If the staff member planning to travel is British, they must “think very carefully about what they will be doing whilst they’re in Europe” because of the loss of free movement following UK’s departure from Europe.

Speaking at an Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) legal forum in May, immigration specialist Annabel Mace, a partner at law firm Patton Squire Boggs, warned: “The focus there has got to be on not ‘how long am I going, how long is my trip’… but on what is that business activity, what is the nature of the work that will be done, all of the business activity you will be doing in Europe, and does that require a work permit.”

Terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) hammered out by the EU and UK in the waning days of 2020 have not been helpful on a lot of fronts, experts have agreed.

Basic business meetings and “no actual work” being done while in the European country “should be fine”, she said. However, “if you’re doing anything that verges on productive work, activity on a work project, then that’s something that would require a work permit in the country that you’re travelling to, regardless of the length of your trip”, Mace said.

Complicating the issue further, as Britons have found with other business-related issues, “the permitted activities vary from one EU country to another”, Mace said.

She went on to suggest that some potential business travellers to Europe may not want to make the trip at all ultimately “because the reality is, getting work permits going into Europe is quite difficult in the sense that… it could take weeks, if not months.

“So,” she said, “it’s really going to require a sort of change in mindset when business travel really kicks off again.”

Businesses should contact their immigration partners for further information.

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