What is an Intra-Company Transfer? A Guide for HR Professionals
Everything you and your company need to know about an intra-company transfer for relocating employees, how it works and how to arrange the right visas and work permits to make it happen.
Alex Schulte | 10 March 2025
An intra-company transfer is when an employee of a multinational company is relocated to another branch, affiliate, or subsidiary in a different country, usually under a special visa or work permit scheme. It is also sometimes known as a secondment.
Enterprise businesses have wider global footprints than ever before, with subsidiaries in dozens of countries. Very often, a need arises in one of these hubs that requires the expertise of an employee from another national office.
Imagine, for example, an American company, with a branch office in Spain, rolling out a digital transformation project across its global presences. The Spanish office’s implementation project might benefit from the onsite expertise of team members involved in the initial work at the company’s New York HQ. In this case, the company might well arrange for those staff to be sent to guide the project, living and working in Madrid for a temporary period.
An intra-company transfer (ICT) is the usual mechanism for arranging this. But what exactly does this entail, and how can HR and mobility professionals ensure a seamless process?
What is an Intra-Company Transfer?
Put simply, an intra-company transfer is when an organisation moves an employee from one branch office or subsidiary to one in another country. The team member continues to be employed by their original employer; all that changes, usually, is their location. These are typically, but not exclusively, for short-term, project-based secondments.
Typically, this applies to managerial, executive, or specialised roles where the employee’s expertise is essential to the receiving office.
Many jurisdictions offer dedicated visa pathways for intra-company transfers. However, these visa routes come with distinct eligibility requirements, such as a minimum tenure with the company, role-specific criteria, and salary thresholds.
Why Businesses Use Intra-Company Transfers
An intra-company transfer can be a strategic tool for a company. Very few organisations have exactly even
1. Knowledge and Expertise Sharing
ICTs enable companies to transfer critical knowledge and expertise across different locations, ensuring that corporate standards are aligned globally.
For instance, a company like IBM might transfer a seasoned IT manager from its US headquarters to its Indian operations to implement a new software system, ensuring that the technology is integrated efficiently and consistently with global standards. This both makes operations more efficient and provides experienced leadership to develop local teams.
2. Efficiency in Talent Deployment
Recruiting and onboarding external hires in new markets can be costly and time-consuming. Deploying existing employees through ICTs is a much faster way to meet business needs.
For example, Microsoft might transfer a sales executive from Europe to Asia to capitalise on emerging market opportunities. The employee would already possess a keen knowledge of the company’s products and strategies and the best strategies for taking them to market.
3. Market Expansion and Business Continuity
For companies entering new regions, having experienced personnel on the ground raises the chances of successfully penetrating local markets. This Institutional knowledge helps ensure consistency in leadership and corporate culture, avoiding brand identity crises that erode customer trust.
4. Talent Development and Retention
Global assignments are valuable career development opportunities. Many employees would jump at the chance to work in a completely new location, immersing themselves in another team’s ways of working. In fact, 93% of employees in one study said that such a deployment would be life-changing.
Employees will take note of the organisations that believed in them enough to send them hundreds or thousands of miles away to grow their leadership skills. That’s why 82% of HR decision-makers surveyed reported that they’d offered relocation opportunities as a means of retaining staff.
How Intra-Company Transfers Work
So, what goes into a successful intra-company transfer? Global Mobility professionals will need to tie all of the following strands together to ensure the relocation goes off smoothly for both the business and the employee.
1. Eligibility Criteria for ICTs
While requirements vary by jurisdiction, common eligibility criteria include:
- A minimum period of employment with the company (typically 6-12 months).
- The employee must hold a managerial, executive, or specialised knowledge position.
- Compensation must meet host-country salary thresholds.
- The role must align with the strategic needs of the receiving entity.
2. Key ICT Visa Routes
Different countries offer specific visa categories for intra-company transfers. Some of the most prominent include:
- United Kingdom – The intra-company transfer visa (now part of the Global Business Mobility route) allows multinational organisations to transfer employees to UK operations. Employees typically need 12 months of prior service unless their salary exceeds a certain threshold.
