Does my company need special insurance to host an Erasmus+ intern?

In most cases you do not need a new insurance product, but you do need to check that your existing employer liability or workplace accident policy explicitly covers unpaid or grant-funded trainees, not just salaried employees. Many general liability policies define 'worker' narrowly and exclude interns who are not on payroll. Erasmus+ itself requires the trainee to arrive with their own health and accident insurance, but that covers the student, not your company's liability if a workplace incident occurs. Confirm coverage in writing with your insurer before the placement starts, this is standard practice and takes one phone call.

Who is liable if an Erasmus+ trainee is injured at the workplace?

Liability splits by cause. If the injury results from a workplace hazard, faulty equipment, or inadequate supervision, the host company's employer liability or public liability insurance is the relevant cover, exactly as it would be for a regular employee. If the injury or illness is unrelated to a workplace incident, such as a pre-existing condition or an accident during personal time, the trainee's own Erasmus+ health and accident insurance (arranged through their home university or the European Health Insurance Card scheme) applies. Both covers should exist in parallel, they are not substitutes for each other.

Are Erasmus+ trainees covered by the EU Working Time Directive?

Yes. Trainees performing supervised work at a host organisation are generally treated as workers for the purposes of Directive 2003/88/EC once national transposing law is applied, meaning the same limits apply as for regular staff: a maximum average of 48 hours per week (including overtime, averaged over a reference period, typically 4 months), a minimum of 11 consecutive hours of daily rest, and at least 24 hours of uninterrupted weekly rest. National implementations vary slightly, some Member States apply stricter caps, so host companies should check their own country's transposing legislation rather than relying on the Directive's minimums alone.

Do we need to register an Erasmus+ trainee with the local labor inspectorate?

This depends entirely on national law, not on Erasmus+ rules, since the European Commission does not set a uniform registration requirement (see ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus for the programme's own scope, which covers funding and the Learning Agreement, not domestic labour registration). Several Member States, including France, Belgium and Poland, require companies to register any trainee, paid or unpaid, with the relevant labour authority or via a national declaration system before their first day. Others treat Erasmus+ trainees under general internship or apprenticeship rules with lighter registration duties. Check with your national labour inspectorate or your usual employment law advisor before the placement starts, since the requirement, and the penalty for skipping it, differs sharply by country.

Does hosting an Erasmus+ trainee mean we owe them a salary?

No. The Erasmus+ mobility grant, typically EUR 400 to EUR 700 per month, is paid to the student by their home university, funded by the European Commission through the relevant national agency. The host company has no obligation to pay this grant and, in most Member States, no automatic obligation to pay any additional salary either, unless national law classifies the placement as paid work above a minimum duration or the company voluntarily offers a stipend. This is a persistent misconception among first-time host companies and one of the most common questions raised before a Learning Agreement is signed.

Erasmus+ Host Companies: Insurance, Liability and Working-Time Rules 2026

Two separate insurance obligations sit on either side of an Erasmus+ traineeship. The trainee arrives with their own health and accident insurance, arranged through their home university under the Erasmus+ grant conditions. The host company is responsible for its own employer liability (or workplace accident) insurance covering incidents that happen on the job, exactly as it would be for any other worker. Neither cover substitutes for the other, and the most common compliance gap is a host company assuming its general liability policy already includes unpaid trainees when, in many cases, it explicitly excludes them.

This article is written for HR contacts, founders, and mobility coordinators deciding whether to host an Erasmus+ trainee, and is a companion piece to our general guide to hosting an Erasmus+ intern, which covers eligibility, grant amounts, and the Learning Agreement process. This piece focuses specifically on the questions that come up once a company has decided in principle to host: who carries the insurance risk, what the EU Working Time Directive actually requires, and which obligations scale with company size.

Obligations by company size

Erasmus+ itself does not set different rules for small and large host organisations, the European Commission's programme framework treats a 4-person startup and a 40,000-person multinational identically. What differs is national labour law layered on top, and in practice larger enterprises tend to have the compliance infrastructure (in-house legal, existing liability cover, registered HR processes) already in place, while SMEs are more likely to discover a gap only once a trainee is already on site.

Obligation	SME (under 250 staff)	Large enterprise (250+ staff)
Employer liability / workplace accident insurance covering the trainee	Required under national law in nearly all Member States; must be confirmed explicitly, existing general liability policies often exclude unpaid trainees by default	Required under national law; usually already included in existing corporate liability programmes, but sub-limits for non-payroll workers should still be checked
Written internship agreement (the Learning Agreement or national equivalent, comparable to a convention de stage)	Mandatory, same three-party document (student, host, home university) regardless of size	Mandatory, same requirement; larger hosts often route this through a central HR or legal team rather than the individual manager
Working-time limits under Directive 2003/88/EC	Applies in full: 48-hour weekly average, 11-hour daily rest, 24-hour weekly rest	Applies in full, same limits; large employers typically already track this via existing time-recording systems
Local labour inspectorate registration or declaration	Required in several Member States (for example France's declaration prior a l'embauche equivalent, Belgium's Dimona, Poland's PUE ZUS notifications); often the step SMEs miss	Required under the same national rules; usually handled automatically by existing payroll/HR registration workflows

Key distinction

Company size changes how easily an obligation gets met, not whether it exists. An SME hosting its first Erasmus+ trainee should treat the four rows above as a pre-arrival checklist, not an afterthought to raise once the student has already started.

