Working Life > Workplace > Business Trips

Business Trips and Business Travelling

Definition, Explanation

As soon as an employee works outside the normal workplace, business-related travelling, a business trip, is necessary. Having finished the outside work, the employee returns to his regular workplace. If there are several workplaces, travels in between will not be regarded as business trips – still, the travelling expenses will be reimbursed. Travels around the place of residence or around the workplace are considered ‘short business trips’, but are taxed in the same way as are regular business trips. Any travels between the place of residence and the workplace are considered travels to and from work, the costs of which are for the account of the employee himself.

Business trips include any travels to meetings with clients, suppliers, colleagues at other places of the company, to events, to conferences, seminars, fairs, exhibitions, or in the case of temporary secondment to locations of other authorities or companies. For teachers, even class trips are included.

If an outside activity takes longer than 3 months, then the outside workplace will be regarded, taxwise, as a new regular workplace. This affects the reimbursement of expenses. The 3 months limit only applies to a single outside workplace, not to employees who work at different places within a longer a period of time, like e.g. sales representatives.

The time of travelling is considered working time, as long as it really is within the regular working hours. Outside the regular working hours, entitlement to remuneration of the travelling time is controvertible. Often, there are regulations in the employment contract, a collective agreement, or a company agreement.

The employee can be committed obligatorily to business trips, independently of the employment contract.

Expenses of means of travelling, of accommodation, of food, as well as everything that is subsumed under additional expenses, are reimbursed by the employer. Rules and rates for accounting for all such travelling-related expenses are usually contracted in a collective agreement or in a company agreement. The rates are mostly based on, or are references to what the tax regulations say. The reimbursement of travelling expenses is taxless as far as below the relevant thresholds. Often, employers directly pay travelling expenses via a company credit card. If expenses are not reimbursed, or when a self-employed travels for business, the trip can be set off against tax as income-related expenses or professional expenses. So-called additional expenses include luggage, telephone, postage, parking and toll, extra accident insurances covering occupational accidents outside the regular workplace.

After a business trip, an account of expenses must be drawn up, providing for the distance and time. I.e. it must list the number of kilometres travelled and the exact dates and times of the start and the end of the trip.

Tips, Checklist

• Inform yourself about how your company handles travelling time outside the working hours
• If you intend to be accompanied by a family member or someone else on a business trip at your own expense, you should talk it over with your employer, before, and clarify the modalities
• Be careful with non-appointed detours. In case of an accident, occupational accident insurance will not cover it
• Make the choice of accommodations and transport means a reasonable one. Luxury hotels are normally reimbursed by neither the employer nor the revenue
• Collect all bills to provide evidence of all expenses, since otherwise, only day rates will be granted by the revenue. As a self-employed, you should also collect invitations, congress documents and written confirmations of orders to make expenses plausible to the revenue
• For expected higher expenditures, get an advance from your employer
• Draw up your account soon after the trip
• For car trips, you can account for the actual costs by bills, or apply the mileage allowance, for railway and flight only actual costs
• Be sure to account correctly. Incorrect and excessive accounts can result in dismissal

Last update: 03/16/2010