TL;DR
Equipment during secondment comes down to one question nobody asks early enough: does the laptop travel with the person, or does the receiving entity issue a new one? Travelling is simpler for the employee and messier for customs and the asset register. Issuing locally is cleaner on paper and slower on day one.
- A secondment is not a leaver event, so most offboarding automation ignores it.
- Two entities now have a claim on one device. Decide which one carries it.
- Hand carried laptops are normal. Shipped company hardware is a customs matter.
- Depreciation and intercompany recharge follow the asset, not the person.
- The register usually still shows the sending country months later.
The moment this becomes real
Say a finance analyst moves from your Dublin entity to the Singapore one for eighteen months. The employment paperwork is handled. Payroll is arranged. On the Friday before they fly, they ask a reasonable question. Do I take the laptop?
Nobody has an answer. IT says it is fine as long as it stays enrolled. Finance points out the asset sits on the Irish books and the Singapore entity is being recharged for a person, not a machine. Somebody mentions that carrying a company laptop through customs is different from carrying your own.
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They take it, because the flight is Sunday. Fourteen months later the device needs replacing, and the request goes to a team in a country that has no record of ever issuing it. The real issue is not the laptop in a suitcase. It is that a secondment changes which entity owns the relationship and nothing in the device chain noticed.
When this is lighter than you think
Four stages where this needs almost no thought.
- Short secondments under about three months. The device travels, nothing changes on the books, and the register entry gets a note. That is the whole process.
- One legal entity. If the move is between offices rather than entities, the intercompany question disappears and you are left with logistics.
- Within a customs union. Moving a laptop inside a single customs territory is usually uneventful. Moving it out and back is where the paperwork starts.
- No local IT standard to meet. Some markets expect a specific keyboard layout, power plug or support arrangement. Where none applies, carrying the existing machine is simplest.
It gets heavier when the secondment is long enough to cross a refresh cycle, when the two entities report separately, or when the receiving country has import rules that treat company hardware differently from personal effects.
The five questions teams actually ask
Can the person just take the laptop? For a hand carried personal work device this is routine, though rules on temporary import and on declaring commercial goods differ by country and by value. Check the destination rather than assuming. What matters internally is that somebody records the device has moved.
Which entity owns it now? Usually the sending one, because transferring an asset between entities is a transaction finance has to price. Leaving ownership where it is and noting the location is the common answer. Agree it explicitly, because the default of not deciding means the two ledgers disagree.
Who pays for a replacement mid secondment? The entity that owns the asset, unless your recharge agreement says otherwise. This is worth settling at the start, because it arrives as an urgent question eighteen months later.
What about support and warranty? Manufacturer warranty terms vary by region, and a machine bought in one market may be serviced differently in another. Confirm what cover actually travels before relying on it.
What happens at the end? Three outcomes: the person returns, they stay permanently, or they leave. Each needs a different device answer, and the third is the one nobody plans for.
Three ways teams handle it, and where each breaks
The device travels with the person. Simplest and most common. No downtime, no reissue, the person keeps their setup. It breaks on records, because the asset register, the support queue and the intercompany recharge all still point at the old country. It also breaks if the secondment becomes permanent and nobody revisits it.
The receiving entity issues a new machine. Clean on the books. The device matches local standards and local support. It breaks on timing and waste: you now own two machines for one person, and the old one has to come back from wherever it is.
The device is shipped and formally transferred. The most correct and the most work. Customs paperwork, an intercompany asset transfer, a new register entry. It breaks on effort, and for a single eighteen month secondment the accounting precision rarely justifies the time.
Five questions to find your own position
Deciding how to handle equipment during secondment is easier once these are answered.
Does your register have a location field separate from the holder? If location is inferred from the person, a secondment makes it wrong immediately.
How long is long here? Pick a threshold where you stop treating it as a trip and start treating it as a relocation. Six months is a reasonable line.
Do the two entities share a support contract? If not, the receiving team may be unable to help with a device they did not buy.
What does your recharge agreement say about assets? Most say nothing, which is the gap.
Who owns the return? Name the entity and the person before departure, not at the end.
What is actually available
Five honest options, including ours.
Carry it and annotate the record. Best for secondments under a year within familiar markets. Free and fast. Struggles because an annotation is not a process, and the next person does it differently.
A formal intercompany transfer. Best when the move is effectively permanent and the amounts matter. Correct on the books. Struggles on effort, and finance teams rarely want to do it for a single laptop.
Local procurement by the receiving entity. Best where local standards or support differ meaningfully. Struggles on cost and on what happens to the original device, which usually sits in a drawer abroad.
