Post-Brexit Challenges for UK Visitors &
How Businesses Can Prepare for
Today’s Travel Landscape

Post-Brexit Challenges for UK Visitors & How Businesses Can Prepare for Today’s Travel Landscape

We’ve been receiving several requests for more information about UK nationals travelling to the UK for business. (In case you missed it, read our original blog post here on this topic: UK Business Visitors to the EU: One Size Does Not Fit All.)

UK nationals travelling to the EU for business pose specific challenges for companies. It is important that travel and mobility teams have a plan to adapt to the new restrictions affecting any upcoming travel or moves from the UK to the EU. Although business travel hasn’t fully resumed due to the pandemic, now is the perfect time to prepare your business for the restart of business travel.

With the end of free movement for UK nationals, these travellers no longer have the freedom to work, study, start a business, or live in the EU. However, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), approved on 24 December 2020, aims to facilitate short-term business trips between the UK and EU. To this end, UK nationals limiting their activities to the following are permitted to enter and stay visa free in the Schengen Area for 90 days during any 180-day period:

1. attending meetings or conferences
2. technical, statistical, and marketing research
3. receiving training
4. prospecting sales or purchases
5. attending trades and exhibitions
6. attending after-sales and lease services

It is important to note that there is still little or no guidance yet on how the different EU member states will interpret the list of activities provided in the TCA. This uncertainty and variation in regulations makes it all the more important to ensure that your business travellers remain compliant with each country’s travel laws.

Key Challenges for UK Nationals

Below are the key business travel challenges UK nationals now face post-Brexit:

• Business vs. work – no common definition of business vs. work in the EU. Country-specific assessment is required. (Put the Post-Brexit Travel Assessment to work for your company. In less than five minutes, you’ll get the necessary guidance on requirements for travel as well as a Support Letter to make travel entry as easy as possible.)
• Work authorisation process – work authorisation/visa processes vary from country to country.
• 90/180 days stay restrictions – tracking of stay in the Schengen Area (as well as in non-Schengen countries) required for both personal and business visits.
• Working inspections – staying compliant due to increase working inspections by local authorities.
• COVID-19 restrictions – keeping up to date with travel restrictions and exemptions. (Stay current with the Entry Guide and subscribe to daily COVID-19 travel updates.)

How Employers Can Prepare for the New Travel Landscape

• Contact your dedicated CIBTvisas Account Manager to discuss the below travel compliance recommendations for today’s transformed travel landscape. Don’t have an Account Manager? Contact us.
• Assess short term activities to ensure travellers limit their actions to those permissible under local regulations, as work authorisation may be required.
• Adjust budgets and timelines to account for potential work authorisation processing times and costs.
• Utilise EU nationals in positions that require short work trips and/or very frequent business travel to, and within, the EU.
• Leverage EU ICT Permit and Van der Elst benefits that provide holders with streamlined entry and work authorisation options.
• Comply with Posted Worker and A1 requirements.

CIBTvisas understands that business travel after Brexit is complex and ensuring compliance with local regulations is more challenging than ever. The Post-Brexit Business Travel Assessment protects your organisation and travellers from severe penalties of non-compliance.

Take the Assessment

We can also support you and your travel programme with work authorisation and Posted Worker obligations through our immigration division, Newland Chase. We stand ready to support your program. Contact your dedicated CIBTvisas Account Manager today for more information. Don’t have an Account Manager? Contact us.

CIBTvisas is part of CIBT, the leading global provider of immigration and visa services for corporations and individuals with expert immigration and visa professionals, attorneys and qualified migration consultants located in over 70 offices in 25 countries.

With thirty years of experience, CIBT is the primary service provider to 75% of Fortune 500 companies. CIBT offers a comprehensive suite of services under two primary brands: Newland Chase, a wholly owned subsidiary focused on global immigration strategy and advisory services for corporations worldwide and CIBTvisas, the market leader for business and other travel visa services for corporate and individual clients.