Employment contracts for international workers in the Netherlands: what must employers arrange?

If an international employee actually works in the Netherlands, Dutch mandatory employment law applies to the contract, whatever law the parties write into it. The main exception is an employee who habitually works in another country, for example someone who stays at home abroad or is only posted here temporarily. Below you will find which law applies, which Dutch rules you cannot contract out of, the language and information duties, the role of immigration status, and the clauses an international contract needs.

Under Article 8 of the Rome I Regulation, the parties may choose a law. But that choice can never take away the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where the work is habitually carried out. In practice, Dutch rules on dismissal, sick pay, the transition payment, holidays, minimum wage and the probationary period apply on top of whatever else was agreed.

That single rule explains most of the surprises foreign employers encounter in the Netherlands. It is also why a translated template is not an international employment contract. This article also covers the clauses a purely domestic contract never needs: relocation, the expat facility, repayment, remote work abroad and repatriation.

Which law applies to the contract?

You may choose the law, but the mandatory rules of the country where the employee habitually works always apply as well. For anyone who works in your Dutch office, that means Dutch law.

The starting point is Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008, known as Rome I, which applies in the Netherlands and across the European Union. Parties to an individual employment contract may choose the applicable law. That freedom is immediately limited. The choice may not deprive the employee of the protection of the rules that cannot be set aside by agreement under the law that would have applied without a choice.

How do you find the law that applies without a choice?

By following a fixed order of tests. The first and usually decisive one is the country in which, or from which, the employee habitually works.

Temporary work elsewhere does not change that country. A developer based in the Netherlands who works on a German project for two months still habitually works in the Netherlands. If no such country can be identified, the second test is the country of the place of business through which the employee was hired. Finally, if the contract as a whole is clearly more closely connected with another country, the law of that country applies instead. That escape clause exists, but it is rarely decisive.

For an employee recruited abroad who then comes to work at a Dutch office, the answer is almost always the same. The Netherlands is the country of habitual work, so Dutch mandatory law applies whatever the contract says. Choosing another law does not remove that protection. It simply produces a contract governed by two legal systems at once. A Dutch court then compares the two rule by rule and applies whichever is more favourable to the employee. That is expensive to litigate and almost never worth the trouble.

When does another law deserve serious thought?

When the employee will not really work from the Netherlands. Think of someone who keeps working from his or her own country, staff who work across several countries without a clear base, or a genuine posting for a fixed period under the rules on posted workers.

Even then, do the analysis deliberately. The answer affects social security and tax as well as employment law. For anyone who will simply work in your Dutch office, choose Dutch law in the contract and be done with it.

What else should the contract record about law and forum?

A careful jurisdiction clause and a precise description of the place of work. Both are checked first when something goes wrong.

Under the Brussels I bis Regulation, an employee may in principle sue the employer in the country where he or she habitually works. A jurisdiction clause agreed before the dispute arose cannot take that right away. Describe the place of work precisely. That description is the first thing a court, the Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) and the immigration service will each look at.

Which Dutch mandatory rules do foreign employers underestimate?

Sick pay, dismissal protection, the transition payment, holidays, minimum wage, the probationary period and the chain rule for fixed-term contracts. If Dutch law applies, in whole or in part, none of these can be contracted away.

Continued payment of wages during illness

Under Article 7:629 of the Dutch Civil Code (BW), the employer must continue to pay at least 70 percent of the wage for up to 104 weeks of illness. During the first 52 weeks, the payment may not fall below the statutory minimum wage.

In addition, the Eligibility for Permanent Incapacity Benefit (Restrictions) Act (Wet verbetering poortwachter) requires an active reintegration process from both parties, with fixed moments for a problem analysis, a plan of action and evaluations. If the employer neglects that process, the employee insurance agency (UWV) can order it to continue paying wages for a further period. Most countries have nothing comparable. It is the single most common shock for a foreign parent company.

