CBS Nordic Tax Seminar on Remote Work and Global Mobility
When does a home office become a permanent establishment? Nordic perspectives after the 2025 OECD Commentary update
Remote and hybrid work have transformed how businesses organise cross-border work. At the same time, they have created one of the most important and uncertain questions in international tax: when can an employee’s home office become the employer’s permanent establishment?
The 2025 update to the OECD Model Commentary addresses, for the first time in more detail, when an employee’s home may constitute a place of business for the employer. The update raises important questions around working time, employer requirements, commercial reasons, expense coverage, and whether the home office is effectively at the employer’s disposal.
Yet how these principles will be interpreted and applied across the Nordic countries remains unsettled. This seminar brings together perspectives from the Nordic region to discuss how Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Finland approach the home office permanent establishment question in practice.
Programme
| 13:00 | Welcome and framing Why the home office PE has moved to the centre of the debate |
| 13:10 | The 2025 OECD Commentary on the home office PE What the new commentary on Article 5 actually says. The guideline is that a home is generally not a place of business for less than 50% of working time. The “commercial reason” test, and why cost-saving or staff retention alone does not cross the line. |
| 13:50 | Nordic administrative practice: a country comparison Panel with Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland. How each administration applies the place-of-business and disposal tests to a home. Employer requirement, expense coverage, and early rulings and audit posture (e.g. Danish SKM practice). |
| 14:45 | Break |
| 15:05 | Profit attribution where a home office PE exists The Authorised OECD Approach and significant people functions. Cost-plus service dealing against a share of residual profit. Why a junior employee and a senior employee can produce very different outcomes. |
| 15:45 | Roundtable One cross-border fact pattern run through each Nordic lens, side by side. Where the four answers agree, where they part, and why. |
| 16:25 | Where is the boundary? Reform and coordination outlook Divergence risk among the Nordic administrations and the cost to employers. Links to place of effective management and dependent-agent reform (Haworth, UK Finance Act 2026). What a coordinated Nordic reading could look like. |
| 16:55 | Closing remarks |
| 17:00 | Networking reception |
This Seminar is part of the research project “The Nordic Home Office Permanent Establishment: A Comparative Analysis of Administrative Practice in Light of the 2025 OECD Commentary Update”, supported by the Nordic Tax Research Council (Nordiska Skattevetenskapliga Forskningsrådet).
Convened by Siddhesh Rao, Copenhagen Business School. Contact: sir.bhl@cbs.dk