A regional reseller in the destination market. Best for one off moves into a market you already buy in. Struggles when you need the same arrangement in eight countries and each reseller works differently.
RemoAsset. Best when secondments are frequent and the destinations change, because global laptop procurement and delivery runs through one party across more than 80 countries rather than through a different reseller each time. The register entry moves with the device. Where it struggles: it does not resolve the intercompany accounting question, which stays with finance, and for a single annual secondment inside one customs union it is more machinery than the problem needs. It publishes an entry subscription price but no per device rates, so budgeting means a conversation.
Where to start, by situation
| Situation | Scale | Setup | Primary pain | Recommended starting point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 3 months, same customs area | 1 to 2 a year | One entity | None in practice | Carry it and note the location |
| 6 to 18 months, two entities | A few a year | Separate books | Recharge and ownership unclear | Agree ownership in writing before departure |
| Long secondment, distant market | Any | No local IT | Support and warranty do not travel | Issue locally and retrieve the original |
| Frequent moves, changing markets | 10 plus a year | Distributed team | A new reseller every time | A global service such as RemoAsset |
| Secondment became permanent | Any | Any | Nobody revisited the arrangement | Run a formal transfer and close the old record |
What the gap actually costs
The small cost is a duplicate machine, and it is genuinely small. The bigger ones are slower and harder to see.
The first is support. A person eighteen hours ahead, on a device bought by an entity that no longer manages them, raises a ticket and falls between two teams. That happens repeatedly over a long secondment and nobody logs it as a cost.
The second is the end of the arrangement. If the secondee resigns abroad, you are recovering company property in a country where the employing entity has no presence and the owning entity has no relationship. That is the most expensive version of this problem, and it begins with a decision nobody made eighteen months earlier. So the question is not whether the laptop can travel. It is who gets it back, and from where.
When carrying it stops working
The point where this stops being a conversation is when secondments become a pattern rather than an event. Two a year is a case by case decision. Twelve a year across changing markets is a process you either design or keep improvising.
What changes with a service is that the destination stops mattering as much. Instead of finding a reseller in each new market and learning its lead times, procurement and delivery run through one arrangement and the asset record follows the device rather than the person. For a team running regular international moves that is the difference between a plan and a scramble.
It is not the right answer for everyone. If your secondments are rare, inside one region, and your register has a location field somebody actually maintains, you already have what you need. The honest test is whether you can say today, without asking anyone, which country each of your devices is in. A laptop lifecycle management service is only worth it if that answer is currently no.
See how global laptop procurement works across 80+ countries
Read our guide to equipment parity across countries
Related reading
- Equipment parity across countries
- Equipment for relocating employees
- Equipment for constant travellers
- Devices for EOR employed staff
- Temporary movement of goods has its own paperwork. The ICC explains the ATA Carnet and the UK government publishes guidance on taking goods out temporarily. Rules differ by route, so confirm both ends.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who owns equipment during secondment, the sending or receiving entity?
Usually the sending entity keeps ownership, because transferring an asset between legal entities is a transaction finance has to price and document. Noting the new location while leaving ownership in place is the common approach. What causes trouble is not deciding at all, which leaves two ledgers quietly disagreeing.
Can a seconded employee carry a company laptop through customs?
Hand carrying a personal work device is routine on most routes, but rules on temporary import and on declaring commercial goods differ by country and sometimes by value. Check the destination before departure rather than assuming, particularly for longer stays where the device may not count as a visitor’s personal effects.
Should the receiving entity issue a new machine instead?
It is worth it when local standards, support arrangements or warranty cover differ enough to matter, or when the secondment is long enough to cross a refresh cycle. The cost is that you now hold two machines for one person, so plan how the original comes back before issuing the second.
What happens to the asset register during a secondment?
In most teams, nothing, which is the problem. If your register infers location from the holder’s country, a secondment makes it wrong on day one. Add a location field that can differ from the employee record, and update it as part of the move checklist.
Does manufacturer warranty cover a device in another country?
Sometimes, and it depends on the manufacturer, the product line and the markets involved. International cover is often a paid option rather than a default. Confirm what applies to the specific machine before relying on it, rather than assuming the warranty travels with the laptop.
What if the secondee resigns while abroad?
This is the expensive case and the one worth planning for. The employing entity may have no local presence and the owning entity has no relationship with the person. Agree before departure who is responsible for recovering the device and from which country, so the answer exists before you need it.
How long before a secondment should be treated as a relocation?
Pick a threshold and write it down. Six months is a reasonable line for most teams. Beyond it, treat the move as a relocation for equipment purposes: review ownership, support, warranty and the refresh date rather than carrying the original arrangement forward by default.