Dismissal protection

A Dutch employer cannot simply give notice. Termination requires the employee’s consent, a dismissal permit from the UWV for redundancy or long-term incapacity, or a court order dissolving the contract on one of the statutory grounds in Article 7:669 BW.

In practice, most terminations are settled with a settlement agreement (vaststellingsovereenkomst). The employee may dissolve it within fourteen days of signing. A dismissal letter of the kind that is standard in many countries has no legal effect here.

The transition payment

Under Article 7:673 BW, the employee is entitled to a transition payment (transitievergoeding) whenever the employer takes the initiative to end the employment. That includes simply not renewing a fixed-term contract.

There is no qualifying period of two years any more. The entitlement runs from the first day of employment. It is one third of the monthly wage for each year of service, pro rata for shorter periods. The statutory maximum is adjusted each year and published by the government. Do not quote a figure from an older source.

Holidays

Article 7:634 BW gives every employee at least four times the agreed weekly working hours in paid statutory holiday per year. For a full-time week, that is twenty days.

Statutory days lapse six months after the end of the year in which they were built up, unless the employee could not reasonably take them. Extra contractual days above the statutory minimum are subject to a five-year limitation period. Employees from countries with a more generous norm often expect twenty-five or thirty days. So state the total, and the split between statutory and contractual days, explicitly.

Minimum wage

The statutory minimum wage is an hourly amount, revised twice a year. The current figures are published in the Government Gazette (Staatscourant) and on the government website.

It applies regardless of what the employee would have earned at home. It also matters for the expat facility calculation.

The probationary period

Article 7:652 BW allows no probationary period at all in a fixed-term contract of six months or less. The maximum is one month in a fixed-term contract of more than six months but less than two years, and two months in a contract of two years or more or of indefinite duration.

The clause must be in writing and identical for both parties. A probationary period longer than the statutory maximum is void in its entirety. It is not reduced to the maximum. Foreign employers who write in a six-month probation therefore end up with none at all.

Fixed-term contracts and the chain rule

Under Article 7:668a BW, a series of fixed-term contracts becomes a contract of indefinite duration once three contracts have been used, or once the chain has lasted longer than three years. Interruptions of six months or less count as continuous.

A collective agreement can vary this within limits. The Act on more security for flexible workers (Wet meer zekerheid flexwerkers), adopted by the Senate on 7 July 2026, considerably lengthens the interruption needed to start a new chain. Its entry into force will be set by royal decree, and for the chain rule changes 1 January 2028 is expected. If you plan to employ a foreign specialist on rolling one-year contracts, check where the chain ends before the third renewal, not after it.

Because these rules are mandatory, they are also the reason to choose Dutch law openly. You gain nothing by trying to route around them. A contract that promises less than the statute simply means the statute applies, and your document misleads the employee. Our overview of Dutch employment law covers the framework in more detail.

In which language should the contract be drafted?

Dutch law does not prescribe a language. A contract in Dutch, in English or in both is equally valid; what matters is whether the employee understood what he or she agreed to.

That question decides how a court will interpret disputed clauses. Dutch contract interpretation does not stop at the literal text. Courts ask what the parties could reasonably take the provisions to mean in the circumstances, and what they could reasonably expect of each other. That is the Haviltex standard (HR 13 March 1981, ECLI:NL:HR:1981:AG4158).

If an employee signed a Dutch-language document he or she could not read, that standard works against the employer. A clause the employee could not have understood is a clause a court will read narrowly. In an employment context the court may even refuse to enforce it. Clauses with a written-form requirement, such as a non-competition clause, are particularly vulnerable, because the requirement exists precisely so that the employee weighs the consequences.

Bilingual or English only?

For most technology employers, a bilingual contract in Dutch and English works best. Sign both versions and state which one prevails if they differ.

That gives the employer certainty about the meaning of Dutch legal concepts and gives the employee a text he or she can actually read. A contract only in English also works well if Dutch law is expressly chosen and the drafting is done properly. In a company whose entire working language is English, it is often the more sensible choice.

