The A1 application before departure is becoming the rule. Miss it, and the host country can fine you.
Something happened this summer that has drawn remarkably little attention.
On 7 July 2026, the European Parliament adopted, at first reading, the revision of Regulation 883/2004 and its implementing Regulation 987/2009. Formal adoption by the Council and publication in the Official Journal still have to follow — so the rules are not yet in force. But the text is on the table, and one change deserves a place on every mobility agenda right now.
The application for the A1 certificate must be submitted before the posting begins.
Not “within the month”. Not “as soon as possible”. Before. And where that obligation is not met, the host country may impose administrative penalties on the employer.
What actually changes
In many organisations the current practice still runs like this: the employee leaves, and the A1 catches up later. That works, because the A1 certificate is declaratory — it establishes which legislation applies, it does not create that applicability. Retroactive issuance is common.
That logic survives the revision. And it matters that you understand this correctly: failing to file in advance does not automatically cost you home-country coverage. The substantive conflict rules of Regulation 883/2004 continue to determine the applicable legislation, and a procedural omission cannot take those rights away.
What does change is the price of being late.
If you do not file in advance:
- the host country may impose an administrative penalty on the employer for breaching the procedural obligation;
- the host country must gather information from both employer and employee, forward it to the competent institution in the home country, and request an assessment of the applicable legislation;
- only then, if that assessment is positive, does an A1 follow with retroactive effect;
- and if the two states disagree, the established dialogue and conciliation procedure kicks in.
In other words: most genuine posting cases end up in the same place — an A1 — but by way of a route that can take months, pulls in several institutions, and leaves your employee in limbo in the meantime.
There is one practical reassurance built in. Once the application has been properly submitted, the competent institution must issue an acknowledgement of receipt. That acknowledgement is enough to demonstrate compliance with the prior notification requirement while the certificate itself is still being processed. So you do not have to wait until the A1 is physically in hand before travel begins.
Where the exemptions sit — and where they stop
The reform also introduces a long-awaited easing: a definition of the “business trip”.
A business trip is a time-limited activity connected to the business interests of the employer: a meeting, a conference, a seminar, a training. For a business trip, no prior A1 application is required.
What expressly does not count as a business trip: the provision of services and the transport of goods.
On top of that, there is an exemption for short assignments of no more than three consecutive days within a period of thirty consecutive days.
Two caveats, and both are sharp.
One: construction is carved out. For construction activities the prior application remains mandatory at all times, including for very short assignments. And the definition in Annex 6 is remarkably broad: excavation, earthmoving, actual building work, assembly and dismantling of prefabricated elements, fitting-out and installation, alteration and renovation, repairs, demolition, maintenance, and even painting and cleaning work that forms part of building upkeep. If your analysis stops at “we’re not in construction”, it is worth looking again.
Two: the exemption applies to postings only. It does not apply where the trip forms part of a pattern of working in two or more Member States. Which brings us to the question that a great many files quietly answer wrong.
The question underneath: posting or multi-state?
The revision leans heavily on posting. That is understandable — in absolute numbers, posting still dominates. But A1 applications for work in two or more Member States are rising sharply. The reality of cross-border work is shifting away from the classic assignment to a single host country and towards employees who work across several countries as a matter of routine.
That makes the classification question more important than the application itself. For some situations it will be simpler and safer to rely on the rules for work in two or more Member States than to treat every case as a posting.
Anyone using those two categories interchangeably today is building up a problem that only becomes visible during an inspection.
What you can do now
The rules are not yet in force, and once published in the Official Journal there will be an implementation period on top. Realistically we are looking at a horizon of several years.
That is not a reason to wait. It is precisely the reason to start, because these are process changes — not switches you flip on the day the rules take effect.
Four steps that already make sense today:
- Build a social security assessment into the front of your mobility process, not the back. The question “posting or multi-state?” needs to be asked before the trip is booked.
- Revisit how you classify cases. Run through your live A1 portfolio and check whether the classification still matches the actual working patterns.
- Hard-wire the pre-departure A1 application into your workflow. It is the same reflex you already know from prior notification under the Posting of Workers Directive, and from Limosa. Extend the line.
- Map which of your activities could fall under the construction definition. Annex 6 reaches further than most people assume.
The revision does not rebuild the posting system. The core holds: up to 24 months of home-country coverage, provided the employer normally operates there and the worker is not replacing another posted worker.
What changes is the discipline around it. Less room to regularise after the fact, more emphasis on timely and accurate notification, and a host state equipped to enforce it.
The whole thing fits on one line: apply for the A1 before the posting starts. It is simpler, safer, and it saves everyone a great deal of friction.
How PKF BOFIDI can help
This is the kind of work our team handles day to day. Concretely, we can help you:
- classify your cases correctly — posting or multi-state working, and what follows from that choice;
- audit your live A1 portfolio against actual working patterns, before an inspection does it for you;
- build the pre-departure A1 step into your mobility process, alongside the notification obligations you already run under the Posting of Workers Directive and Limosa;
- assess your exposure to the construction carve-out, which reaches further than most organisations assume;
- keep you posted as the text moves from Parliament to the Council, to the Official Journal, and into national practice.
If you would like to look at your own set-up before the rules land, get in touch — a short review now is considerably cheaper than a retroactive file later.