- United States – The L-1 visa facilitates the transfer of executives, managers, and employees with specialised knowledge to U.S. branches.
- Canada – The ICT Work Permit enables multinational corporations to relocate key employees without requiring a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), expediting the process.
- European Union – The EU ICT Directive streamlines transfers across member states, making cross-border assignments more efficient.
- United Arab Emirates – The UAE offers specialised work permits within free zones and under its Golden Visa framework to accommodate intra-company transfers.
3. Compliance Considerations
Ensuring total compliance with local employment laws, tax regulations, and social security requirements is non-negotiable. Before a relocation begins, companies must address:
- Work authorisation and visa validity. Without the correct visa and/or work permit, an employee may be turned away at border control. Even if this doesn’t happen immediately, authorities in countries across the world are taking increasingly hardline positions on illegal working.
- Tax obligations for both the employee and employer. Employees on short-term assignments may still be considered tax residents in their home country, but can trigger tax liabilities in the host country if they perform work there. For instance, in the UK, non-resident individuals are subject to UK income tax on income earned from work performed in the UK unless the duties are considered ‘incidental’.
- Local labour protections, contract adjustments, and employee entitlements. Laws governing labour rights differ wildly across countries, and what flies at home may be illegal in another location. Staff on an intra-company tranfer must be correctly classified and contracts must be drawn in a way that complies with the host country’s rulebook.
Read our guide to business travel compliance for a more thorough look at the compliance perils of short-term relocation.
Challenges in Managing Intra-Company Transfers
The benefits of ICTs definitely outweigh the administrative burdens. But arranging an intra-company transfer comes with logistical challenges that HR and Global Mobility professionals cannot overlook.
1. Complex ICT Visa and Work Authorisation Processes
Immigration laws frequently change, making navigating visa applications can be very time-intensive at scale. Here in the UK, for example, the Intra-Company Transfer Visa route has been closed to new applicants and replaced with the Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker Visa. The pace of change requires companies to keep their mobility strategies and documentation processes under continuous review.
2. Cultural and Workplace Adaptation
Parachuting into another country with its own working culture isn’t an easy adjustment to make. Relocated employees may struggle with cultural differences, local business practices and integration into the new work environment.
We would always recommend pre-departure and on-arrival cultural training to ease these transitions and prevent feelings of isolation, alienation and fear. If you can help your employees avoid even just one mortifying cultural faux-pas, they will thank you for it!
3. Cost Considerations
ICT programs can be expensive. Companies have to cover the cost of relocation allowances, accommodation, transport, tax equalisation and various further perks.
Just take Apple, which reportedly offers both lump sum payments and structured relocation benefits in the following forms:
- Professional moving services (packing, transporting, and unpacking)
- Transportation costs for shipping personal belongings and vehicles
- Travel expenses for employees and their families
- Storage services when needed
- Temporary housing with furnished accommodations and covered utilities
None of this comes cheap. Intra-company transfers are where Global Mobility professionals will come into close contact with the finance department. It’s imperative to strike the right balance between cost-efficiency and a competitive relocation package that helps employees settle in comfortably.
4. Taxation and Legal Compliance
Without a thorough understanding of cross-border tax implications, an intra-company transfer can become much more expensive than it needs to be.
Many countries have double taxation agreements (DTA)s to prevent double taxation. These agreements can exempt short-term business visitors from host country tax if certain conditions are met. However, the specifics of these agreements vary, and employers must review the relevant treaty to be confident that they’re not opening up a new set of tax liabilities.
Global Mobility managers have various go-to techniques to stave off compliance risks, like shadow payrolls. But there is no one-size-fits-all option that will scale uniformly; it takes attentive research.
The IRS is currently increasing its focus on cross-border compliance to ensure foreign companies pay appropriate taxes in the US. Now is not the time to be lax on tax.