Two practical warnings. First, translate the concepts, not the words. Ontslag op staande voet is summary dismissal for an urgent cause, not simply termination for cause. A vaststellingsovereenkomst is a settlement agreement ending employment by mutual consent, not a severance letter. A concurrentiebeding is a non-competition clause subject to Dutch statutory requirements, not a generic restrictive covenant. A translation that borrows a foreign concept imports the wrong legal test.

Second, a collective labour agreement (cao) that applies will be in Dutch and will not be translated. Where the English contract and the collective agreement conflict, the collective agreement generally prevails, to the extent it is more favourable or has been declared universally binding.

Where is language not a matter of choice?

Safety instructions. Article 7:658 BW places a far-reaching duty of care on the employer for workplace safety, and the courts read that duty strictly.

Instructions about machinery, hazardous substances, evacuation and personal protective equipment must be given in a language the employee actually understands. If an accident happens and the instructions were only in a language the employee did not master, the employer cannot rely on the fact that instructions existed.

Which written information must you give the employee?

A long list of matters under Article 7:655 BW, most of it within one week of the start of work. The list was substantially expanded on 1 August 2022, and it is where foreign employers most often fall short without noticing.

The expansion came with the implementation of the European directive on transparent and predictable working conditions. Separately from the contract, the employer must inform the employee in writing about the following points.

• The identity of the parties, the place or places of work, the position and the start date, and for a fixed-term contract its duration.
• The wage and its components, the payment intervals and the method of payment, together with any overtime pay arrangement.
• Working time, including the length of a normal working day or week and the arrangements for overtime. Where the working pattern is largely unpredictable: the reference days and hours within which the employee can be required to work, and the minimum notice of an assignment.
• Holiday entitlement and other paid leave, and the procedure for taking it.
• The applicable notice periods or how they are calculated, and the procedure both parties must follow to terminate.
• Any probationary period and its conditions.
• Training provided by the employer and any entitlement to it.
• The pension scheme, the applicable collective agreement and, where relevant, the social security institutions that receive contributions.
• For work abroad for longer than four consecutive weeks: the country, the duration, the currency of payment, any benefits attached to the assignment and the arrangements for return.

Most of this information must be given within one week of the start of work, and the rest within one month. You can include it in the contract itself, which is the tidiest solution, or in a separate statement. An employer that fails to provide it is liable for the damage the employee suffers as a result. In a dispute, the omission tends to be read against the employer on every point that was left unclear.

Which other 2022 changes belong in the contract?

The rules on compulsory training and on ancillary work. Both make certain standard clauses void.

Training that the employer must provide by law or under a collective agreement must be free of charge, counted as working time and, where possible, scheduled during working hours. Under Article 7:611a BW, a study costs repayment clause for that kind of training is void. A clause that forbids the employee to take other work outside working hours is void under Article 7:653a BW, unless the employer can justify it on objective grounds. Examples are health and safety, the protection of confidential business information and the avoidance of a conflict of interest. Our article on ancillary activities and what employers can prohibit sets out how that justification test works.

Why is immigration status part of the employment relationship?

Because for an employee from outside the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, the residence and work permit is a condition on which the whole arrangement depends. The obligations attached to it fall on the employer as much as on the employee.

What does the highly skilled migrant scheme require?

The employer must be a recognised sponsor (erkend referent) with the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND), and the salary must meet the criterion for the applicable category. This is the route technology employers use most.

Recognition as a sponsor must be applied for in advance and carries continuing obligations. The sponsor must report relevant changes, keep records that allow the IND to check compliance, and exercise a duty of care towards the employee. The position must genuinely match the employee’s qualifications. The salary criteria are set by ministerial regulation and indexed every year, so use the figure the IND publishes for the year of the application. Our article on the highly skilled migrant permit works through the requirements in detail.

Other routes exist and are sometimes a better fit: the EU Blue Card, the intra-corporate transferee permit for a posting within a group, the orientation year permit for recent graduates of designated universities, the single permit combining residence and work, and the start-up scheme. Each has its own salary norm, its own duration and its own consequences when the employment ends.

