Changing contract hours: your rights under the Flexible Working Act

As an employee in the Netherlands, you can ask your employer to change your contract hours, and the employer must grant the request unless compelling business or service interests stand in the way. The main exception: the Flexible Working Act does not apply to employers with fewer than ten employees, and an employer that wants to reduce your hours against your wishes has no such right at all.

The rules are in the Flexible Working Act (Wet flexibel werken, Wfw). If you have worked for the employer for at least twenty-six weeks, you may ask in writing to work more hours, fewer hours, at different times or from a different place. You submit the request at least two months before the intended start date. The employer must decide in writing at the latest one month before that date. If the employer does not decide in time, your hours are adjusted as requested.

What can you ask for under the Flexible Working Act?

You can ask for a different number of working hours (arbeidsduur), different working times (werktijd) and a different place of work (arbeidsplaats). The three are not treated equally.

The Wfw replaced the Working Hours Adjustment Act (Wet aanpassing arbeidsduur). Confusing the three types of request is the most common source of disappointment. For working hours and working times, the test is strict against the employer: the request must be granted unless compelling business or service interests (zwaarwegende bedrijfs- of dienstbelangen) oppose it.

For the place of work, the test is much weaker. The employer must consider the request and discuss it with you before refusing, but is not bound by the same strict standard. A bill to strengthen the right to choose your place of work (Wet werken waar je wilt) was rejected by the Senate on 26 September 2023. The difference therefore remains.

Who can make a request?

An employee who has been employed for at least twenty-six weeks when the change is to take effect, working for an employer with ten or more employees.

Apart from unforeseen circumstances, you can only make a new request one year after the employer granted or refused the previous one. The Act does not apply at all to employers with fewer than ten employees. Those employers must make their own arrangement for adjusting working hours. In practice, that arrangement is often found in the collective labour agreement or the staff handbook rather than in the contract.

Where a collective labour agreement (cao) has its own rules on adjusting hours, those rules take precedence over the Act to the extent the Act allows. Always check the cao before the contract, and the contract before you write the request.

How does the procedure work, and which deadlines apply?

You submit a written request at least two months before the change should start, and the employer decides in writing at least one month before that date. If the employer misses its deadline, your request is granted automatically.

The procedure is short, and the deadlines do the work. State your current hours, the requested hours, the desired start date and, if relevant, how you want the hours spread over the week. You do not have to give a reason by law. But a request that explains itself is far more likely to be granted, and a documented reason is useful later if the refusal has to be tested.

The employer must consult you and then decide in writing. A refusal must state the grounds. If the employer misses the deadline, the consequence is automatic: your working hours, working times or place of work are adjusted in line with your request. That is the most useful provision in the Act for an employee, and the most expensive oversight for an employer. Record the date of the request and send it in a way that proves receipt.

Who decides how the hours are spread over the week?

In principle, the spread you ask for applies. The employer may set a different spread only if it has a serious interest that outweighs yours.

Whatever you agree, confirm it in writing as an amendment to the employment contract. State the new hours, the new salary, the new holiday entitlement and the date from which they apply. An oral agreement about hours is valid, but hard to prove, and hours are the term of employment that causes the most disputes years later.

When may the employer refuse?

Only when compelling business or service interests stand in the way. The Act itself gives examples, and the threshold is genuinely high.

If you want to work fewer hours, the interests that can qualify are serious problems in re-allocating the hours that become available, problems of safety, or problems with the roster. If you want to work more hours, the examples are serious problems of a financial or organisational kind, not enough work being available, or no budget or staffing space for the extra hours.

Inconvenience is not a compelling interest. Nor is a general preference for full-time staff, or a fear that other employees will ask for the same. The employer has to make the problem concrete: which roster cannot be filled, which qualification is missing on which shift, which budget does not exist. A refusal expressed in general terms rarely survives a court’s assessment.

Can the employer offer an alternative?

Yes. Instead of refusing outright, the employer may propose a different arrangement, and you are expected to consider it seriously.

