International Assignment Planning
Leverage our 25+ years of expertise to structure your expat employees’ overseas assignments with robust policies, processes, agreements and documentation
Strong Foundation for Successful International Assignments
Our team of experts will guide you on the most optimised secondment structure to navigate seamlessly through the entire assignment cycle, while ensuring flawless execution of employer and employee obligations
Well documented policies, defined assignment benefits and obligations for different assignment durations
Effectively manage home entity’s compliance exposure in the host country
Documented demarcation of responsibilities between home entity, host entity and the expat
Help your expats stay compliant with immigration, social security and taxation compliances
Different Secondment Routes
Intercompany Secondments
Secondment of executives to related or group entities overseas, for execution of a new project or global expansion
Employer of Records Assignment
In the absence of any host entity, secondment of executives to unrelated service
provider serving as employer in the host country
Remote or Work From Anywhere Assignments
Assignments not confined to any specific location. Projects executed remotely from any location with due consideration to compliances and expat safety
Plan International Assignments With Confidence
Expat Orbit’s host and home specific teams, helps you in planning, designing, and deploying a thought through assignment structure
Effectively plan and execute compliances
Leveraging the pool of experienced tax professionals aided by immigration and labor law experts, we support in holistic management of home and host compliances for expats and the employers
Strong guidepost - A robust global mobility policy
We draft a well rounded mobility policy categorising assignment types based on factors such as assignment duration, host location, cost of living indexes, benefits and perquisites, accompanied family members, payroll location, taxation, immigration and social security obligations
Comprehensive secondment agreements
To ensure water tight adherence to all regulatory requirements and clarity on secondment terms, we draft secondment letters, inter-company agreements and local employment contract issued by host entity to the expats, along with other required documentation
Cross border payroll structuring
Based on home and host benefits, tax implications, preferences and incremental
obligations arising out of international assignments for expat and accompanying
family, we help you structure payroll processing between home and host
location
Frequently Asked Questions
For smaller mobility programs with primarily short-term onsite deployments, will it help to put in place a detailed policy and agreements?
Yes. While seconding employees overseas, many organisations miss evaluating essential regulations related to immigration, taxation, social security, employment, and corporate laws applicable at the host jurisdiction. More often, after deploying executives overseas for a significant period, organisations notice planning lapses, which may open a pandora box of non-compliances, fines, and penalties at the host jurisdiction
What is the distinction between legal and economic employer?
During an overseas assignment, if the payroll cost of an assignment is ultimately borne by the host entity by way of a cross charge or actual pay-out and the host entity controls and supervise the assignee and participates in his performance evaluation, it shall be regarded as an economic employer while the legal employment may still be retained by the home entity
What are popular assignment types when we look at cross border secondments?
Depending on the duration of the assignment, project specific requirements, organisation’s objective and host specific regulations, an overseas assignment may be structured as:
- Commuter Assignment: Commuter assignments are generally for business travellers or expats with multi country responsibility. In such assignments generally home compensation is retained and assignee regularly travels back and forth to the home country on a regular basis
- Short Term Assignment: Depending on the project duration or business requirement, short term assignments could vary between 3 to 12 months and can be further extended by few months. These assignments are generally initiated for executing onsite projects, trainings or knowledge transfer
- Long Terms Assignments: Such assignments are generally for a period exceeding 1 year and could last up to 5 years. The host entity generally serves as economic employer and bears the entire assignment cost and carries out employer related tax, immigration and social security compliances
- Localisation: During an overseas assignment for varied reasons such as cost consciousness, strategic or HR driven initiatives an expat may be transferred from overseas assignment to the host entity as a local employee. In such cases home employment is terminated and expat functions as regular employee of the host entity
What are the key considerations while determining payroll arrangements for overseas secondments?
While determining payroll arrangement, the first step would be to evaluate host specific regulations. Some countries necessitates payment of salary in local currency, in such cases having a host or split payroll would be necessary. Other factors such as duration of assignment, expat’s financial obligations in the home country, currency fluctuations etc could help in determining whether to retain home payroll or shift to a host payroll.