European employers tighten office rules: EY, Airbus and Stellantis raise required days through 2026
A cluster of large European employers is raising the number of days white-collar staff must spend in the office, with several changes landing across July and September 2026. From 1 July, EY expects staff to work from an office or client site for 12 days a month, roughly three days a week. Airbus is moving engineers and other office staff from a minimum of three days on site to four, effective September. Stellantis, which had allowed some French, Italian and German staff as little as 1.5 office days a week, is pushing toward full-time attendance, with its Italian operation escalating to three days for around 60% of staff by September and five days by 2027.
Why this matters
If you work remotely for a large European employer, the direction of travel in 2026 is toward more mandated office presence, not less, and the increases are being phased in on dated deadlines rather than announced as one-off shocks. For anyone weighing a fully remote arrangement, the practical lesson is to get the number of required in-office days written into a contract or a formal flexible-working agreement, because informal “work from anywhere” custom is exactly what these employers are now rolling back.
Context
These moves sit alongside a broader European baseline that has settled around two to three office days a week for most large corporates, with flexibility over which days. The heavy-industry and professional-services tighten, from three to four or four to five days, marks the upper end of that range rather than a wholesale abolition of hybrid work. It also runs against worker-protective moves elsewhere, such as Luxembourg’s right-to-disconnect penalties, which took effect on 4 July.
What to watch
Union responses are the near-term signal. At Airbus, French unions escalated to a European Works Council meeting in early July over how the 2024 telework agreement is being applied. Whether management concedes ground there will shape how far other European employers feel able to push the office-day count.