Expat's Manual

Negotiating a thorough and robust contract when you accept a job abroad as an expatriate is the single most important element of moving abroad.  The benefits, allowances and conditional clauses you negotiate at this stage of the moving process will be crucial to ensuring that your new life abroad gets off on the best possible footing.  Unfortunately the process is far from simple.  

There are two distinct elements to any contract you negotiate as an expatriate; the global nature of the work assignment and the local rules and customs.  It is crucial that any expatriate contract takes both of these constituents into consideration and a holistic contract is generated, one that contains reference to all the usual concerns of an international employee while also being enforceable abroad.

The fundamental role of the expatriate contract is to clearly define the obligations of both the employer and the employee.  The document will form the very basis of your rights and responsibilities and it is therefore important that you get it right.  This section provides detailed information about the key components that should be present in an expatriate contract and provides useful tips for ensuring that you negotiate a contract that will adequately meet your needs.  At the end of the section we present a checklist that you can use to assess whether the contract you are offered contains all the relevant provisions.