How do I get a certificate of coverage?
You apply to the social security authority of the country whose system is meant to keep covering you, not to the country you are travelling to. In an employment case the employer usually makes the application, because the facts it turns on are the employer's: who you are contracted to, who directs the work, how long the posting runs and where you return to afterwards. Apply before the assignment starts if you possibly can. The host payroll has no basis to stop charging until it can see the document, and an application made after the event is a harder one to carry.
What happens if I do not have a certificate of coverage?
Both systems bill. The host country's authority applies its own domestic law, which normally reaches anyone working there, and the home country carries on under its own rules. The relief in the agreement exists, but the certificate is what evidences that its conditions were met, and without it a payroll department has nothing to act on. Recovering the contributions afterwards is possible in many cases and is slower and less certain than preventing the charge. It is also the point at which small gaps in the assignment paperwork begin to matter, because the application then has to describe facts that are a year old.
How long does a certificate of coverage last?
For the period stated on it, and no longer. That period is bounded by the agreement, which sets the maximum length of posting the home system may keep covering. The certificate is issued for the assignment described in the application, so if the assignment changes shape the document may no longer describe what is actually happening. Extensions are usually provided for, but they are applied for before the period ends rather than after it. A certificate that has quietly expired while the employee is still abroad is the ordinary way a clean position turns into a retrospective one.
Can I apply for a certificate of coverage after the assignment ended?
Sometimes, and it is usually worth trying, but treat it as a different exercise. A retrospective application has to reconstruct facts rather than describe a plan, so it needs the assignment letter, the payroll records and evidence of where the work was actually done and who directed it. The authority is entitled to test whether the conditions were met throughout the period claimed. Where it is accepted, the host contributions become recoverable, subject to that country's own procedure and time limits. Where the records are thin, the realistic outcome is that the double charge stands.
Does a certificate of coverage stop income tax being withheld?
No. It speaks to one question only: which social security system applies to the earnings. Income tax withholding in the host country is decided by that country's domestic rules and, where a treaty applies, by the employment article in the income tax treaty. Those tests are different from the social security ones and they can produce a different answer on the same assignment. Handing the certificate to a host payroll in the expectation that it will stop the income tax deductions is a common and understandable mistake. The two exemptions are applied for separately, to different authorities.
Who applies for it, me or my employer?
In an employment case it is normally the employer, in the country whose coverage is to continue. The application describes the employment relationship rather than the individual's personal circumstances, so the employer holds most of the information the authority asks for. A self-employed person applies in their own name, with the facts of their own business. Either way the certificate is issued to evidence a relationship that already exists, so the underlying arrangements should be settled and documented before the application goes in, rather than tidied up afterwards to match what was said on it.
Is moving money between my own accounts in two countries taxable?
Moving your own capital between your own accounts is not itself income, so the transfer is not what creates tax. What can create tax or reporting is the income the money earned before it moved, a foreign-exchange gain on certain holdings, and the reporting obligations the balances themselves trigger — foreign account and asset reports keyed to balances rather than income. Remittances out of some countries also need certification before the bank will send them. See foreign account reporting.
How do families with assets in two countries handle inheritance?
With paperwork built for both systems rather than one. In practice that means wills that work where each asset actually sits, an executor with authority a foreign bank or land registry will accept, clearance certificates before the estate distributes so the executor is not left personally exposed, and an estate tax exposure calculation done while the person is alive and can still act on it. Doing it afterwards costs more and forecloses most of the options. See cross-border wills and trusts.
