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2026 could also be a turbulent yr for international companies. Here are the mobility and enterprise journey dangers to anticipate within the yr forward – and the way to defend your self in opposition to them
9 January 2026 | By Alex Schulte
For multinational firms, 2025 was absolutely some of the turbulent years in latest historical past.
Trump’s tariffs ricocheted throughout international provide chains. AI wobbles despatched inventory indices tumbling earlier than they skyrocketed again in reduction rallies. All the whereas, bloody wars continued to wreak distress and depart numerous areas in turmoil.
But expertise mobility professionals might bear in mind 2025 for its seismic modifications in border coverage. Major economies just like the US, Britain and France made migration tougher and dearer, whereas stepping up enforcement on short-term enterprise travellers.
Looking out on the new yr, there’s little signal of respite. Many of 2025’s headline coverage modifications will solely begin to chunk over the following 12 months, and can little question be adopted by new, equally disruptive reforms. Meanwhile, long-bubbling developments may simply boil over into compliance crises.
A slew of danger elements may depart your group’s best-laid plans within the rubble. That’s why it’s so essential to know what may lie forward – and plan for it now.
Here are probably the most pressing risks the yr may throw at you – and the way to mitigate them.
Last yr, the digital border moved from a imaginative and prescient to an rising actuality.
This yr, automated border enforcement will start in earnest.
In 2025, the UK and EU started changing discretionary border management with digital enforcement.
The UK launched necessary Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) for visa-free travellers, making a central report of entries and exits earlier than journey even begins. The EU adopted with the primary part of the Entry/Exit System (EES), digitally recording each quick keep utilizing biometric information.
For the primary time, journey historical past started to be captured routinely reasonably than inferred.
In 2026, these techniques transfer into full operational use.
EES is anticipated to be absolutely reside throughout the EU by April, routinely calculating time spent within the Schengen Area in opposition to keep limits. Later within the yr, ETIAS will introduce necessary pre-travel screening for visa-free travellers, assessing journey historical past earlier than permission to journey is granted.
By the tip of 2026, entry to the UK and EU will rely upon a verified digital id and a whole, searchable journey report.
This is the place routine journey begins to develop into a hazard.
These new techniques create a centralised, searchable journey historical past that makes repeat quick stays and prolonged presence way more seen to frame authorities.
A high-frequency traveller is refused entry as a result of their cumulative days tip over the restrict. A challenge lead is delayed after extending a keep by a single day. A gross sales group rotating quick visits triggers scrutiny as a result of one particular person’s journey sample appears to be like steady reasonably than occasional.
Under EES, days are counted exactly and deviations flagged routinely. Where border officers as soon as exercised discretion, choices are actually binary. Travel will be delayed, refused or blocked completely earlier than departure, typically with knock-on scrutiny of the employer’s wider journey controls.
Control must occur earlier than journey, not on the border.
Track cumulative days throughout rolling durations, establish high-frequency travellers early, and tighten controls round enterprise customer exercise. Align reserving, approval and expense information so modifications are seen in actual time.
In an automatic border setting, prevention is the one efficient response.
In 2026, the price of getting this unsuitable is measured in refused entry, misplaced time and uncovered programmes. The solely viable management level is earlier than journey begins.
Before journey
✅ Confirm ETA or ETIAS approval
✅ Check cumulative days within the UK and Schengen Area
✅ Flag travellers nearing keep limits
Planning and reserving
✅ Identify high-frequency travellers
✅ Confirm actions match enterprise customer guidelines
✅ Review extensions or modifications instantly
Traveller readiness
✅ Explain automated border checks
✅ Set expectations for refusal or delay
✅ Provide escalation contacts
Ongoing oversight
✅ Review journey patterns repeatedly
✅ Track refusals and close to misses
Policy volatility is not background noise. In 2025, it hit mobility groups immediately, with results that may carry on unfolding in 2026
In September, President Trump dropped a bombshell on mobility groups by elevating the price for brand new H-1B visa purposes to $100,000. Suddenly, the load-bearing visa route for the US tech business was positioned out of attain for all however probably the most senior expertise.
