payroll departments.
