Raj Bhundia
Tax Partner, Global Employer Services, Forvis Mazars UK
UK businesses expanding into new geographies must be ready to deal with several complex challenges. That includes the movement of their most important resource: their staff.
We live in an international world where many UK businesses are expanding into new territories. Any company sending employees overseas to support this expansion knows that global mobility is never easy, with a myriad of ever-changing in-country requirements to consider. This is reflected in Forvis Mazars’ UK C-suite barometer 2026, where compliance with local laws, regulations and taxes is named as the number one international expansion challenge for UK businesses.¹
“Immigration is top of the agenda in the geopolitical environment right now, particularly in countries like the US,” says Raj Bhundia, Tax Partner, Global Employer Services at Forvis Mazars in the UK. “It’s not as straightforward as upping sticks, going to another country and working. Relocation may require a 6-to-12-month lead time, and it can be very expensive.”
When opening a location in a new geography, senior UK staff will need to relocate first, establish and grow the business, hire locally and start to embed the wider corporate culture. Therefore, a key question leadership must ask is, ‘What do our people really think about the overseas territory we’re expanding into? Is it somewhere they actually want to be?’
They should also be data-ready to handle the tax, payroll and audit demands of different jurisdictions
International moves that make financial sense for employees
If a company is expanding to a place that isn’t attractive or exciting, for example, if schools and infrastructure are poor and the cost of living is high, it’s likely staff won’t want to stay there permanently. Instead, employees charged with setting up an overseas location might prefer to travel back and forth regularly. But beware, says Bhundia, that creates complexity around immigration, social security and tax.
Any employees relocating will also want assurance that the move will be financially beneficial. That can sometimes be difficult to ascertain, particularly in a country such as the US with its federal, state and local tax laws.
“Tax is a personal issue for people, based on where they are in their lives,” says Bhundia. Any relocating employee will want to know, “What’s my tax liability going to be? How does that equate to what I was paying in the UK? And how is the business going to help me through this process?”
How geopolitical tensions are shaping corporate mobility strategies
It goes without saying that, in today’s volatile world, geopolitical tensions play a huge part in cross-border mobility planning. “At the employee level, staff will want to know: is this a country I’ll feel safe and thrive in?” says Bhundia.
Executives should be clear about which countries they’re targeting and those they want to avoid. “For example, if a business is going into China, what will happen to its Intellectual Property (IP)?” asks Bhundia. “Is it going to be safe? Will it be able to share data? So, there are those challenges to consider.”
And, currently, tariffs are adding a further layer of uncertainty. “A business has to look at the costs it will incur through tariffs,” agrees Bhundia. “But the world is changing constantly, particularly with the US. One day something is happening, the next it’s scrapped and something else is brought in.”
In a world of increasing borders and restrictions, companies need to be adaptable. UK businesses expanding into economically diverse regions must be constantly creative in how they get their most important resource, their staff, into position. They should also be data-ready to handle the tax, payroll and audit demands of different jurisdictions.
[1] Forvis Mazars. (2026). Adapting in uncertainty — C-suite barometer: outlook 2026. https://bit.ly/4skSaaC
