Posting a non-EU worker from one EU country to another

A company established in one EU member state may post a lawfully employed non-EU worker to another member state to provide a service without a host country work permit. The principle comes from the Court of Justice judgment in Vander Elst, Case C-43/93, of 9 August 1994. It removes the permit and nothing else.

The posting declaration, the A1 certificate and the host country's pay rules all still apply.

This is the question most often asked by employers running a European corridor from Nepal, India or the Philippines. A welder holds a Polish single permit, the shipyard needs him in Germany for eleven weeks, and the employer wants to know whether a second permit is required. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that four other things are.

What the Vander Elst exemption covers

The Court reasoned from the freedom to provide services, now Article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Requiring an undertaking lawfully established in one member state to obtain work permits for its own employees each time it performs a service in another member state would make cross border services more burdensome than domestic ones, which the Treaty does not allow.

The conditions attached in national practice are consistent across member states even though the wording differs.

The last row is where most arrangements fail. Several member states, Austria and Germany among them, distinguish a genuine provision of services from the hiring out of labour, where the worker is simply placed under the direction of the host business. Where the arrangement is labour hire in substance, the Vander Elst exemption is not available and the host country's own authorisation rules apply in full. Calling a labour supply contract a service contract does not change the assessment.

The four things the exemption does not remove

First, social security. Regulation (EC) 883/2004 governs which state's system covers the worker, and Article 12 allows continued coverage in the sending state for a posting expected to last no more than 24 months. The proof is the Portable Document A1, issued by the sending state's institution. An inspection on a German or Belgian site asks for the A1 before it asks for anything else, and there is no retrospective cure: a certificate applied for after the inspection does not answer the question of what covered the worker on the day.

Second, the prior declaration. Article 9 of Directive 2014/67/EU, the posting enforcement directive, allows member states to require a simple declaration before the posting starts, and every receiving state has taken the option. The names differ and the portals do not talk to each other: LIMOSA in Belgium, SIPSI in France, the ZKO forms in Austria, the declaration to the customs administration in Germany. Filing in the wrong state, or filing after arrival, is a stand alone offence irrespective of the worker's status. In Germany a notification breach under the Posting of Workers Act carries a fine of up to €30,000 imposed by the customs administration, and a fine of €2,500 or more can bar the company from public procurement.

Third, terms and conditions. Directive 96/71/EC as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/957 requires the host state's rules on pay, working time, holidays and health and safety to apply from the first day. The relevant figure is the host rate, not the sending state's. A Polish employer paying Polish construction rates to a crew working in Germany is underpaying against German rules even though the employment contract is entirely lawful in Poland.

Fourth, residence formalities for long postings. A posting beyond 90 days triggers registration or a residence document in most host states, and the exemption from a work permit is not an exemption from that.

The enforcement picture, and the practical rule for a corridor

The European Labour Authority published its study on posted third country nationals, Contractual Chains and Recruitment Patterns, on 20 March 2025. It examined workers from Ukraine, Brazil and Bosnia and Herzegovina posted from Poland, Portugal and Slovenia, concentrated in road transport and care, and mapped the contracting chains through which they reach the host site.

The pattern it describes matters for procurement. Posted third country nationals typically arrive through several layers of contract, and the party that holds the A1, the party that filed the declaration and the party directing the work on site are frequently three different businesses. Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are the main receiving states; Poland, Slovenia and Spain are among the main sending states. That geography maps closely onto the corridors European construction and logistics operators already use.

Where the chain is long, liability does not stay at the bottom of it. The subcontracting liability rules described in EU penalties for employing a non-EU worker without authorisation attach to the contractor that engaged the supplier, and a missing A1 three tiers down surfaces as a question for the main contractor.

Treat the posting as a second compliance file rather than as a continuation of the first. The single permit issued in the sending state, described in the single permit explained, establishes the lawful employment on which the exemption rests, but it says nothing about the host state. Before the crew moves, confirm four items: an A1 valid for the exact dates, a declaration filed in the host state before departure, a pay calculation at host rates, and residence documents that outlast the assignment.

Where the arrangement is labour hire rather than a service contract, the honest answer is that a host country authorisation is needed and the schedule has to absorb it. The division of responsibilities across employer, supplier and site is set out in the employer sponsorship compliance chain, and what Werklist holds on each corridor is on our employers page.