Which immigration points belong in the contract?

Two: a condition that the permit is granted, and an arrangement for what happens when the employment ends.

Make the offer conditional on the permit being granted. Without such a condition, you may be bound to an employment contract with a person who cannot lawfully start work.

When the employment of a highly skilled migrant ends, the employer must notify the IND. The employee then has a limited search period to find a new sponsor: three months as a rule. Under the recast Single Permit Directive (EU) 2024/1233, whose transposition deadline was 21 May 2026, the search period is six months for an employee who has held the permit for at least two years. The search period can never run beyond the expiry date of the residence permit. That short window is why a longer notice period, or a notice period compensated in the settlement agreement, is often the fairer arrangement for an international employee.

Which clauses does an international contract need that a domestic one does not?

A permit condition, the place of work and remote work, relocation and repatriation, repayment, the expat facility, intellectual property and, only if needed, a non-compete. These are usually missing from a translated domestic template.

Every employment contract needs the basics: the parties, the position and its description, the start date and duration, the salary and payment interval, working hours, holidays, any probationary period, the pension arrangement, the notice period, the applicable law and the competent court. For an international worker, the job description carries extra weight. The immigration service compares it with the qualifications on which the permit was granted, and a later change of duties can put the permit at risk.

• A permit condition. State that the contract is entered into subject to the grant of the required residence and work permit, that both parties will cooperate in the application, and what happens if it is refused.
• The place of work, and whether working abroad is allowed. Silence here turns into a dispute about remote work from another country, with consequences for applicable law, social security and corporate tax.
• Relocation and, symmetrically, repatriation. What is reimbursed, up to what limit, against what evidence and by when.
• A repayment clause for relocation costs, drafted so that it can actually be enforced rather than merely deter.
• The expat facility for extraterritorial costs. If the employee is expected to qualify, the contract must say how the salary is split and what happens if the facility is refused or ends.
• Intellectual property and confidentiality. Under Dutch law, copyright in works an employee creates in the course of his or her duties belongs to the employer by law, and inventions made in the course of employment generally belong to the employer. Neither rule covers everything a technology business relies on. Assign rights expressly, deal with existing rights the employee brings along, and address open source contributions.
• A non-competition or non-solicitation clause, only if it is really needed. Article 7:653 BW requires the clause to be agreed in writing with an adult employee. In a fixed-term contract it is only valid if the employer states in the same document the compelling business interests that make it necessary. A court can annul or limit a clause that unfairly harms the employee, and can award compensation for the period of restraint. Clauses copied from another jurisdiction routinely fail these tests.
• Return of company property and access to systems. This is a practical rather than a legal problem, but a serious one when the employee leaves the country.

What does not belong in the contract?

Any clause that tries to set aside mandatory Dutch law. It is void, and it harms your position in a later dispute.

Examples are a clause excluding the transition payment, shortening the sick pay obligation, allowing dismissal by letter or imposing a six-month probationary period. Including such a clause shows that the employee was misinformed about his or her rights.

How should you deal with relocation costs and the expat facility?

Specify each cost category with a ceiling, and agree in advance who pays if a reimbursement turns out to be taxable. The legal question is rarely whether you may reimburse; it is whether the reimbursement is a tax-free allowance or taxable wage.

Moving a specialist and his or her family to the Netherlands generates a long list of costs. They fall into three groups.

• The direct costs of the move: flights for the employee and the family, the removal of household goods, temporary accommodation before permanent housing is found, and the deposit on a rented home.
• The administrative costs: permit and legalisation fees, sworn translations of diplomas, the exchange of a foreign driving licence where that is possible, and registration formalities.
• The settling-in costs that clients consistently forget to budget for: language courses for the employee and the partner, the fees of an international school, and advice on the Dutch tax return.