US officers additionally tightened interpretation of ESTA and B-1 enterprise journey guidelines, with border officers probing repeat quick journeys and exercise that resembles hands-on engagement.
In the UK, the Government raised visa wage thresholds, elevated administrative prices and signalled for much longer routes to settlement.
France and different EU states additionally stepped up checks on short-stay and posted employee journey, lowering tolerance for loosely outlined enterprise visits.
These reforms didn’t land softly. Roles beforehand thought of compliant failed eligibility checks. Budgets have been upended by value will increase. And on the drop of a hat, mobility groups discovered themselves compelled into reactive replanning.
In 2026, enforcement begins to meet up with coverage.
In the US, tighter scrutiny of ESTA and B-1 journey is anticipated to proceed, particularly for high-frequency journeys that danger being handled as unauthorised work. The new H-1B price regime has already disrupted employer planning and can affect filings via no less than the following cap cycle.
In the UK, proposals from the 2025 White Paper are progressing to implementation. Companies are shedding their sponsor licenses at record rates because the Government cracks down on infractions.
Across the EU, nationwide authorities will more and more implement enterprise journey and momentary work guidelines in parallel with digital border techniques.
Across the board, the frequent elements are larger prices, much less tolerance for unintentional violations, and fewer secure assumptions.
We additionally can not rule out additional coverage shocks from left area that make situations even worse.
Policy shifts disrupt settled assumptions.
A job scoped below final yr’s wage threshold might not qualify within the UK.
A US H-1B hiring plan that was able to go a yr in the past might be now prohibitively costly.
A challenge blueprint counting on artistic use of short-term journey is all of the sudden riskier and tougher to defend.
These issues typically floor late within the course of – at software, on the border or in audit – when commitments are already stable, and options are restricted.
Mobility groups ought to assume that change will occur and construct defences in opposition to it.
✅ Revalidate eligibility, prices and timelines for all lively and forthcoming instances below present coverage, not historic precedent.
✅ For US hires, construct various methods past H-1B the place attainable. But keep in mind that quick-term journey is not a workaround in lieu of formal authorisation.
✅ Embed automated coverage monitoring so that you just’re by no means blindsided by new reforms and enforcement practices.
The regulatory floor is much less secure than ever. Don’t let your self get wrongfooted.
Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in companies coming to us after their employees’s visas have been refused for no obvious cause. Frequent travellers with no historical past of immigration offences would discover their path to acquainted routes all of the sudden blocked, with no rationalization given.
We appeared into the true information to make sense of why this could be taking place.
We discovered that visa refusal charges are massively on the rise for some cohorts and alongside some journey corridors. But the dangers should not evenly distributed.
In 2026, some employers shall be way more uncovered than others, typically for causes outdoors their management.
In the previous few years, refusal charges for short-term visas and journey authorisations have remained elevated throughout a number of main regimes.
In Europe, Schengen short-stay visa refusals stayed well above pre-pandemic norms.
The US continued to tighten screening below ESTA and B-1, notably for repeat travellers and candidates with advanced journey histories. Though official information for 2025 has not but been launched, anecdotal proof means that travellers have come below fiercer scrutiny since President Trump’s inauguration.
US non-immigrant visa candidates are now required to record all social media usernames they’ve used within the final 5 years. This signifies that a person’s historical past of political speech might now be a major criterion for entry to the US.
These developments have dovetailed with the expansion in digital pre-clearance techniques. Applications turned more and more assessed on information patterns reasonably than particular person explanations. With discretion largely faraway from the system, outright refusal turned extra seemingly.
The sensible impact was easy. More purposes failed, and failure more and more trusted profile reasonably than intent.
In 2026, refusal danger will improve but additional.
The US is proposing to develop the social media stipulation to the ESTA waiver system, requiring visa-free candidates to submit 5 years’ value of social media historical past for pre-clearance. We might anticipate extra travellers to be refused entry attributable to political content material they posted way back, and forgot about.
Across the Atlantic, with EES, ETIAS and ETA in power, authorities have cleaner journey histories, clearer overstay information and higher perception into frequency of journey. Automated screening flags patterns that beforehand went unnoticed, together with repeated quick visits, prolonged stays and reliance on customer routes.
