Intra-corporate employee transfer , Date: 2019.11.14, format: Article, area: Migration and residence

If you are employed as a manager, specialist or trainee in a company outside the EU and are to be deployed for a specific period at one or more company locations within the EU, an ICT (intra-corporate transfer) can make this possible. You will receive an ICT Card in the EU Member State in which you are to spend the longest period of time working for your company.

You can then also work for your company at company locations in other EU Member States for a limited period on the basis of an ICT Card.

The following conditions must be satisfied in this process:

• You must be employed by a company or a group of companies which is headquartered outside the EU, and be temporarily seconded to your employer’s branch establishment in Germany, i.e. your existing employment contract must still be valid.
• You must be working as a manager, specialist or trainee at the branch establishment at which you are to be deployed in Germany, and you must provide proof that you are qualified to hold this post.
• You must have belonged to the company or group of companies for at least six months.
• An intra-corporate transfer must cover a period longer than 90 days.

• You must be able to present an employment contract that is valid for the duration of the intra-corporate transfer, and if appropriate a letter of secondment.

• It must be apparent from the employment contract and/or the letter of secondment that you will continue to work for your current employer after the transfer has come to an end, and
• a period of at least six months must have passed between your most recent stay for the purposes of intra-corporate transfer and the transfer that is currently being envisioned.

Assuming these conditions are satisfied, you will be legally entitled to receive an ICT Card, which will be issued for the duration of the transfer. This is up to a maximum of three years, or up to one year at most in the case of trainees.

If you already hold an ICT Card in another EU Member State and are to be deployed in Germany by your company, you will find all the necessary information relating to intra-corporate transfer in the section entitled "Mobility in the EU", where you will also find everything you need to know if you wish to use a German ICT Card in order to take up work in another EU Member State.