Luxembourg : unrestricted telework for border workers coming to an end

After more than two years of unrestricted teleworking, almost 216,000 German, Belgian, and French border workers will have to return to work in Luxembourg companies. This is because extraordinary teleworking agreements concluded between Luxembourg and its border countries of Germany, Belgium and France will end on 30 June 2022. These special provisions were put in place on an Covid-19 emergency basis in March 2020 and provided for teleworking days undertaken from an employee’s main residence to be considered as working days in the state where the activity would otherwise usually have been carried out, i.e. Luxembourg. These emergency provisions allowed cross-border employees to telework without any personal tax consequences. Furthermore, Covid-19 health crisis related teleworking days were not taken into account in determining an employee’s social security scheme membership, so that no switching would be required if the EU legislation maximum activity threshold was exceeded (no more than 25% of an activity to be undertaken in the country of origin). Thus 01 July 2022 marks the end of unrestricted teleworking and a return to the previously authorised annual limits, namely 29 days for French border workers, 34 for Belgian border workers, and 19 days for German border workers. In light of the uproar caused by this reversion, discussions are under way between the Luxembourg authorities and their German, Belgian and French counterparts to study the possibilities of exceeding the 25% threshold currently defined in the European regulation. This situation affects more than 50,000 German, 50,000 Belgian and 110,000 French workers who are crossing their relevant borders into Luxembourg on a daily basis.