Cross-border remote work and the EU Framework Agreement on telework: what employers in the Netherlands need to know

An employee asks to work two days a week from Antwerp, or from her parents’ house in Poland. That sounds like a scheduling matter. It is not: cross-border remote work engages three separate legal systems at once, and three different countries can each have a claim. This article sets out how to work through the question in the right order, what the EU Framework Agreement on cross-border telework does and does not solve, and what an employer should have on file before saying yes.

Three questions, three possible answers, three different countries

The most common error is treating cross-border remote work as one question. It is three, governed by different instruments and decided independently:

• Which country’s social security system covers the employee? Binary, with in principle exactly one answer.
• Which country’s employment law governs the relationship? Not binary: a chosen law can apply while another country’s mandatory rules override parts of it.
• Where is the employee taxed, and does the employer acquire a taxable presence? Two questions, and the employer’s exposure is the one that gets forgotten.

An employee living in Belgium, employed by a Dutch company, working three days from home and two in Eindhoven, can end up insured in the Netherlands, protected by Belgian mandatory employment law and taxed partly in each. That is the system working as designed.

Social security first

Start here: the answer is cleanest and it drives the paperwork. Within the EU, EEA and Switzerland, Regulation 883/2004 coordinates national systems. It does not harmonise; it allocates.

One system at a time

The governing principle in art. 11 of Regulation 883/2004 is that a person is subject to the legislation of a single Member State only. The default rule is lex loci laboris: you are insured where you actually work, irrespective of where you live or where your employer is established. An employee living in Germany but working entirely at a Dutch office is insured in the Netherlands.

Working in two or more Member States

Remote work breaks the simple case and art. 13 of Regulation 883/2004 takes over. Where an employee pursues activities in two or more Member States, the test is whether a substantial part of the work is carried out in the state of residence. Under art. 14 of Regulation 987/2009 that threshold is 25% of working time or remuneration, assessed over the following twelve months.

• Below 25% in the state of residence: the employee remains insured where the employer has its registered office. For a Dutch employer, Dutch social security continues.
• At or above 25%: competence flips to the state of residence, and the Dutch employer must register and pay contributions there at that country’s rates.

That flip is the whole problem. One extra home-working day a week can move an employee out of Dutch social security altogether, with consequences for pension accrual, sickness cover and the contribution bill. Nothing about it is gradual.

The EU Framework Agreement on cross-border telework

The Framework Agreement exists to soften that cliff edge. It is a multilateral agreement concluded under art. 16 of Regulation 883/2004, which lets Member States agree exceptions to the ordinary allocation rules for particular persons or categories of persons.

What it does

Where it applies, the agreement allows an employee who habitually teleworks from their state of residence to remain insured in the state where the employer has its registered office, even though the 25% substantial-activity threshold has been crossed. The condition under the agreement is that cross-border telework in the state of residence is less than 50% of total working time. That is the only percentage the agreement itself sets. The 25% is not a condition of the agreement but the substantial-activity threshold of art. 13 of Regulation 883/2004, below which the employee stays insured in the employer’s state without any agreement being invoked. In practice, therefore, the agreement answers the band between 25% and 50%.

The conditions

• Both states must be signatories. At the date of writing 23 states have signed: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Most applied it from 1 July 2023; Slovenia from 1 September 2023, Italy from 1 January 2024, Lithuania from 1 May 2024, Ireland from 1 June 2024 and Estonia from 1 February 2026. Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Latvia and Iceland are not signatories, and the United Kingdom has indicated it will not sign.
• It is not automatic. The point employers most often miss: it does not operate by force of law on the facts. A request must be submitted, with the consent of employer and employee, to the competent institution of the state whose legislation is sought — for a Dutch employer, the Sociale Verzekeringsbank. Without a request the ordinary rules apply and the employee may simply be insured abroad.
• It results in an A1 certificate. The portable document evidencing which state’s legislation applies: what a foreign inspectorate asks for, and the only practical proof the arrangement was made.
• It covers telework only. It addresses work performed remotely from the state of residence using information technology to stay connected to the employer’s working environment, not client visits, site work, sales activity or driving there. An employee who teleworks 40% and also visits customers in that country falls outside it.
• It is bilateral in effect. It addresses the two-state case only: residence state and employer state.

