Michelle Marjanovic

Leaving employment while sick (ziek uit dienst) means your employment contract ends while you are ill; the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) then assesses within 4 weeks whether you receive a sickness benefit (Ziektewet-uitkering), usually 70% of your daily wage. If you agree to your own dismissal while sick, for example in a settlement agreement (vaststellingsovereenkomst),

Can a Dutch employer dismiss an employee because the working relationship has broken down? Yes, but only with a decision of the subdistrict court (kantonrechter) and only if the relationship is so seriously and permanently disrupted that the employer cannot reasonably be expected to continue the employment contract. A disagreement, irritation or a single incident

The criteria that actually matter when an international employee or employer picks a Dutch employment lawyer, what the law gives you, and what to ask in the first call.

The subdistrict court in Amsterdam ruled on 4 August 2026 that a collective move to a competitor is not solicitation, but that one email to a client breached the relationship clause.

An ordered index of every guide we have written on Employment law in the Netherlands.

When an employee of a Dutch employer works partly from home in another EU country, three questions arise that each have their own answer: social security, employment law and tax. Social security stays Dutch as long as less than 25% of the work is done in the country of residence; the EU Framework Agreement on

Every employee in the Netherlands accrues at least four times their weekly working hours in paid holiday per year, which is 20 days for a five-day week (Article 7:634 of the Dutch Civil Code, BW). Statutory days expire six months after the end of the year in which they were accrued, unless the employee could

Do you transfer to the buyer, what does UWV reimburse and are you still entitled to severance? Dutch law and the most recent case law, in English.

An employer may suspend you from your duties (non-actiefstelling) after an integrity investigation only if it has a reasonable and sufficiently compelling ground, tested against the good-employer standard of Article 7:611 of the Dutch Civil Code (BW). The fact that the employer wants to end your employment contract, or has already asked the subdistrict court

An employer may not make a distinction on a protected ground, such as race, disability or chronic illness, when filling a vacancy. If a rejected applicant puts forward facts that suggest discrimination, the employer must prove that the protected ground played no part at all in its decision. That rule is laid down in Article

If you live in true service accommodation (dienstwoning) and your employment contract ends, your right to live there in principle ends at the same time, without a separate termination of a tenancy. That is different if the housing is only arranged through your employer and is not needed for the job: then ordinary tenancy protection

A discretionary bonus scheme that still has to be worked out, for example because targets have not yet been set, does not give you an enforceable right to payment. That changes if the scheme is concrete and only the employer’s implementing step is missing: then the bonus condition may be treated as fulfilled under Article

An employer may only stop the wages of a sick employee if the employee fails to meet a specific reintegration obligation listed in Article 7:629(3) of the Dutch Civil Code (BW) without a valid reason. The employer must also inform the employee of that ground without delay (Article 7:629(7) BW); a general impression that the

An employer may not build a summary dismissal on the covert analysis of an employee’s login and logout data. On 7 July 2026 the subdistrict court (kantonrechter) in The Hague set aside such a dismissal, holding that the employer had no adequate legal basis under the GDPR, that the monitoring was neither proportionate nor the

Poor performance is not an urgent cause for summary dismissal under Dutch employment law. An employer who is dissatisfied with an employee’s performance must first offer a genuine opportunity to improve; reaching straight for summary dismissal (ontslag op staande voet) is unlawful. A ruling of the Limburg District Court of 11 June 2026 (ECLI:NL:RBLIM:2026:5188) shows

Your employer may only prohibit or restrict work you do for others outside your working hours if there is an objective reason for it. Under Article 7:653a of the Dutch Civil Code (BW), in force since 1 August 2022, a clause without such a justification is void; the main exception is a concrete risk such

An employer in the Netherlands can only dismiss an employee for underperformance if the dismissal file shows that the employee was warned in time and specifically, had a real opportunity to improve, and could not be redeployed. Performance reviews are usually the backbone of that file, but a file with only vague or positive reviews

The dismissal of a foundation director is unlawful under Dutch law when there is no reasonable ground for it, but the court cannot reinstate the director; it can only award fair compensation (billijke vergoeding). A ruling of the Rotterdam District Court of 29 June 2026 (ECLI:NL:RBROT:2026:7443) shows how far that compensation can go: €400,000 gross,

An internship becomes an employment contract when the intern mainly performs productive work for the organisation instead of learning for a training programme. The label on the agreement does not decide this: a court, the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) or the Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) looks at how the internship works in practice, and a reclassification

A practical guide to Dutch employment law in Eindhoven for both employees and employers: dismissal protection, transition payment, non-competition clauses, sick pay, dismissal routes, and international workers.