As a end result, refusals usually tend to happen earlier than journey begins, notably for travellers whose profiles sit nearer to perceived danger thresholds.
Refusals is not going to be evenly distributed throughout your workforce.
Employees most uncovered embody:
🚩 First-time travellers with no historical past of previous compliance
🚩 Travellers from higher-refusal jurisdictions such because the Middle East or East Africa, the place information continues to indicate materially larger refusal charges.
🚩 High-frequency ESTA or B-1 customers, who might invite suspicion from US authorities that they’re performing common client-facing or supply work.
🚩 Employees concerned in consumer supply and challenge roles face larger refusal danger, as authorities apply narrower interpretations of permitted enterprise customer exercise.
🚩 Travellers with prior anomalies comparable to earlier overstays, refusals, border questioning or inconsistent journey data.
🚩 Short-notice travellers who submit near journey dates, with restricted documentation or unclear function.
The impression is operational. A senior worker travels whereas their group member can not. Projects lose continuity. Client relationships are strained when the “right” particular person can not enter the nation.
In some instances, refusal patterns increase inside questions on equity, inclusion and entry to alternative.
Over time, uneven refusal charges can distort mobility planning and expertise deployment in methods which can be arduous to unwind.
Don’t deal with refusal danger as an distinctive prevalence; issue it into all plans and construct redundancy.
Assess refusal chance by traveller profile, not simply vacation spot. Build buffers for higher-risk candidates, together with longer lead instances, stronger documentation and various staffing plans. Avoid single factors of failure the place one particular person’s journey is mission-critical.
Where attainable, diversify journey publicity throughout groups reasonably than counting on the identical people repeatedly. Track refusals and close to misses to establish patterns early.
As borders and enforcement develop into extra automated, small errors usually tend to set off outsized penalties.
But two seemingly contradictory elements each increase the chance of such errors.
The first entails human errors dedicated over the course of guide workflows.
The second comes from improper use of AI.
In 2025, compliance failures more and more stemmed from execution reasonably than intent.
Many mobility and journey departments nonetheless perform manually. Teams will observe actions on spreadsheets and electronic mail threads and assess present guidelines in opposition to acquainted guidelines of thumb, reasonably than up-to-the-minute writ. Small oversights or outdated assumptions are inevitable.
But groups which have made small steps in the direction of digital transformation aren’t secure both. For many, adopting AI means counting on free variations of general-purpose instruments like ChatGPT to analysis visa guidelines and draft authorized paperwork.
Yet generalist massive language fashions are infamous for factual ‘hallucinations’, and their verdicts on visa protocol and present regulation shouldn’t be taken at face worth.
It doesn’t matter if the error is made by an overworked human or a misfiring AI. It will result in the identical lifeless finish.
In 2026, those self same errors usually tend to be detected and acted on.
Automated border techniques, pre-travel authorisations and data-linked enforcement depart little room to right inaccuracies after the actual fact.
As early-stage AI uptake booms, the outputs of consumer-facing instruments are more and more handled as gospel by time-pressured groups. But errors now journey sooner via techniques and attain the purpose of enforcement extra typically.
Most failures observe predictable patterns.
Human error generally seems as miscounted stays, outdated thresholds, misclassified actions or unapproved journey extensions. These points typically come up when choices are made rapidly or when duty is unclear.
Basic AI misuse introduces completely different danger pathways.
🚨 Teams depend on AI-generated summaries of visa guidelines with out checking recency or native nuance.
🚨 Permitted actions are oversimplified.
🚨 Template paperwork replicate previous coverage.
🚨 Answers seem authoritative however don’t account for enforcement actuality.
And all of the whereas, groups retain misplaced confidence in these instruments’ infallibility.
These errors come up as a result of common AI instruments optimise for plausibility, not compliance. While helpful for orientation, they aren’t constructed to tell compliance-critical choice making.
Individually, these errors look minor. In mixture, they set off refusals, questioning, delays or audits, typically on the level the place choices are restricted and enterprise commitments are fastened.
Reduce reliance on judgment and unchecked automation.
Define clearly the place common AI instruments could also be used and the place specialist validation is required. Standardise high-risk choices comparable to keep calculations, eligibility checks and exercise classification so they don’t seem to be dealt with advert hoc.