The agreement is not static, and neither is the list above: Estonia joined only with effect from 1 February 2026. The signatory table and the text in force are published by the Belgian federal social security service, which maintains the signatory list for the participating states, and the SVB publishes the Dutch position. Check both before relying on the agreement for a new arrangement or renewing an A1 that depends on it, rather than assuming that what was true when the arrangement was set up is still true.

A request made late is not necessarily lost. The SVB accepts requests with retroactive effect for up to three months, provided contributions have in fact been paid consistently in the state whose legislation is sought over that period. A gap found in a payroll review should therefore be put right at once, because the window for regularising it is short.

Where the Framework Agreement does not apply

If either state has not signed, if the employee works from a third state, if the remote work reaches 50%, or if there is non-telework activity in the residence state, the ordinary rules resume: cross 25% in the state of residence and the employee is insured there, and the Dutch employer must register as a foreign employer and remit contributions locally. An individual exception can still be sought under art. 16 of Regulation 883/2004, but it needs both states to agree, is discretionary and is slow. Outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland a bilateral treaty may apply; where the Netherlands has none, dual insurance or a gap in cover is realistic.

Employment law: Rome I and the rules you cannot contract away

Social security competence tells you nothing about which employment law applies. That is Rome I’s territory, and it works differently. Under art. 3 Rome I the parties may choose the governing law, and most Dutch contracts choose Dutch law. Art. 8 Rome I limits what that choice achieves for an employment contract: it cannot deprive the employee of the protection of provisions that cannot be derogated from by agreement under the law that would have applied absent a choice — in the first place, the law of the country in which, or from which, the employee habitually carries out the work. Art. 8 Rome I also contains an escape clause where the contract is more closely connected with another country, and art. 9 Rome I adds overriding mandatory provisions of the forum.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly. An employee who genuinely performs most of their work from a home in another Member State may be habitually working there. Dutch law can remain the chosen law while that country’s mandatory protections apply on top of it — and dismissal protection is very often mandatory. A Dutch employer following the UWV or subdistrict court route in the ordinary way may find it has not met the notice, severance or procedural requirements of the country where the employee actually sits. Minimum wage, working time, paid holiday, discrimination protection and non-competition rules invite the same treatment. There is no threshold here comparable to the 25% social security test: “habitually carries out” is a qualitative assessment of where the centre of gravity of the relationship lies.

When remote work becomes posting

Employers assume the Posting of Workers Directive concerns construction crews and hauliers. Its scope, in art. 1 of Directive 96/71/EC, is a transnational provision of services: posting under a contract with a recipient in another Member State, posting to a group establishment, or hiring out through a temporary work agency. Art. 3 then imposes a hard core of host-state terms — working time, paid holiday, remuneration, health and safety, equal treatment — extended by Directive 2018/957.

Pure telework from the employee’s own home for the employer’s own account is not ordinarily posting: no service is provided to a recipient in the other state. But the line is crossed more easily than employers expect. If the remote employee works on-site at a client in their country of residence, is placed at a group company there or is made available to another undertaking, the host state’s posting regime engages, including the enforcement obligations under Directive 2014/67/EU. In the Netherlands that is the WagwEU notification obligation, which a foreign employer must satisfy before the work starts; other Member States run their own portals, and Dutch employers must use those when the flow runs outward.

Tax: the employer’s exposure comes first

This section is deliberately high level. Tax positions turn on specific treaty texts and on facts, and nothing here is tax advice; involve a tax adviser before any arrangement is agreed.

