Suiga o tulafono faigaluega i Netherlands: o a mea o loʻo faʻamalosia ma o a mea o loʻo faʻatali

Dutch employment law changes in two speeds, and confusing them is expensive. A reform that has been passed by parliament is not yet law: most Dutch employment statutes enter into force on a date fixed by royal decree, sometimes provision by provision, and until that decree is published in the Staatsblad the old rules continue to apply in full. This overview separates what is already binding on employers today from what has been adopted but is still waiting, and from what is only a bill.

How a change in Dutch employment law actually takes effect

A bill passes the Tweede Kamer, then the Eerste Kamer, and is then published in the Staatsblad. Publication is not commencement. Almost every recent employment act leaves the commencement date to a royal decree, which allows the government to phase the obligations and to give employers time to adapt. That is why announcements of a change often circulate a year or more before anything is enforceable, and why contracts drafted against a regime that has not commenced can create obligations the employer never intended.

Two further layers sit on top of the statute. Transitional law decides which regime governs a contract that was concluded before commencement, and it is often more generous to existing arrangements than employers assume. And a collective agreement can deviate from a good deal of employment law where the statute permits it, which means that for many employers the operative rule is not in the Civil Code but in the sector agreement. Anyone assessing the impact of a change should read those two before redrafting anything. The framework as a whole is set out in our taiala ile tulafono faafaigaluega Dutch.

Changes that are already in force

The Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Act has applied since August 2022 and remains the change employers most often overlook. It requires the employer to inform the employee about a longer list of terms, it makes training that is mandatory by law or by collective agreement free for the employee and counted as working time, and it bars a clause forbidding secondary employment unless the employer can point to an objective justification. Study cost clauses that were standard before that date are frequently unenforceable now.

Paid parental leave has applied since August 2022 as well: in the first year of a child’s life a portion of the parental leave is paid by the UWV at a statutory percentage of the daily wage, subject to the maximum daily wage. The Whistleblower Protection Act has applied since 18 February 2023, obliging employers with at least fifty employees to operate an internal reporting procedure and reversing the burden of proof where a reporter suffers detriment; private employers with fifty to two hundred and forty-nine employees had to comply from 17 December 2023. The enforcement moratorium on the assessment of working relationships ended on 1 January 2025, so the Tax Administration can again act against false self-employment; where the boundary runs is set out in our article on pe a avea se konekarate ma tagata faigaluega. And the wage cost benefit for older employees was abolished on 1 January 2026, with transitional entitlement running until 1 January 2027 at the latest for employees who started before 1 January 2024.

One thing that did not happen is worth recording, because it is repeated constantly: there is no statutory right to work from home. The bill that would have created one was rejected by the Eerste Kamer, so a request to change the place of work is still assessed under the Flexible Working Act, which obliges the employer to consider a request and to give reasons for a refusal, but leaves the decision on the place of work with the employer.

Adopted, but waiting for a royal decree

Three measures have completed their passage through parliament but are not yet enforceable, and all three concern flexible work. The Wet meer zekerheid flexwerkers was passed by the Tweede Kamer on 12 May 2026 and the Eerste Kamer on 7 July 2026. It leaves the count of three fixed-term contracts in thirty-six months intact but replaces the six-month interruption that resets the chain with a period of three years, abolishes the zero-hours contract in favour of a contract with a guaranteed minimum number of hours and a limited band above it, and shortens the agency work phases while giving agency workers at least equivalent terms of employment. What it changes and what it leaves alone is set out in detail in our article on the Susū meer zekerheid flexwerkers.

The second is the rebuttable presumption that a working relationship below a certain hourly rate is an employment contract, published in the Staatsblad on 29 June 2026 and likewise awaiting a royal decree; the part of the original proposal that was meant to clarify how working relationships are assessed did not survive the legislative process. The third is the admission requirement for suppliers of labour under the Wet toelating terbeschikkingstelling van arbeidskrachten, and this one does have dates: registration with the admitting authority runs from 1 November to 31 December 2026, the admission requirement takes effect on 1 January 2027, and enforcement follows from 1 January 2028. A hirer that engages an agency without admission risks a penalty of its own, so checking the register becomes part of procurement rather than of legal review.