The tax treatment of each item is a matter for a tax adviser, not for this firm. The rules are detailed enough that guessing is expensive. What the lawyer contributes is the contractual structure. Do not promise a gross-for-net outcome you have not verified. Specify each category with a ceiling. State that reimbursement is made against invoices and receipts submitted within a set period. And state expressly that any reimbursement that cannot be paid tax-free will be processed as taxable wage, and which party bears the resulting charge. A contract that promises to reimburse relocation costs without that last point is a contract in which the employer has silently taken on the wage tax as well.

What is the expat facility?

A tax facility for employees recruited from abroad, known as the 30 percent ruling (30%-regeling). It allows a fixed percentage of the salary to be paid tax-free without the employer having to prove each cost.

The percentage falls to 27 percent from 1 January 2027 under legislation already adopted, and the salary norms change at the same time. Because the percentage, the salary norms and the maximum duration of five years have all been amended in recent years, always check the figures for the year in which the employment starts. The conditions include recruitment from outside the Netherlands, specific expertise that is scarce on the Dutch labour market, and having lived more than 150 kilometres from the Dutch border for more than 16 of the 24 months before the first working day. Our page on the expat facility in the Netherlands explains the conditions.

Two contractual points follow from how the facility works. The application is made jointly by employer and employee, so the contract should oblige both to cooperate and set a deadline. And because the facility reduces taxable wage, it affects everything calculated on that wage: pension accrual, sick pay, holiday allowance and the transition payment. Agree in writing which basis applies to each. Otherwise you will be arguing about it at the end of the relationship instead of settling it at the start.

When does a repayment clause hold, and when not?

A repayment clause holds if it was agreed in writing beforehand, tapers over time, covers only proven costs and is triggered only by the employee’s own departure or fault. Dutch courts scrutinise these clauses closely, because they restrict the employee’s freedom to leave.

If you spent a substantial sum bringing someone to the Netherlands, you will want it back if he or she resigns after four months. A repayment clause can achieve that, but only if it is drafted to survive a court’s review. Four requirements matter in practice.

1. The clause is agreed in writing and in clear terms before the costs are incurred, so the employee knew the exposure when accepting the job.
2. The obligation tapers. A sliding scale that reduces the amount for every month worked is accepted; an all-or-nothing clause over a long period generally is not.
3. The clause covers only costs the employer actually incurred and can prove.
4. The trigger is right. Repayment can follow a resignation or a summary dismissal for an urgent cause attributable to the employee. It cannot follow a redundancy, a termination initiated by the employer, or a dissolution granted because of seriously culpable conduct by the employer.

Two further limits are easy to overlook. A repayment obligation may not be set off against wages beyond the limits the Civil Code sets on set-off and attachment. A clause that would leave the employee below the protected minimum cannot be enforced that way. And a clause covering training that the employer is legally obliged to provide is void. The training part of a relocation package must therefore be separated from the rest.

Check repayment clauses for other training against the study costs rules as well. Where the training is not compulsory, a repayment arrangement remains possible. It must be proportionate and must taper in the same way.

Which notice periods apply, and how does the employment end?

The statutory notice periods in Article 7:672 BW apply, and you cannot shorten the employer’s period in an individual contract. The employee gives one month’s notice; the employer gives one to four months, depending on length of service.

The employer’s period is one month for employment of less than five years, two months for five to ten years, three months for ten to fifteen years and four months from fifteen years. Notice is given against the end of the calendar month, unless the contract or a collective agreement says otherwise.

Can you agree a shorter notice period?

In the ordinary case, no. The room to deviate is narrower than most international templates assume, and the rule is often stated wrongly.

The employer’s statutory notice period can only be shortened by a collective labour agreement, not by individual agreement. The employee’s notice period may be extended in writing, up to six months. If you do that, the employer’s notice period must be at least twice as long as the employee’s. A collective agreement may bring the employer’s period back down, but never below the employee’s period.

What role does the probationary period play?

It is the instrument the law offers for flexibility at the start. During it, either party may end the contract immediately and without a reason, and the ordinary prohibitions on dismissal do not apply.