This is the place purpose-built AI purposes like Centuro Global’s Travel Compliance Assistant, designed particularly for mobility and journey compliance, add worth. Our Assistant is educated on an enormous proprietary dataset of worldwide guidelines, jurisdiction-specific logic, and documented precedents, so each suggestion can stand up to important compliance checkpoints.
The handiest strategy to forestall pricey errors in 2026 is to automate your fact-finding, however to be very selective within the instruments you belief.
Employees are travelling and dealing in ways in which legacy mobility and compliance frameworks weren’t constructed for. In 2026, these rising behaviours will expose many organisations to immigration, tax and labour danger.
Ever since 2020, worker journey patterns have develop into ever much less tied to formal assignments.
Global enterprise journey continued to get better from its pandemic lows. Spending on enterprise journey was projected to have risen from roughly $1.48 trillion in 2024 to $1.64 trillion in 2025. Clearly, predictions that mass distant working would take away the necessity for company journey have been means huge of the mark.
But whereas the demand for journey has remained, the patterns underlying it are very completely different. Employees are taking extra frequent journeys with multi-country itineraries, and dealing remotely from areas that weren’t their dwelling nation or formal task vacation spot in ‘bleisure’ journey modes.
At the identical time, hybrid and distant work fashions solidified as normal preparations reasonably than exceptions. Surveys in 2025 confirmed that tens of hundreds of thousands of staff have been nonetheless working in hybrid modes or incorporating distant flexibility into roles that had not beforehand executed so.
These patterns matter, notably from a tax perspective. Presence is the place to begin for tax residency checks, payroll obligations and everlasting institution evaluation.
In 2025, many organisations continued to deal with short-term or casual journey as operationally handy however fiscally low danger.
That assumption is now a lot tougher to defend.
In 2026, journey information and tax enforcement are converging.
Tax authorities more and more use journey and border information to evaluate whether or not staff have triggered native tax or social safety obligations. Repeated presence, even briefly bursts, is less complicated to establish and tougher to clarify away. At the identical time, immigration and tax authorities are sharing information extra readily, lowering gaps between what is said and what’s observable.
Crucially, everlasting institution danger is not restricted to senior executives signing contracts. Repeated in-country exercise by gross sales, technical or challenge employees can now contribute to PE publicity the place it helps income technology or core enterprise operations.
Tax danger not often declares itself early.
An worker working remotely from one other nation for just a few weeks at a time might quietly method tax residency thresholds.
A gross sales lead travelling ceaselessly to assist native shoppers could also be considered as making a dependent agent or fastened administrative center.
A group rotating quick visits can collectively set up a stage of presence that authorities interpret as ongoing exercise reasonably than occasional journey.
These dangers typically floor retrospectively. When they do, the results can embody surprising company tax liabilities, payroll withholding obligations, penalties and curiosity, in addition to the price of unwinding preparations that have been by no means formally authorised.
What appeared like versatile journey can develop into a cloth – and ongoing – monetary publicity.
Treat journey patterns as tax alerts, not simply mobility logistics.
Map worker journey in opposition to tax residency, payroll and PE thresholds, notably for high-frequency and client-facing roles. Ensure that modifications in location, period or exercise set off assessment not solely by mobility groups but in addition by tax and payroll specialists.
Avoid counting on short-term journey as an alternative to correct structuring the place exercise is ongoing. Where staff assist revenue-generating work in a market, assess PE danger proactively reasonably than after the actual fact.
In 2026, unmanaged journey is among the best methods to create hidden tax publicity. Visibility and early intervention are far cheaper than remediation.
☑ Repeated quick stays that accumulate presence over time
☑ Remote work from overseas areas with out tax evaluation
☑ Frequent gross sales or client-facing journey into the identical market
☑ Project or technical work delivered on-site throughout a number of visits
☑ Teams rotating journey to keep away from formal task thresholds
☑ Travel patterns that assist income technology regionally
Geopolitical danger is not confined to historically high-risk locations.
In 2026, instability can escalate rapidly, disrupting routine enterprise journey and rising employers’ authorized and sensible duty-of-care publicity.