Examples are a smaller reduction, a temporary arrangement with an evaluation, a different spread over the week, or a move to another role in which the requested hours are workable. As a good employee, you should consider such a proposal. Refusing every alternative weakens your position if the matter reaches court.

Can your employer change your hours?

Only in narrow circumstances. The Flexible Working Act gives the employer no matching right, so an employer that wants to reduce your hours has only two routes, and both are demanding.

Route 1: a unilateral variation clause

The first route is a written unilateral variation clause (eenzijdig wijzigingsbeding) under Article 7:613 of the Dutch Civil Code (BW). Such a clause lets the employer change a term of employment only if its interest is so substantial that your interest must give way, by standards of reasonableness and fairness.

The clause must be in writing and agreed in advance. A clause in a staff handbook that you never accepted will not do.

Route 2: a reasonable proposal after changed circumstances

Without such a clause, the Supreme Court’s test in Stoof/Mammoet (HR 11 July 2008, ECLI:NL:HR:2008:BD1847) applies. The court asks three questions, in order.

1. Are there changed circumstances at work that give the employer reason to make a proposal?
2. Is the proposal reasonable in the light of all the circumstances, including the nature of the change and your interests?
3. Can acceptance of the proposal reasonably be required of you?

Only if all three questions are answered with yes must you accept.

What if the employer simply offers fewer hours?

Then you remain entitled to your salary for the contractual hours. The risk of insufficient work lies with the employer.

In practice, a structural reduction of hours imposed by the employer amounts to a partial dismissal. Dutch law does not recognise partial dismissal as such. An employer that wants fewer hours must normally agree the change with you, or take the ordinary dismissal route through the UWV or the subdistrict court. A temporary drop in work is not enough.

Are you entitled to a transition payment for lost hours?

Sometimes. If your hours are reduced substantially and structurally for business-economic reasons or because of long-term incapacity for work, you are entitled to a transition payment for the part of the contract you lose.

The Supreme Court decided this in the Kolom case (HR 14 September 2018, ECLI:NL:HR:2018:1617). In that decision, a reduction of at least 20 percent counts as substantial. The Supreme Court later made clear that a reduction in salary alone, without a loss of hours, gives no such right (HR 17 April 2020, ECLI:NL:HR:2020:749). If your employer proposes to cut your hours by a fifth or more on a permanent basis, put this entitlement on the table before you sign anything. Our article on the transition payment explains how it is calculated.

Where the employer proposes a reduction in exchange for keeping your job, the practical answer is usually a written agreement with a fixed term and an evaluation date, rather than an open-ended change. If the employer offers a settlement agreement instead, the position is different again. That is dealt with in our article on the vaststellingsovereenkomst.

What changes when your hours change?

Almost everything in an employment relationship follows the hours: salary, holiday, pension and your basis for unemployment benefit. The effects are easy to underestimate because they arrive gradually.

Salary follows the hours directly, and so does everything derived from it: holiday allowance, a thirteenth month and any bonus expressed as a percentage of salary. The statutory holiday entitlement is four times the weekly working hours per year, so it changes in proportion too. Holiday already built up at the old level is not lost. Settle those days or carry them over on the agreed basis, rather than quietly recalculating them.

Pension accrual falls with the pensionable salary. Because pension builds up over decades, a reduction in your thirties costs considerably more at retirement than the drop in monthly pay suggests. If the scheme offers voluntary additional accrual, this is the moment to ask about it.

How does a change affect unemployment benefit?

In two ways. A voluntary reduction gives no benefit for the hours you give up, and it lowers the wage on which any later benefit is based.

This is the consequence employees most often miss. You are only entitled to unemployment benefit (WW) if you lose at least five working hours per week, or at least half of your hours if you worked fewer than ten hours a week. The benefit is calculated on the wage you earned in the year before you became unemployed. So if the employer proposes a reduction, and certainly if redundancy may be coming, include that calculation in your decision.

What if you have been working more hours than your contract says?

Then you can ask for your contract hours to be adjusted. Under Article 7:610b BW, the hours you worked on average over the three preceding months are presumed to be your contractual hours, unless the employer proves otherwise. Payslips and rosters are the evidence; raise it while you are still employed.

