Posting workers to the Netherlands triggers a separate compliance regime on top of the employment contract: the Wet arbeidsvoorwaarden gedetacheerde werknemers in de Europese Unie (WagwEU). A foreign employer that temporarily sends staff to work in the Netherlands must notify the posting through the Dutch online reporting portal before the work starts, apply a core set of Dutch working conditions, keep specified documents available at the workplace and appoint a contact person here. The Dutch client that hires the service has duties of its own, and both can be fined by the Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie.
This article deals with posting specifically. The wider question of which employment law governs a cross-border contract and which court decides a dispute is covered in our article on working across borders in a digital world, and the drafting of the contract itself in our guide to employment contracts for international workers.
What counts as a posting
A posting exists where an employer established in another EU or EEA member state or in Switzerland temporarily sends an employee to work in the Netherlands while the employment relationship with that employer continues. The Posting of Workers Directive recognises three situations: performing a service under a contract with a Dutch client, an intra-group secondment, and the hiring out of workers by a temporary work agency to a user undertaking in the Netherlands. Self-employed persons providing services in designated sectors are covered by the notification duty as well.
Posting is not the same as a transfer, and it is not the same as remote working. An employee who moves his habitual place of work to the Netherlands is not posted; he simply works here, and the full weight of Dutch employment law follows from the applicable-law analysis rather than from the posting rules. An employee who works from home in another country for a Dutch employer is not posted either. The distinction matters because the WagwEU obligations attach only to genuine postings, while the applicable-law questions arise in all three situations. Our overview of cross-border legal issues sets out how those questions interact.
The notification duty and what the Dutch client must do
Since 1 March 2020 a foreign employer must notify a posting to the Netherlands in the online reporting portal before the work begins. The notification identifies the employer, the workers, the nature and duration of the work, the place where it will be performed, the Dutch service recipient and the contact person in the Netherlands. Changes to the assignment have to be reflected in the notification, and a posting that starts without one is an offence in its own right, quite apart from whether the working conditions are correct.
The Dutch party that engages the service is not a bystander. It receives the notification and must check that the posting has been reported and that the details are correct; if it does not, it can be fined itself. In practice this means that the contract with the foreign supplier should oblige the supplier to notify, to provide the notification reference before mobilisation, and to inform the client of any change. Making payment conditional on that evidence is far more effective than a warranty buried in the general terms.
The employer must also keep a defined set of documents available at the Dutch workplace, on paper or digitally accessible: the employment contracts, payslips, records of hours worked, the A1 certificates and proof of payment of wages. These have to be retained for five years after the work ends and produced on request. A contact person in the Netherlands must be designated as the point of contact for the Arbeidsinspectie; that person may be one of the posted workers themselves. Refusing or failing to provide information to the inspectorate is separately punishable.
Which Dutch conditions apply during the posting
A posted worker keeps the employment law of his home country as the law of the contract, but the Netherlands imposes a core of working conditions that apply regardless. That core covers the statutory minimum wage and holiday allowance, minimum paid holiday, maximum working time and minimum rest periods under the Arbeidstijdenwet, health and safety under the Arbowet, equal treatment, and the conditions on protection of pregnant workers and young people. Where a collective labour agreement has been declared generally binding for the sector, its provisions on pay and allowances form part of that core as well, which is the point most often missed by foreign employers who assume the statutory minimum is the ceiling of their exposure.
Remuneration in this context means more than the basic hourly rate. Since the revision of the Posting of Workers Directive it covers all the constituent elements of pay made mandatory by law or by a generally binding collective agreement, including allowances specific to the posting. Allowances paid to reimburse travel, board and lodging cannot be counted towards the wage; if the employer does not distinguish them, the whole allowance is treated as reimbursement and the wage is short by that amount. Travel, board and lodging costs for the journey to and within the Netherlands are for the employer, not the worker.
After twelve months a posting becomes a long-term posting and virtually all Dutch employment conditions apply, not only the core. The employer can extend the twelve-month point to eighteen months by submitting a motivated notification before it expires. The exceptions that remain outside the extended set are the rules on the conclusion and termination of the employment contract, non-competition clauses and supplementary occupational pension schemes. Replacing one posted worker with another on the same task does not restart the clock; the period is counted per task, not per person.