In 2025, geopolitical disruption turned extra widespread and much less predictable.
Ongoing conflicts and regional tensions continued to have an effect on airspace, journey routes and border controls, with knock-on results for worldwide journey and provide chains. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, geopolitical battle and state-based confrontation stay among the many most extreme short-term pressures.
Sanctions regimes additionally expanded and shifted in the course of the yr, generally with restricted discover. This has affected journey legality, funds and worker mobility. The EU and US each issued a number of updates to sanctions frameworks in 2025, underscoring how rapidly compliance situations can change.
At the identical time, civil unrest, strikes and political flashpoints increasingly affected main business hubs reasonably than peripheral markets, complicating assumptions about “low-risk” locations.
In 2026, expectations round employer obligation of care are larger and extra express.
Insurers, regulators and courts more and more anticipate organisations to indicate that journey danger was assessed proactively, not simply managed reactively. Major insurers and journey danger suppliers have warned that obligation of care failures linked to geopolitical occasions are a rising supply of claims and disputes.
At the identical time, geopolitical developments are unfolding sooner. Airspace closures, sanctions updates and safety incidents can happen inside hours, leaving little alternative to intervene as soon as an worker is already in transit.
The bar is shifting from “responded appropriately” to “anticipated foreseeable risk”.
Duty of care failures usually come up from assumptions reasonably than negligence.
An worker travels to a vacation spot the place the safety scenario is deteriorating quickly, and evacuation plans are unclear.
A sanctions replace makes sure transactions or actions illegal mid-trip.
A flight rerouting forces an unplanned transit via a restricted jurisdiction.
Local unrest or infrastructure disruption leaves employees stranded with out clear escalation routes.
In these conditions, organisations might face authorized claims, insurance coverage disputes or regulatory scrutiny if they can not show that dangers have been recognized and mitigated prematurely. Legal commentary more and more highlights how obligation of care extends past bodily security to incorporate foreseeable geopolitical and regulatory danger.
What begins as a geopolitical black swan occasion can rapidly flip right into a compliance and legal responsibility problem for companies.
The world is extra unstable than it’s been for the reason that finish of the Cold War. For companies with a number of employees on the transfer, the stakes are larger than ever. Proactive
☑ Incorporate real-time danger intelligence into journey approval processes, reasonably than counting on annual vacation spot opinions.
☑ Reassess danger the place situations change between reserving and departure, and guarantee escalation routes are clear and examined.
☑ Align mobility, journey, authorized and safety groups so choices will be made rapidly when sanctions, safety or political situations shift.
Employers that may proof ongoing evaluation and communication are much better positioned to defend their actions if incidents happen.
In 2026, obligation of care is judged not by your intent, however by your stage of preparedness. Events don’t must be avoidable to create legal responsibility. They solely must be foreseeable.
The problem for 2026 doesn’t come from any single coverage change, system rollout or geopolitical flashpoint. It emerges from the cumulative impact of tighter enforcement, faster-moving regulation and new methods of working colliding with mobility frameworks designed for a distinct period.
Enforcement is automated. Policy is unstable. Travel behaviour is shifting. And small errors now carry outsized penalties.
What labored in earlier years is not going to maintain. Informal workarounds, reactive fixes and siloed possession depart organisations uncovered in an setting with much less discretion and better scrutiny.
The organisations that may reach 2026 will deal with mobility as a strategic functionality, not an administrative perform. They will construct visibility throughout groups, anticipate dangers earlier, and embed compliance into decision-making, not simply documentation.
That’s why you must be part of our upcoming workshop, The Mobility and Travel Playbook for 2026.
Hosted by Centuro Global co-founder Asma Bashir, alongside senior practitioners from main corporates, this hands-on session will assist groups transfer from response to readiness.
We will assessment the teachings of 2025, unpack the important thing dangers and alternatives forward, and work via sensible planning classes on information, worker expertise, communications and cross-functional alignment.
You will depart with a transparent view of the way to deal with what’s coming, and a centered motion plan to hit the bottom working in Q1.
Places are restricted.
👉 Register here
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.centuroglobal.com/article/2026-mobility-business-travel-risks/
and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you'll…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you'll…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you'll…