What the trainee brings vs what the host must carry

Erasmus+ requires every trainee to hold health and accident insurance before departure, arranged either through their home university, a national health scheme, or a private policy that meets the programme's minimum coverage requirements. For intra-EU placements this is usually backed by the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) for public healthcare access, plus a supplementary accident and repatriation policy that many universities bundle automatically. This is the trainee's own cover, it protects the student, it does not protect the host company from a liability claim.

The host company's obligation runs on a separate track: workplace accident and employer (or public) liability insurance under national law. This is the same cover that applies to any employee, but the critical detail is scope. Many general commercial liability policies define covered "workers" narrowly, in a way that can exclude interns who are not on payroll, unpaid Erasmus+ trainees, or anyone classified as a "student" rather than an "employee" in the policy wording. Before the placement begins, a host company should ask its insurer, in writing, whether unpaid or grant-funded trainees are explicitly included. This single confirmation closes the most frequent compliance gap we see among first-time host companies.

For the student-facing side of this topic, our sister publication at internshipabroad.uk covers what trainees themselves need to check in their own insurance before departure, useful context if your intern asks what their own policy actually covers versus what you as the host are responsible for.

Working-time rules for trainees

Trainees performing supervised work under a Learning Agreement are, once national transposing legislation is applied, generally subject to the same working-time protections as regular staff under Directive 2003/88/EC (the EU Working Time Directive). The core limits a host company should build its schedule around:

Maximum average working week: 48 hours, including any overtime, averaged over a reference period (commonly 4 months under national implementing law).
Daily rest: a minimum of 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24-hour period.
Weekly rest: at least 24 uninterrupted hours per 7-day period, in addition to the 11 hours of daily rest.
Rest breaks: a break where working time exceeds 6 hours, the exact length set by national law (commonly 20-30 minutes).
Annual leave: most Member States extend a pro-rated statutory minimum leave entitlement (the Directive sets a 4-week floor) to trainees on placements longer than a few months, though exact accrual rules vary.

These are minimums, not targets, and several Member States apply stricter national caps (shorter weekly maximums, longer daily rest) than the Directive's floor. A host company operating across more than one EU country should check the local transposing law for each site rather than assuming the Directive's figures apply uniformly.

Common misconceptions, corrected

"Hosting means we owe the student a salary." False in the general case. The Erasmus+ mobility grant, typically EUR 400 to EUR 700 per month depending on destination and sending country, is paid by the student's home university, funded through the European Commission's national agencies. The host company has no obligation to contribute to this grant. Some host companies choose to pay an additional stipend, entirely at their discretion and governed by whatever national rules apply to unpaid or lightly-paid internships above a certain duration.

"Our general liability policy already covers this automatically." Often false, and the single most expensive assumption a host company can make. Many commercial liability and workers' compensation policies exclude anyone not on payroll, or define "trainee" and "employee" as separate risk categories with different premiums. Confirming explicit inclusion in writing, before the placement starts, is a five-minute conversation with your existing insurer, not a new policy purchase in most cases.

"Erasmus+ accreditation covers our insurance obligations too." False. Erasmus+ accreditation (where it applies) concerns eligibility to participate in the programme and receive funding, it has no bearing on national employer liability, working-time, or labour registration law. Those obligations exist independently of Erasmus+ and apply whether the trainee is Erasmus+-funded, self-funded, or on a different mobility scheme entirely.

"Working-time rules don't apply because the trainee isn't a paid employee." False in most Member States. Working-time protections under Directive 2003/88/EC generally attach to anyone performing supervised work under an organisation's direction, not specifically to payroll status. Treat trainee schedules as you would any employee's.

Before the placement starts: a short due-diligence pass

Beyond the paperwork, it is worth understanding how the student themselves is presenting their skills and background before you commit to a placement date. Reviewing the Living Profile approach gives host companies a sense of how candidates document their coursework, language level, and prior experience in a structured, verifiable way, which is useful context alongside the compliance checklist above when a first-time host company is deciding whether a specific candidate and role are a good match.

Working with Internship Abroad on compliant placements

If your organisation is evaluating Erasmus+ hosting for the first time, pairing the insurance and working-time checklist above with a clear intake process reduces most of the risk. Internship Abroad connects verified international students with European host companies and surfaces the Learning Agreement, supervisor, and profile details up front. Register your organisation to start receiving applications from students who have already confirmed their Erasmus+ eligibility with their home university.

Further reading: see our general guide to hosting an Erasmus+ intern for eligibility, grant amounts, and the Learning Agreement process, or the European Commission's own programme reference at ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus for the underlying funding rules this article builds on.

Erasmus+ Traineeship Host Companies: Insurance, Liability and Working-Time Rules for EU Employers in 2026