Agency work: Waadi and the coming registration duty
Where the posting takes the form of hiring out labour, a second regime applies alongside the WagwEU. The Wet allocatie arbeidskrachten door intermediairs (Waadi) requires anyone who makes workers available to another party in the course of business to be registered as such in the Trade Register, and that applies to foreign agencies posting workers to the Netherlands as much as to Dutch ones. The Waadi also imposes the equal treatment norm: an agency worker is entitled to the same essential working conditions as an employee in an equivalent role at the hirer. Both the agency and the hirer can be fined, and the hirer cannot shift that exposure by contract.
A further layer is on the way. Under the Wet toelating terbeschikkingstelling van arbeidskrachten (Wtta), providers of temporary labour will need an admission from the Nederlandse Arbeidsmarkt Autoriteit. Registration opens on 1 November 2026 and closes on 31 December 2026, the Act enters into force on 1 January 2027, and enforcement against hirers who use a non-admitted provider starts on 1 January 2028. Any business that structurally hires in labour, including from abroad, should be checking now whether its suppliers intend to apply, because from the enforcement date the user undertaking is exposed as well.
Social security and the A1 certificate
Social security is coordinated separately from employment law and follows its own rules. The starting point under the EU coordination regulation is that a worker is insured in the country where the work is performed, with a posting exception: an employee sent to work temporarily in another member state can remain insured in the sending state for a period of up to twenty-four months, provided the employer normally carries out substantial activities there and the worker is not replacing another posted worker. Someone who habitually works in two or more member states is insured in the state of residence if a substantial part of the work is performed there, and the substantial-part test is assessed on working time and remuneration.
The A1 certificate is the document that proves which system applies. It should be requested from the competent institution of the sending state before the work starts, and a copy should be available at the Dutch workplace, where it also forms part of the WagwEU document set. A missing A1 does not merely create a paperwork problem: without it the Dutch authorities may treat the worker as insured in the Netherlands, with contributions due here. Reassess the position whenever the pattern of work changes, because a certificate issued for one arrangement does not cover a different one.
Wage tax, immigration and the checks that run alongside
Posting rules do not answer the tax question, and the two regimes do not have to point to the same country. Whether Dutch wage tax must be withheld depends on the applicable double tax treaty and on the facts, in particular whether the employer has a permanent establishment here and who bears the cost of the remuneration. That analysis is a matter for a tax adviser, and we work with yours rather than replacing it; what we do advise on is the contractual and employment-law consequences of the position taken. Reliable day-by-day records of where each worker actually worked are the foundation for all of it, and disputes about wage tax, social security and the WagwEU are usually lost on the absence of those records rather than on the law.
Immigration runs alongside as a separate check. Nationals of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland need no permission to work in the Netherlands. A third-country national who is lawfully employed by an employer established in another member state can in principle be posted here on the basis of a notification rather than a Dutch work permit, provided the conditions of that exemption are met and the underlying residence and work rights in the sending state are valid for the whole period. Where they are not, the Dutch client is exposed as well: the prohibition on employing a foreign national without permission reaches the party for whom the work is actually performed, and the fines are substantial. The wider obligations of an employer operating here are set out in our article on the obligations of employers under Dutch law.
Enforcement, liability and what it costs to get it wrong
The Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie enforces the WagwEU, the Waadi, the Arbeidstijdenwet, the Arbowet and the minimum wage legislation, and it can impose administrative fines without going to court. It can also order the work to be stopped. The penalty amounts are set by policy rules and are revised from time to time, so the meaningful figure is not the amount but the multiplier: fines apply per worker and per breach, and a repeat breach within a set period is increased.
Alongside the administrative route there is a civil one that clients underestimate. Dutch law makes the chain of contracting parties liable for the payment of the wages due to a worker: a worker who has not been paid what he is entitled to can claim the shortfall from his direct employer and, in a series of steps, from the parties higher in the chain, including the ultimate client. The client can defend itself by showing that it took adequate measures to prevent underpayment, which is precisely what a properly drafted contract, verified notifications and periodic checks amount to. The general rules governing Dutch employment law continue to apply to the worker throughout.