Permanent establishment risk

The exposure that matters most is not the employee’s tax bill. It is that a home workplace abroad may constitute a permanent establishment of the employer in that country, under the permanent establishment article of the applicable treaty. The question is broadly whether the home office is at the employer’s disposal and used with sufficient regularity for the business, and separately whether the employee habitually concludes contracts, or plays the principal role leading to their conclusion, as a dependent agent. Senior and commercial roles carry materially more risk. A permanent establishment brings corporate tax filing, profit attribution and often local payroll withholding.

The employee’s position

Employment income is allocated under the employment income article of the applicable treaty. Broadly, income is taxable where the work is physically performed, subject to an exception where the employee is present in the other state only for a limited period, the pay comes from an employer not resident there and is not borne by a permanent establishment there. Split working days mean split taxing rights and payroll consequences on both sides.

Belgium and Germany

The Netherlands has bilateral treaties with both Belgium and Germany, and cross-border commuting is a long-standing policy issue in both relationships. Home-working days are a live subject of negotiation, and the treaty position with Belgium has been moving: a new treaty was signed in 2023 and its entry into force and first year of application are recorded in the Verdragenbank at verdragenbank.overheid.nl, which is the only place worth checking for that. Establish which treaty text governs the year in question, and what it says about days worked at home, before the payroll is set up — not from earlier practice, and not from press reporting of a signature.

Working conditions and health and safety at a home workplace abroad

Dutch health and safety law does not stop at the employer’s premises. Under the Arbeidsomstandighedenwet the employer owes duties for the workplace it permits the employee to use: art. 3 requires a policy directed at the best possible working conditions and art. 5 a risk inventory and evaluation, with a separate regime for location-independent work. Abroad, the employer cannot inspect readily and may face a second, local regime. The workable approach is an employee self-assessment, a documented equipment standard, written instruction and an incident reporting route that works from abroad. An accident at a foreign home workplace also raises liability under art. 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code, and that duty of care is not obviously narrower because the desk is in another country.

Data protection and equipment

Remote work inside the EEA does not create a transfer problem. Working from outside it does: access to personal data from a third country needs a lawful transfer basis, routinely overlooked in “work from anywhere” schemes. Whatever the location, be clear about who owns the equipment, whether personal devices may be used, how confidential information is handled in a shared household, insurance for hardware abroad, and its return when employment ends.

The documents to have in place

• A remote work policy. Permitted countries, maximum percentage abroad, approval requirements, working hours and availability, expenses, equipment, security, and an express right to withdraw or vary permission if the legal position changes.
• An addendum to the employment contract. Individual and specific: the agreed place of work, the agreed split, governing law and forum, and the employee’s own tax filing responsibilities. Make it time-limited and expressly revocable, so a change in the social security or tax position does not leave the employer bound to a structure it can no longer sustain.
• The registration and A1 application. Where the agreement applies, a request via the SVB with both parties’ consent and the A1 on file. Where it does not, foreign registration and payroll set-up before the start date, not after.
• A review cycle. Every threshold is forward-looking, so review at least annually and immediately on any change of residence, role, working pattern or hours.

Checklist: an employee asks to work from abroad

• Which country, and is it in the EU, EEA or Switzerland?
• What percentage of total working time over the coming twelve months?
• Is it genuinely telework, or will there be client visits or site work there?
• Does the residence-state percentage stay below 25%, sit between 25% and 50%, or reach 50%?
• Are both states signatories, and has a request been made and an A1 obtained?
• If not, is foreign social security registration arranged before the start date?
• Could the employee be habitually working there for the purposes of art. 8 Rome I, and what does that country’s dismissal protection require?
• Does the role — seniority, contract-signing authority, client-facing work — create permanent establishment risk?
• Has a tax adviser confirmed the payroll position in both states?
• Is the home workplace assessed, equipped and insured, with an incident reporting route?
• Is any processing from outside the EEA covered by a transfer mechanism?
• Is there a signed, revocable addendum and a diarised review date?