The limits set out above are strict. The clause must be in writing and the same for both parties. For an international worker who gave up a job and moved a family, ending the contract during probation is a serious step. Agree in advance what happens to relocation costs and repatriation if it is used.

What does ending the employment involve?

Three tracks that must run together: employment law, immigration and the practical side.

The employment track requires a lawful route to termination: agreement, a UWV permit or a court dissolution, with the transition payment due in the ordinary case. The immigration track requires notification to the IND and starts the employee’s limited search period. The practical track covers housing, schooling, health insurance and the return of family members. A settlement agreement that only addresses the first track leaves the other two to chance. And it is precisely in the second and third that the sense of unfair treatment arises that turns a negotiated exit into litigation. Our overview of the settlement agreement explains what such an agreement should contain.

Do you have to pay for repatriation?

No. Dutch law has no general obligation for the employer to pay the costs of an employee’s return home when the employment ends. If the contract is silent, nothing is owed.

That differs from a number of countries where repatriation is compulsory. Employees from those countries therefore often assume it exists here too.

For most employers, silence is still the wrong answer. If you recruited someone abroad and paid to bring him or her here, others will look at what happened at the other end of the relationship: a court assessing whether a dismissal was handled fairly, or an employee negotiating a settlement. A repatriation clause costs little to draft. It sets a ceiling on an obligation that would otherwise be negotiated at the worst possible moment, and it can be made conditional in ways an ad hoc arrangement cannot.

What does a workable repatriation clause say?

What is covered, up to what amount, until when, and in which situations. Mirroring the relocation package is the simplest defensible structure.

Typical cover is the return journey for the employee and any accompanying family, the transport of household effects and a period of storage. Set a ceiling and require invoices. Set a deadline, usually a fixed number of months after the end of employment, after which the entitlement lapses. And distinguish between reasons for termination: reimbursement on redundancy or termination by mutual consent, no reimbursement where the employee resigns to take another job in the Netherlands or is summarily dismissed for an urgent cause.

As with relocation, the tax treatment is a separate question for the tax adviser. The same contractual discipline applies: say what happens if a reimbursement turns out to be taxable, and who bears it.

What about social security and remote work from abroad?

Social security follows its own rules. Within the EU, a person is insured in the country where the work is performed, so structural remote work from another country can shift insurance there.

Within the European Union, social security is governed by Regulation (EC) No 883/2004. There is a posting exception: an employee sent temporarily to another Member State can remain insured at home. That is proven by an A1 certificate from the competent institution. Outside the European Union, the answer depends on the bilateral social security treaty, if there is one.

What if the employee partly works from home in another country?

Then insurance can shift entirely to the country of residence, unless the EU framework agreement on telework applies. That changes the contributions the employer owes and the benefits the employee builds up.

Since 1 July 2023, a framework agreement on habitual cross-border telework allows employees who telework from their country of residence for less than 50 percent of their working time to remain insured in the employer’s country. Both countries must have signed the agreement, and an application must be made; in the Netherlands, to the Social Insurance Bank (SVB). Our article on cross-border remote work and the EU framework agreement on telework sets out how that works in practice.

Which other risks come with remote work from abroad?

Three: a different applicable law, tax exposure in the other country, and a duty of care that is hard to meet across a border. Assess them before the contract is signed, not after the employee has moved.

The country of habitual work under Rome I may change, bringing another legal system into the relationship. The employer may create a permanent establishment in the other country for corporate tax purposes, or a wage tax withholding obligation there. We refer those tax questions to a specialised tax adviser. And the employer’s duty of care under Article 7:658 BW extends to the home workplace, which is difficult to fulfil across a border.

The contractual answer is not to prohibit remote work, which is unrealistic in the technology sector, but to control it. Define the country or countries from which working is allowed and set a limit on the number of days. Require prior written approval for anything beyond it. And reserve the right to withdraw permission if the tax or social security position changes.

In what order should you hire an international worker?

Immigration first, then the place of work, the salary, the relocation package and only then the contract. Several of these questions limit the others.