Posting workers out of the Netherlands
The regime is reciprocal. A Dutch employer sending staff to another member state has to notify that posting in the host state system, apply the host state core terms including any generally binding sectoral agreement there, appoint a local contact person where required and keep the corresponding documents available. The details differ per country, sometimes considerably, and the notification systems are not interoperable. Dutch employment law continues to govern the contract, but the host state floor applies on top of it, and the same long-term posting rule turns that floor into something close to the full host regime after twelve months.
An assignment letter should therefore record more than the destination and the dates. It should state which conditions of the host state are being applied and how, who bears travel, board and lodging, what happens if the assignment is extended past the long-term posting threshold, how the social security position is documented, and what returns to the Dutch terms at the end. Where the assignment lasts long enough to shift the habitual place of work, the applicable law itself can change, which is a different and larger problem than a compliance breach. Our overview of Dutch employment law sets out the domestic baseline the assignment departs from.
A practical order of work
Start by classifying the arrangement honestly. Is this a service performed by a foreign employer, an intra-group secondment, hiring out of labour, or simply someone who has moved and now works here? The three postings carry the WagwEU regime; the fourth does not, and treating it as a posting to avoid the consequences is exactly what an inspection looks for.
Then, before mobilisation, secure the notification and its reference, the A1 certificates, and confirmation of the applicable generally binding collective agreement and the pay scale it prescribes for the work concerned. Fix the contact person in the Netherlands and the location where the documents will be kept. Agree in the contract who notifies, who verifies, what evidence is provided and what happens on breach, and build in the right to inspect payslips and hour records during the assignment. Keep day-by-day records of place of work.
During the assignment, reassess when anything changes: a longer duration, a different site, a different task, a replacement worker, or a change in the pay scale. Diarise the twelve-month point and the motivated notification that extends it. After the assignment, keep the file for five years, because that is how long the inspectorate can ask for it.
How Law and More can help
We advise foreign employers posting staff to the Netherlands and Dutch businesses that engage them, on the notification and documentation regime, the applicable collective agreement and pay scale, the contractual allocation of responsibility in the chain, and the defence of an inspection or a fine. We also draft assignment letters and secondment agreements for Dutch employers sending staff abroad. If you are planning an assignment, or an inspection has already been announced, contact Law and More before the work starts rather than afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
Can employers and employees choose which country’s law governs a cross-border employment contract?
Yes, under Rome I (Article 8) parties may include a choice-of-law clause, often selecting the law of the employer’s seat or the place of work. However, this choice cannot deprive the employee of protections that would otherwise apply under the objectively applicable law, which is generally the law of the country where the employee habitually works.
Do Dutch employment rules still apply even if a foreign law governs the contract?
Yes. Regardless of which law governs the contract, the Netherlands can apply its ‘overriding mandatory’ rules under Rome I (Article 9) to anyone working on Dutch soil, even temporarily. These include the Dutch statutory minimum wage, the Working Conditions Act (Arbowet), the Working Hours Act (ATW), the General Equal Treatment Act, and applicable collective labour agreements (CAOs).
What is an A1 certificate and when is it needed?
An A1 certificate evidences which country’s social security system applies to a worker during checks in another EU country, including postings. EU coordination rules aim for coverage in one country only, generally the country where work is physically performed; for multi-state workers, a ‘substantial part’ test based on working time and/or remuneration determines the applicable state. The certificate should be requested from the competent authority before work starts.
Which country’s courts have jurisdiction over a cross-border employment dispute?
Under the Brussels I Recast Regulation, employee-protective jurisdiction rules apply: employees may sue in the courts of the employer’s domicile or the habitual place of work, while employers are generally limited to suing in the courts of the employee’s domicile. Jurisdiction clauses are tightly policed and cannot take away these employee options.
What happens when an employee is temporarily posted to work in another EU country?
Temporary postings to another EU country trigger the EU posted worker rules and, when the Netherlands is involved, the Dutch WagwEU. These rules generally require applying certain host-country working conditions to the posted worker on top of whatever law otherwise governs the contract.
