Responding to global uncertainty: transfer pricing implications for multinationals

When uncertainty becomes the new operating environment, transfer pricing policies must evolve with the business or risk being left behind, say Jobst Wilmanns and Anodri Suchdeve in introducing the Deloitte TP Industry Guide 2026

Sector perspectives for a changing global economy

Economic volatility, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruption, and regulatory change are reshaping multinational business models. Transfer pricing policies must therefore respond not only to changing prices and profitability but also to evolving functions, risks, financing arrangements, value drivers, and transaction structures.

This ITR guide examines these challenges across five sector and technical perspectives.

For the energy, resources, and industrials sector, the guide considers how commodity price volatility is placing pressure on established transfer pricing policies, including the treatment of trading, procurement, marketing, and hedging activities.

In the life sciences and healthcare sector, it explores how subscription, pay-per-use, and outcome-based models are transforming medtech value chains, while pharmaceutical restructurings raise complex questions concerning intangible valuations and uncertainty.

For the industrial products and construction and defence sectors, the guide examines the emergence of hybrid industrial-defence businesses and the resulting implications for operating models, joint ventures, supply chains, intellectual property, and risk allocation.

From a cross-sector financing perspective, it addresses distressed group financing and explains why multinational groups must determine whether financial support constitutes debt, a guarantee, equity, or shareholder support before considering its arm’s-length price.

Finally, with particular relevance to the automotive sector and other industries using low-risk operating models, the guide considers when year-end transfer pricing true-ups remain adjustments to existing intercompany prices and when they may be treated as separate taxable transactions.

Together, the articles demonstrate that transfer pricing under uncertainty requires more than updated benchmarks. It requires alignment between economic substance, contractual arrangements, operational conduct, valuation assumptions, and documentation. The contributions in this guide offer practical, sector-specific perspectives on how multinational groups can achieve that alignment.

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