Can part-time work be a reason for less favourable treatment?

No. Article 7:648 BW prohibits distinctions based on working hours, unless there is an objective justification.

The prohibition covers the conditions under which a contract is entered into, continued or ended. In practice, pay, allowances, training, promotion opportunities and access to a bonus scheme must be pro rata, not reserved for full-timers. A part-time employee cannot be passed over for a role for that reason alone.

The reverse also matters. If an employee with caring responsibilities asks for fewer hours and the employer refuses without a concrete business interest, the refusal can raise a question of indirect sex discrimination, because part-time requests are made disproportionately by women. That is a separate ground of complaint. It can be assessed by the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) or by the court, and employers tend to underestimate it.

Is leave a better option than a permanent reduction?

Often, if the need is temporary. Leave keeps your contractual hours, your pension accrual and the basis for any later unemployment benefit intact.

The Work and Care Act (Wet arbeid en zorg) provides parental leave for each child until the age of eight. Nine weeks of it are paid by the UWV at 70 percent of your pay, up to a statutory maximum, if you take them in the child’s first year. The Act also provides short-term and long-term care leave for a sick partner, child or parent, and birth leave for partners.

What can you do if your request is refused?

Check the grounds and the calendar first. Then make a counter-proposal, and only go to court if that fails.

Ask for the refusal in writing with concrete grounds; a refusal that names no specific business interest is weak. Then check the dates: if the employer decided later than one month before the intended start date, your request was granted by law under Article 2 of the Wfw.

If the refusal stands, make a counter-proposal that meets the stated interest, such as a different spread over the week, a phased reduction or a six-month trial. If that fails, the subdistrict court (kantonrechter) assesses whether the employer’s interest is genuinely compelling. Legal expenses insurance or trade union membership often covers these proceedings.

What should you check as an employee?

Check the formalities before you send the request and the calendar once you have. Most disputes turn on the two-month and one-month deadlines of the Wfw.

• Have you been employed for at least 26 weeks, and does your employer have ten or more employees?
• Does your cao contain its own rules on adjusting hours?
• Is the request in writing, sent at least two months before the start date, with proof of receipt?
• Have you calculated the effect on salary, holiday, pension and any later WW benefit?
• Did the employer decide in writing at least one month before the start date? If not, the request is granted.

What should you check as an employer?

Check the deadline first and the substance second. A late answer means the request is granted by law.

• Answer in writing at least one month before the requested start date.
• Name the concrete business or service interest: the roster, the budget or the safety issue.
• Consult the employee before deciding and consider an alternative, such as a phased or temporary change.
• Do not cut hours unilaterally without a variation clause under Article 7:613 BW or a reasonable proposal under Stoof/Mammoet.
• Check whether your general policy on working hours and rosters needs works council consent under Article 27 of the Works Councils Act.

What can we do for you with changing your contract hours?

Our employment lawyers advise employees and employers on working hours, in English and Dutch.

• We check whether the deadlines of the Flexible Working Act were met.
• We draft the written request, or the employer’s reasoned decision.
• We assess whether a refusal names a compelling business interest that would survive in court.
• We calculate a partial transition payment where hours are cut structurally by 20 percent or more.
• We draft the contract amendment with the new hours, salary and holiday entitlement.
• We represent you before the subdistrict court (kantonrechter).

Summary

• After 26 weeks of employment, you can ask for more or fewer hours, different working times or a different place of work under the Flexible Working Act, if the employer has ten or more employees.
• Submit the request two months in advance; if the employer does not decide in writing one month before the start date, the request is granted automatically.
• Hours and working times may only be refused for compelling, concrete business interests; the place of work has a weaker test.
• An employer cannot simply cut your hours; it needs a written variation clause or a reasonable proposal under Stoof/Mammoet, and a structural loss of 20 percent or more can trigger a partial transition payment.
• Fewer hours means less salary, holiday, pension and a lower basis for later unemployment benefit; consider leave if the need is temporary.

Frequently asked questions