Best Practices for Managing Intra-Company Transfers
The good news is that thousands of companies at this moment are successfully managing intra-company transfers across the world. Those firms all follow a few golden rules to keep everything plain sailing.
1. Establish a Clear ICT Policy
The first task is to set your protocols in stone. Without a reliable playbook, you set yourself up for all the risks of inconsistency and misalignment across global offices.
Your rulebook should include:
- Eligibility criteria and assignment duration
- Compensation structure and benefits
- Immigration, tax, and compliance protocols
- Relocation support, including housing and family assistance
Employers need to know all the processes that need to be put in place to pull off an intra-company transfer. Employees need to know that the relocation experience is uniform and that their colleagues aren’t getting a better deal.
2. Leverage Technology for Mobility Management
New tech systems, like our own AI-powered Global Mobility platform, help professionals integrate all processes in one place. They can automate visa processing, track compliance, and manage employee mobility efficiently.
3. Provide Pre-Departure and Relocation Support
Small lapses in etiquette can create needless friction and hinder staff from settling in. At a minimum, a successful ICT should offer:
- Pre-assignment briefings on cultural and business norms.
- Assistance with housing and local integration.
- Family support, including spouse work authorisation guidance.
4. Monitor Policy Effectiveness
A good policy can always be improved further, but only if you measure how it’s performing.
To continuously improve your intra-company transfer policy, we recommend tracking metrics such as assignment completion rates, employee satisfaction, and business impact.
Make Intra-Company Transfers Simpler
Moving employees between different global offices feels like an easy concept to grasp. But that surface-level intuitiveness belies the sheer complexity of making it actually happen.
Visa and compliance risks, cultural misalignments and heavy costs all conspire to make intra-company transfers more onerous than they need to be. Despite all these burdens, an ICT is still the best way of distributing expertise across vast global footprints. Even so, it should be much easier to organise than it currently is.
Now it can be.
At Centuro Global, we specialise in making global workforce mobility clean and simple. Our combination of AI-enabled technology and human service has helped companies relocate thousands of employees the world over.
Contact us today to learn how we can streamline your intra-company transfer processes and get your workforce on the move faster.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is an intra-company transfer?
An intra-company transfer (ICT) is when a company moves an employee from one of its offices in one country to another office, branch, or affiliate in a different country. This usually requires a specific visa or permit, often referred to as an ICT visa.
2. Who is eligible for an intra-company transfer?
Eligibility depends on the destination country, but typically, the employee must:
- Be currently employed by the company (or its affiliate)
- Have worked there for a minimum period (e.g., 6–12 months)
- Be transferring to a role in a senior, specialist, or managerial position
- Meet salary or skill requirements for the specific visa route
3. How long can you stay on an intra-company transfer visa?
ICT visas are usually temporary. Duration varies by country:
- UK: up to 5 years (or 9 years for high earners)
- USA (L-1 visa): initially 1–3 years, extendable up to 7 years
- EU (ICT Directive): generally up to 3 years
Extensions may be possible, but permanent residency is not always an option via this route.
4. Can an ICT visa lead to permanent residency?
Not usually. ICT visas are considered temporary mobility pathways and often do not count toward permanent residence. However, some countries allow switching to long-term visa routes once inside the country, depending on immigration policies.
5. What’s the difference between an ICT visa and a Skilled Worker visa?
- An ICT visa is for employees being transferred within the same company across borders.
- A skilled worker visa is for individuals being hired from abroad by a local company.
The ICT route does not typically allow for settlement, whereas some skilled worker visas can lead to permanent residency.
6. What documents are needed for an intra-company transfer visa?
While this varies by country, common requirements include:
- A valid job offer from the host company
- Proof of current employment
- Employment contract or assignment letter
- Details of the company relationship (e.g. group structure)
- Salary and job description
- Proof of qualifications and experience
7. Can family members accompany the employee on an intra-company transfer?
Yes, many ICT visa schemes allow dependants (spouse and children) to join. They may be eligible to work or study, depending on the destination country’s rules.
