Cross-border telework: what’s changing?

How telework has become self-evident

During the COVID-19 pandemic, “working from home” shifted from the exception to a standard practice for many companies and employees. Through the pandemic period, social security organisations were able to leverage flexibility in the legislation and allow many employees to work remotely several days a week from their country of residence, without any consequences for their social security status.

In 2022, pandemic conditions eased, but workers and employers were keen to continue with these hybrid working models. However, existing European legislation presented certain obstacles – in particular, Article 13 of Regulation 883/2004 which specifies that no more than 25% of a cross-border employee’s working time can be spent in their country of residence. This regulation was originally intended to avoid administrative complexity.

In light of the changing circumstances, employers and employee representatives joined forces to demand solutions to these issues. The Administrative Commission representing the member states established an ad-hoc group to explore both short-term and long-term solutions to meet the growing call for telework regimes. What the group delivered was the framework agreement on cross-border telework.

Key points

The core of the agreement is the criterion that no more than 49% of the remote work can be done from a cross-border worker’s country of residence without changes to their social security status. This percentage has been chosen as a threshold that provides elegant legal clarity, while allowing reasonable practical flexibility.

What does the future hold?

To date, 18 countries have signed the agreement; the United Kingdom has indicated that it will not sign, due to the absence of Article 16. The other EU member states have yet to take a decision, and Italy has not accepted any ratifications.

So far in Belgium, 65 requests have been submitted for residents of other countries, mostly France and the Netherlands. During the first year following the agreement coming into effect, it can be applied retroactively, providing the employee is registered in the employer's member state.

This framework agreement is essentially a short-term solution provided by the ad-hoc committee; they will continue their work in order to allow more flexible teleworking options in Europe in the long term.