{"id":2485,"date":"2019-04-10T08:07:52","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T08:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/way2vat.com\/?p=2485"},"modified":"2022-11-02T20:08:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T20:08:57","slug":"combining-business-with-leisure-how-does-it-impact-your-ability-to-reclaim-vat_gst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/way2vat.com\/combining-business-with-leisure-how-does-it-impact-your-ability-to-reclaim-vat_gst\/","title":{"rendered":"Combining Business With Leisure: How Does It Impact Your Ability to Reclaim VAT\\GST?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Combining business travel with leisure trips is a growing trend across Europe. Called \u2018bleisure\u2019, the mixture of business travel and personal holiday time increased by almost 50% in the last year. Business travellers who added a Saturday night stay at the end of their business trip rose 20% in 2017. Although bleisure trips can be good for employee morale, they can also make it more complicated to claim VAT\\GST refunds from your business travel expenses.<\/p>\n
The difficulty arises because there are very different rules for personal VAT\\GST reclaim versus business VAT\\GST returns. Your business will need to submit your business VAT\\GST reclaim application entirely separately from you (personally, as an individual) submitting your personal VAT\\GST return. The entities need to be submitted separately, under different processes with different details, so that you can be sure that both meet the requirements for each type of foreign VAT\\GST refund.<\/p>\n
Here are the main differences between claiming a VAT\\GST refund on personal and business travel expenses.<\/p>\n
But when it comes to personal holiday time, you, as an individual, can only make a VAT\\GST return for goods. That can make a big difference to your total VAT\\GST refund. It also makes your VAT\\GST return more complicated, since it\u2019s frequently difficult to determine which purchases count as \u2018goods\u2019, and which are considered \u2018services\u2019.<\/p>\n
In practice, this means that your business can request a VAT\\GST refund on the business traveler\u2019s taxi ride to the trade show (it\u2019s a service, but it\u2019s still a legitimate business travel expense) but that same traveler can\u2019t make a VAT\\GST reclaim for the taxi ride to the museum or nightclub after his business responsibilities end, since it\u2019s a personal expense, so it\u2019s not claimable.<\/li>\n
In contrast, business travellers can make a foreign VAT\\GST reclaim on their business travel expenses, even if they are EU residents visiting another EU country.<\/p>\n
For example, Steve from the US goes to the Netherlands for a trade show from Wednesday to Friday, and stays an extra couple of nights as a tourist. His business can submit a VAT\\GST return claim on his hotel room costs for the first two nights of his stay, because it\u2019s a business trip. Steve can also claim a personal VAT\\GST return on purchases that he makes during the leisure part of the visit. But if Pablo from Spain does the same thing, he\u2019ll only be able to submit a VAT\\GST return claim on his business travel expense list, because he\u2019s a resident of another EU country.<\/li>\n
However, if your business makes a purchase in an EU or other foreign country, there\u2019s no equivalent time limit. You also don\u2019t have the same deadline for VAT\\GST refunds if you buy something as part of your business travel.<\/li>\n
If you\u2019re claiming a personal VAT\\GST refund, you\u2019ll have a shorter time limit. You need to complete the paperwork to claim your VAT\\GST refund before you leave the country. You might be able to do this in the shop itself, or at the border control of the last EU country that you leave.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Although the regulations make it a little more complicated, you shouldn\u2019t give up on the VAT\\GST refund you deserve. For the complete story on recovering VAT\\GST on personal and business travel expenses, download our eBook<\/a>.<\/p>\n Like our FB page<\/a> and follow us on LinkedIn<\/a> for news and updates!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Combining business travel with leisure trips is a growing trend across Europe. Called \u2018bleisure\u2019, the mixture of business travel and personal holiday time increased by almost 50% in the last year. Business travellers who added a Saturday night stay at the end of their business trip rose 20% in 2017. Although bleisure trips can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vatgst"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n