“No physical work – could a posting notification still be required?”
In practice, it is not always clear how travel connected with work in the EEA or Switzerland should be classified. What distinguishes a business trip from posting? What common misconceptions can make the correct classification more difficult, and how should these situations be assessed? In this article, we aim to provide practical guidance on these questions.
When a Hungarian undertaking contacts us because it intends to send an employee temporarily to another EEA country or Switzerland, or because it is receiving a foreign employee, one of the first questions we usually ask is what exactly the employee will be doing in the host country.
We often receive the following answer:
“The employee will not be working, only attending meetings.”
On other occasions:
“The employee will not be performing productive work, only managing the process.”
Or:
“There will be no physical work, only on-site support for our colleagues.”
These answers provide important information, but they are not sufficient on their own to determine whether the temporary foreign travel – referred to in Hungarian practice as an assignment or business trip – may involve posting.
The decisive question is what activity the employee will actually perform in the host country.
If an employee performs an actual professional task in the context of the cross-border provision of services – whether the work is physical or intellectual – a posting situation may arise. In such cases, a posting notification may also be required under the rules of the host country.
Not every work-related foreign trip automatically qualifies as posting. For example, if an employee attends a conference, meeting, trade fair or training session and does not provide a service or perform substantive work in the host country, the trip will generally fall outside the scope of the posting rules.
Posting is a narrower legal category under EU law. It may arise where the employee performs work in the host country in connection with services provided by the sending undertaking, a temporary assignment within a group of companies or temporary agency work.
„Can office-based work also qualify as posting?”
A common misconception is that posting only arises in cases involving physical work, such as installation, construction, maintenance or operating machinery. The rules do not make such a general distinction. Office-based, expert or managerial activities may also qualify as actual work for posting purposes.
The performance of professional tasks may include, for example:
- on-site configuration of an IT system;
- training employees;
- professional management of a production process;
- carrying out quality-control or engineering tasks;
- on-site coordination of a project;
- supervising the installation or commissioning of machinery.
None of these activities necessarily involves physical work. An employee may spend the entire time in a meeting room or working on a laptop, while their activities nevertheless form part of a service provided in the host country.
The question “Will the employee perform physical work?” can therefore be no more than one element of the initial fact-finding process. To classify the situation correctly, it is necessary to examine what task the employee will actually perform and whether it is connected to a service provided in the host country.
„Is the employee merely attending, or performing a specific task?”
At first glance, the following conclusion may seem obvious: “No posting notification is required – the employee is only going to a meeting, training session or audit.”
In practice, however, this alone is not sufficient to establish that the trip does not qualify as posting.
The decisive question is whether the employee is merely attending a meeting, training session or other event as a participant, or gathering information, or whether they are actually performing tasks, managing others, providing training or carrying out checks. The classification of the following situations may differ depending on the employee’s actual activities.
Meeting
A Hungarian engineer is sent to France by their employer for three days to attend meetings concerning a new production line. The engineer listens to presentations, discusses matters with French colleagues and gathers information for subsequent decisions. On these facts, the trip would generally be regarded as a business trip, and the engineer would not be providing services in France.
The assessment may be different if the “meeting” actually involves the day-to-day management of a project lasting several weeks, during which the employee assigns tasks to the French team, monitors implementation and is responsible for the outcome of the project.
Training
If an employee is sent to Austria by a Hungarian company to attend intra-group training, this will generally not constitute the provision of services in Austria.
If, however, the employee travels to Austria to train Austrian employees on behalf of the Hungarian company, deliver training materials, assess the knowledge acquired and support the introduction of a new process, posting may arise.
In both cases, the company may record the trip as “training”, even though the employee’s role and actual activities are fundamentally different.
Machine installation and technical supervision
A foreign engineer sent to a Hungarian company does not physically work on the machine, but only supervises the work of the Hungarian specialists. This does not mean that the engineer is not performing substantive work.
If the engineer’s presence is connected with the installation, configuration or handover of equipment supplied by the sending undertaking, and the supervision forms part of the sending undertaking’s contractual performance, posting may arise even if all physical work is carried out by Hungarian employees.
Audit
The term “audit” may also refer to several different types of activity. The situation may be different where a manager of a Hungarian group company makes a short visit to review the operation of a Slovak subsidiary, compared with a case where an expert auditing service is provided to the Slovak undertaking. The name given to the activity therefore cannot, in itself, provide a reliable basis for classification.
In practice, the decisive factor is not the company’s internal label for the trip – such as “business trip”, “meeting”, “training” or “audit” – but what the employee actually does in the host country.
„Does a short duration create an exemption?”
We often encounter the following assumption: “The employee is travelling for only one day, so posting does not need to be considered.”
A short assignment does not necessarily mean that the trip cannot qualify as posting. A two- or three-day machine setup, on-site repair or IT system installation may also take place in the context of the cross-border provision of services.
Conversely, a longer stay connected with an assignment does not automatically constitute posting either. Participation in several weeks of training or a series of intra-group meetings may be classified differently where the employee does not provide services in the host country.
How should the situation be assessed?
The following questions should be assessed together:
- What exactly will the employee do: attend meetings, provide training, manage, inspect, install or supervise technical work?
- Is the employee merely attending an event, or performing a specific task and being responsible for a defined outcome?
- Is the activity connected with a contract or service undertaken by the foreign undertaking, with the installation of machinery or with a task within a group of companies?
- Who determines the employee’s tasks in the host country, and who supervises and directs them?
- How long will the employee be present, and is the activity a one-off event or something that will be repeated regularly?
Overall, work-related travel within the EEA and to Switzerland should be assessed comprehensively in each case, taking into account the purpose of the trip, the activities actually performed and the applicable rules of the host country.
This article provides general information only. The legal assessment of each individual situation depends on the specific circumstances and the applicable rules of the countries concerned. If you need more information about the posting reporting, please feel free to contact us.
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