1. Establish the immigration route. An EU, EEA or Swiss national needs no permit. For anyone else, decide which permit fits, check whether you are or can become a recognised sponsor, and build the lead time into the start date.
2. Fix the place of work. Full-time in the Netherlands keeps everything simple. Anything else requires the applicable law, social security and tax analysis before the salary is agreed.
3. Set the salary against every applicable norm: the immigration criterion for the permit, the statutory minimum wage, any collective agreement scale, and the threshold for the expat facility if you intend to rely on it.
4. Decide the relocation package and its tax treatment with a tax adviser. Only then write the reimbursement clause and the repayment clause.
5. Draft the contract, bilingual or in English with Dutch law expressly chosen. Cover the permit condition, place of work, remote work, relocation, repatriation, the expat facility, intellectual property, confidentiality and, if genuinely necessary, a non-competition clause that meets the statutory requirements.
6. Provide the written information required by Article 7:655 BW within the statutory deadlines, in the contract or in a separate statement.
7. Brief the employee properly. Explain the sick pay regime, the dismissal system, the holiday rules and the search period attached to the permit. Most disputes with international employees begin as misunderstandings about entitlements nobody explained.

Which collective agreements and pension obligations can bind you?

A universally binding collective agreement and a compulsory industry-wide pension fund. Both can apply without the employer ever agreeing to them, and both regularly catch foreign employers.

A collective agreement can bind you because your company is a member of an employers’ association that concluded it. It can also bind you because the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment has declared it universally binding for the whole sector. In that case it applies to every employer whose activities fall within its scope, whether or not the employer has heard of it. A universally binding agreement can set higher minimum pay, longer notice periods, extra holiday, mandatory allowances and its own rules on probation. Check the scope description of the agreement for your sector before you fix the salary, not after the first pay round.

Participation in an industry-wide pension fund can be made compulsory for all employers in a sector by ministerial decision. Where it is, the obligation applies automatically and with retroactive effect. Employers who set up their own arrangement, or none at all, can face years of back contributions with interest. For an employee who will only be in the Netherlands for a limited period, this matters twice, because it also decides what the employee can take along when leaving.

Pension is also one of the few areas where an international employee’s position genuinely differs. An employee who remains insured in another Member State on the basis of an A1 certificate may fall outside the Dutch scheme. Determine and document that at the start; do not assume it.

What if the worker is not an employee?

Dutch law looks past the label. If there is work, pay and a relationship of authority, the relationship is an employment contract under Article 7:610 BW, whatever the parties call it.

Technology companies often engage international specialists as self-employed contractors, or through an agency or an employer of record. In the Deliveroo case (HR 24 March 2023, ECLI:NL:HR:2023:443), the Supreme Court confirmed that all circumstances of the case are weighed, including the way the work is embedded in the client’s organisation. Calling the arrangement a services agreement does not change the answer.

The consequences of getting this wrong are real. The Tax Administration resumed enforcement against false self-employment on 1 January 2025. A reclassified relationship leads to retroactive wage tax and social security contributions for the client. The worker can also bring employment law claims for holiday pay, sick pay and dismissal protection.

A legal presumption of employment is coming. The Act introducing a presumption of an employment contract based on the hourly rate (Wet invoering rechtsvermoeden van arbeidsovereenkomst op basis van uurtarief) was adopted by the Senate on 16 June 2026. Below the hourly rate set in the Act, a worker can rely on the presumption, and the client must then show that there is no employment contract. The date of entry into force will be set by royal decree.

What changes for hiring through an agency?

From 1 January 2027, agencies that supply workers need admission under the Act on the admission of labour intermediaries (Wet toelating terbeschikkingstelling van arbeidskrachten, Wtta). Enforcement starts on 1 January 2028.

Agencies must apply for admission well before the start date. From 1 July 2027, hirers can check in a public register whether an agency has been admitted. From 1 January 2028, the Netherlands Labour Authority (Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie) enforces the rules, including against companies that hire workers from an agency without admission. If you rely on agency staff for international recruitment, check now that your suppliers are applying for admission.

