Short Term Business Visitors – Making sure you’re compliant

We see many businesses who boast a global workforce taking advantage of the expertise of those based overseas by mobilising them to the UK for short periods of time to undertake specific pieces of work or to attend meetings. By doing so, it is vital that the Company ensures they are meeting the reporting obligations as an employer in the UK for these individuals.

As a rule, any individual who comes to work in the UK is liable to UK PAYE on their income which relates to their UK duties from day one. However providing specific criteria is met, individuals who are primarily employed overseas but come to the UK for short periods of time as detailed above, may fall within the Short Term Business Visitors (STBV) legislation. This allows for an exemption to apply removing the requirement for the employer to operate UK PAYE on these individuals.

For the STBV legislation and exemption to apply, it is important that the following conditions are met;

• The individual is resident in a country in which the UK has a Double Taxation Agreement
• The individual comes to work in the UK for a UK company or the UK branch of an overseas company, or is legally employed by a UK resident employer, but economically employer by a separate non-resident entity
• The individual is expected to stay in the UK for 183 days or less in a 12 month period

In addition, the employer must have approval from HMRC to operate this exemption known as a STBV Agreement. This is obtained by submitting an application to HMRC.

Although there is no requirement to operate PAYE on STBVs, under this exemption HMRC require employers to complete annual reporting by 31^st May following the end of the tax year in which the individuals were present in the UK. The reporting required is dependent on the number of days that the individual was present in the UK during the year.

If you require any assistance with either setting up a STBV agreement or completing the annual reporting, please do not hesitate to contact Gillian Forrest, or your usual AAB contact.