What applies to flexible contracts right now

Until those decrees appear, the current rules govern, and they are already more demanding than many employers realise. Under article 7:668a of the Civil Code a fourth successive fixed-term contract, or a chain that exceeds thirty-six months, produces a contract for an indefinite period by operation of law, whether or not anyone signs anything; a break of more than six months resets the chain. On-call workers must be called up at least four days in advance in writing or electronically, keep their right to pay if the call-up is withdrawn inside that period, and are entitled after twelve months to an offer of a fixed number of hours based on the preceding year. Those on-call rules have applied since 2020 and are regularly presented as forthcoming, which they are not.

Agency work runs on the phase system in the sector collective agreements, explained in our guide to the agency work phase system. Alongside all of this sit the entitlements that have not moved: at least four times the weekly working hours in statutory holiday each year, holiday allowance of at least eight per cent of gross annual pay, and a statutory minimum wage per hour that is revised twice a year by the responsible ministry and published in the Staatscourant. Our overview of aia tatau a tagata faigaluega i Netherlands goes through them.

Dismissal: the part that has not changed

Dutch dismissal law is a closed system and has been stable for a decade. An employer needs one of the grounds listed in article 7:669 of the Civil Code, and it must be fully made out; a half-established performance ground and a half-established conduct ground can only be added together under the cumulation ground, and then at the price of an additional payment. The route depends on the ground: redundancy for business economic reasons and dismissal after long-term incapacity go to the UWV, personal grounds go to the subdistrict court, and neither route is optional. There is no dismissal at will and no severance tariff that buys out the requirement of a ground.

The notice period for the employer is at least double that of the employee, and the transitional payment is due from the first day of employment, including during a probationary period. Its statutory maximum is set each year by the responsible ministry, so any figure quoted in an article older than a few months should be checked against the current regulation. Where the employee has acted in a seriously culpable way the payment can be withheld; where the employer has, the court can award an additional fair compensation on top. In a bankruptcy there is no entitlement to the transitional payment at all, and the UWV wage guarantee scheme does not cover it. Many dismissals are settled instead by a vaststellingsovereenkomst, and the trade-offs against the UWV route are set out in maliliega fa'atasi ma le fa'ate'aina o le UWV; summary dismissal, the sharpest instrument, is covered in dismissal on the spot.

Sickness, reintegration and psychosocial workload

An employer must continue to pay at least seventy per cent of wage during sickness for up to one hundred and four weeks, with the first year not falling below the statutory minimum wage, and most collective agreements improve on that. Reintegration is governed by the Gatekeeper Improvement Act, which prescribes a timetable of assessments, an action plan and periodic evaluations; where the UWV finds that the employer has done too little, it can extend the wage payment obligation by up to a further year, which is the most expensive avoidable mistake in this field.

Psychosocial workload is not a new obligation either. The Working Conditions Act has long required employers to identify and address stress, aggression, bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment as part of the mandatory risk inventory and evaluation, and the Labour Inspectorate enforces it. What has changed is the level of scrutiny rather than the rule, and the fact that an employer that cannot produce a current risk inventory is starting from a poor position in any claim about working conditions.

Working time and record-keeping

The Working Hours Act sets maximum working times and minimum rest periods, and it obliges the employer to keep a proper record of working time for every worker, including flexible and on-call staff. That duty is long-standing rather than new, but it is enforced, and it interacts with the on-call rules above: an employer that cannot show what hours were actually worked will struggle to resist a claim for a fixed number of hours based on the preceding year, or a claim for pay for a withdrawn call-up.

What to review now

Check three things in your existing documentation. First, your study cost and secondary employment clauses, which are the most common casualties of the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Act and which many templates still contain in their pre-2022 form. Second, where in your organisation the six-month interruption is being used to reset a chain of fixed-term contracts, because that is where the pending three-year period will have the greatest workforce planning consequences. Third, your suppliers of labour, against the admission regime that starts to apply from 1 January 2027.

Then leave the rest alone until the decrees appear. Anticipating a regime that has not commenced by amending contracts now creates entitlements you cannot withdraw unilaterally. A dated review of your templates, your risk inventory and your reintegration files is worth more than a speculative rewrite. Where a specific conflict is already running, mediation is often faster than proceedings, as we set out in soalaupulega i feeseeseaiga tau galuega.

Law & More advises employers and employees on Dutch employment law, in Dutch and in English, from contract templates and reorganisations to dismissal, sickness and disputes. If you need to know how a change affects your organisation or your own position, tusi se feutagaiga with our employment law team in Eindhoven or Amsterdam.

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