Travelling internationally for work can be an expensive but necessary endeavour, and is increasing in popularity. The Government's Business Travel Survey 2025 found that the proportion of surveyed employees making international trips in 2024 was as high as 23%, with 84% heading to Europe and 43% to North America.
While flights and accommodation are often booked well in advance, travelling outside the UK means navigating a web of regional regulations, hidden fees, and cultural differences that could quietly increase the overall cost of international travel. This could potentially trigger hours of shadow work, the ‘work behind the work’, which can negatively impact budgets and resources.
From a small business with strict budgets to larger organisations with frequent flyers, understanding the on-the-ground realities of different parts of the world is essential to help travel managers understand the hidden costs of international work travel. This guide focuses primarily on the cultural differences between the UK, Europe and North America due to the popularity of these locations for British work travel.
Choosing your destination hub
For UK teams, the default choice is often to fly into a bustling hub like Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG), or Toronto Pearson (YYZ). While there is some degree of convenience with this approach, these airports are incredibly busy and may also come with high fees and "last-mile" transport costs to match their popularity.
Instead, shift your strategy towards secondary hubs that will reduce the overall cost of travel. For example, flying into LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Paris-Orly (ORY), or Hamilton International Airport (YHM) are comparatively smaller and more affordable alternatives, depending on which routes are available from your city.
Cost of entry and documentation
A significant international travel consideration is changing entry processes. The increased implementation of digital authorisation systems in the EU means the requirements for entry are changing in many countries. Your travellers must be prepared with the correct documentation.
While visas are not necessarily required, systems like Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) in the US, and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) for the EU need to be completed before travel. Failure to complete this step could result in significant delays and unexpected costs relating to denied boarding, rebooking flights, and potentially rescheduling meetings.
British citizens travelling to the US for short-term business or leisure will require an ESTA to travel. This must be applied for before travelling, and you may be denied boarding without it.
ESTA applications cost around $40 (£29.60) and are valid for two years, or until your passport expires.
An ETIAS is an active requirement for all short-term UK visitors to Cyprus, or any of the 29 Schengen countries in Europe.
From late 2026, the fee for an ETIAS application will be €20 (around £17.40) and lasts for up to three years, or until your passport expires.
Passports
Passports are an essential that should be properly managed to avoid delay or cancelled trips.
A commonly held rule is that many countries require a passport to be valid for 6 months beyond the departure date. However, the rules can vary depending on your destination. Below is a table of requirements for popular destinations, sourced from the Foreign Office’s travel advice.
Passport regulations for UK travellers
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Make use of local transport
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“While taxis and short-haul flights might feel like the default option for work travel, they can often be ineffective and expensive, especially in a gridlocked city.“ Says Perk Product Manager Audra Cirkelyte.
“If you have to travel a long distance, consider using local transport, such as trams or trains. Amtrak is a popular choice for the US and some of Canada, high-speed European equivalents like Eurostar, TGV, or AVE operate at a much higher frequency and with shorter journey times.”
For example, a flight from Lyon to Paris might only take an hour, but security, baggage claim, and taxis make the overall journey take much longer. An equivalent train could take you directly centre-to-centre in around two hours.
Beyond the financial savings, using trains instead of flights can significantly reduce your company’s carbon footprint for the trip. Trains are also often more spacious, allowing travellers to remain productive on the journey.
Taxes and tolls
With group travel, it is especially important that local charges are fully researched before the trip begins. Unexpected, day-to-day costs could erode travel budgets quickly if they are not factored into travel planning.
Sales tax
In the UK, it is normal for VAT to be included in the price. In the US, sales tax is added at the point of purchase, meaning the price on a tag or menu is not the final price.
While the same is true in Canada, European nations generally follow the same approach as the UK.
Tourist tax
Many major cities worldwide have already adopted some form of tourist tax, or are considering introducing one. These are charged per night at hotels and are often paid locally rather than when booking, making them an important consideration when budgeting for trips with multiple stops or large groups.
In the US, major cities like LA, New York and Washington all charge tourist tax at a rate of around 13-16%.
Many European cities are also adopting tourist taxes. One of the most high-profile cases can be found in Barcelona, where the charge doubled for 2026, to 15 euros (£13).
Toll roads
British travellers who choose to drive in North America or Europe should be prepared for a range of toll systems. These can often be automated, so awareness of the travel restrictions in your area could be the difference between unexpected charges or fines.
Toll roads (often known as turnpikes or tollways in the US) are mostly automated, so preregistration with a service like EZ Pass is vital to avoid fines. Express lanes often come with additional charges and tolls can add up quickly depending on the state. Unfortunately, there is no national solution, so make sure vehicles are registered in the correct states for your journey.
In Europe, many motorways are privately owned. While this results in higher quality than the UK, it means there are many more toll roads. There are two common systems:
Telepass is a pay-as-you-go ticket system.
Vignettes are pre-paid permits (either a sticker or digital) that need to be purchased before joining the motorway.
Tipping culture
Understanding tipping culture is a key consideration internationally, as the culture can vary significantly from country to country. While tipping in Europe is similar to the UK (discretionary and mostly used for group bookings at restaurants), North American tipping culture is vastly different.
A tip of 20% is the standard expectation for service in restaurants.
10-20% is common for other services, like taxis.
Making sure your team is applying the correct tipping etiquette is important to avoid awkward situations, especially at business dinners or events. It’s also important to make sure that budgets are adjusted to accommodate this extra expense.
Tax recovery
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One of the biggest savings finance teams can make on work travel is through Value Added Tax (VAT), which can often go unclaimed. For an itinerary that crosses multiple countries, this could represent around 20% of the overall spend being left on the table unnecessarily, simply because manual recovery takes too much time.
Perk’s centralised platform will help to categorise these expenses in real-time to make VAT recovery simple. This is done by streamlining reconciliation and accounting, providing full visibility of your travel spend, and generating customised insights to maximise your international VAT returns.
Per diems and expenses
Awareness of the differences between destination cities could result in more ‘out of policy’ spending if the standard per diem allowances are insufficient.
For example, multi-city trips should factor in which cities are high-cost and provide a larger daily allowance for those stages of the journey.
With dynamic per diems and real-time visibility, Perk can help finance teams by using location and dates to generate compliant, daily allowances for meals and incidentals based on the trip’s itinerary, allowing for both budget control and flexibility.
Managing international spend with Perk
Navigating the hidden costs of international business travel, from ESTA fees to transport and regional taxes, may seem daunting, but it provides a significant opportunity to unlock savings and improve the experience for travellers.
By utilising Perk’s travel and expense management platform alongside strategic travel and expense planning, you can ensure that travel budgets are not inflated by inefficiencies.
Request a demo to see how Perk can handle the complexities of global travel.
Written by
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Growth Marketing Director
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