What do equal treatment, pay transparency and the works council require?

That international and Dutch staff are paid and treated on a documented, job-based structure. Differentiating between them is legally dangerous ground.

The General Equal Treatment Act (Algemene wet gelijke behandeling) prohibits distinction on grounds including race, nationality, religion and belief, in recruitment as well as in terms of employment. Article 7:646 BW prohibits distinction between men and women in pay for equal or equivalent work. Separate statutes cover distinction on grounds of age, disability and chronic illness, between fixed-term and permanent employees, and between part-time and full-time employees.

Where does the risk usually lie?

Not in an explicit rule, but in a package. The effect counts, not the intention.

Paying an internationally recruited specialist less than a comparable Dutch colleague, because the salary was benchmarked against the country of origin, is difficult to defend. So is a relocation or bonus package that in effect only benefits one nationality. The same goes for a language requirement the job does not really need, which filters out applicants of a particular origin. If an employee makes a distinction plausible, the employer must prove that no prohibited distinction was made. Record the reasoning behind pay decisions at the time you make them.

What will the Pay Transparency Directive change?

It will require pay ranges in vacancies, forbid questions about pay history, give employees information on average pay, and require gender pay gap reporting from larger employers. The Dutch implementing act is not yet in force.

Directive (EU) 2023/970 had to be transposed by 7 June 2026. Reporting on the gender pay gap applies above certain workforce sizes. The Dutch implementing bill, which amends the Equal Treatment of Men and Women Act (Wet gelijke behandeling van mannen en vrouwen), was submitted to the House of Representatives on 21 May 2026 and has not yet been adopted. The government aims for entry into force on 1 January 2027. Until then, the existing equal pay rules apply. But employers who set international salaries without a documented, job-based structure will find it hard to reconstruct one later.

What is the role of the works council?

Where the company has a works council (ondernemingsraad), its rights apply to international staff exactly as they do to everyone else.

Under Article 27 of the Works Councils Act (Wet op de ondernemingsraden), the council has a right of consent for arrangements including pay and job evaluation systems, working time and holiday schemes, and rules on staff monitoring and assessment. A relocation or expat policy that sets terms for a group of employees can fall within that right. A policy adopted without the required consent can be declared void at the works council’s request. Introducing a policy properly is cheaper than repairing one.

In summary

• If the employee habitually works in the Netherlands, Dutch mandatory employment law applies, whatever law the contract chooses (Article 8 Rome I).
• Sick pay for up to 104 weeks, dismissal protection, the transition payment, holidays, minimum wage and the probation limits cannot be contracted away.
• Make the contract conditional on the permit, give the Article 7:655 BW information on time, and plan for the IND search period when the employment ends.
• Draft relocation, repayment and repatriation clauses with ceilings and clear triggers, and agree with a tax adviser who bears any tax charge.
• Check collective agreements, pension fund obligations, contractor status and the coming pay transparency rules before you set the salary.

Frequently asked questions

How can we help with international employment contracts?

An employment contract for an international worker is not a harder version of a domestic one. It is a document that has to satisfy four systems at once. Employment law decides what you may agree. Immigration law decides whether the person may start, and how long he or she has if it ends. Tax law decides what a reimbursement really costs. Social security law decides where the contributions go. A clause that solves one of those problems can create another, which is why the order set out above matters as much as the drafting.

Law & More advises technology companies and other employers in the Netherlands on international employment relationships. We draft and review bilingual and English-language employment contracts, assess the applicable law and the consequences of remote work from abroad, and work with recognised sponsors on highly skilled migrant and other permit routes. We structure relocation, repayment and repatriation arrangements together with your tax adviser, and act in disputes and terminations involving international staff. You can book a consultation with our employment law team. Unsure where you stand? Tell us about your situation. We will let you know your options within one working day.

How Law & More can help you with this is explained on our employment lawyer page.