The Netherlands has enacted a new article of the Civil Code. Work for a business at or below a set hourly rate, and the law presumes you are doing it under an employment contract. Your client then has to prove you are not an employee. Here is what the text actually says, why two different euro amounts are circulating, and the one thing most coverage gets wrong about which authority can use it.
- 31 Dec 2026 – In force from
- 7:610aa – New Civil Code article
- € 36 – Amount in the statute
- Client – Burden of proof
Key takeaways
- A new article of the Dutch Civil Code, article 7:610aa, presumes an employment contract when work is paid at or below a set hourly rate. It enters into force on 31 December 2026.
- The presumption is rebuttable. Once the worker makes the low rate plausible, the client has to produce counter-evidence that there is no employment relationship.
- The statute names 36 euro per hour. The government has communicated 38 euro with a reference date of 1 January 2026, and the amount for first application is set by ministerial order. Verify the applicable figure on the official source.
- This is civil law, not tax law. The parliamentary papers state that the Belastingdienst cannot independently test against the presumption.
- The half of the old bill that would have written classification criteria into statute was withdrawn on 6 March 2026. The Deliveroo factors still govern classification.
- It does not apply when the party hiring you is a private individual not acting in the course of a profession or business.
- There is no transitional provision. The presumption reaches agreements that are already running on 31 December 2026, which the explanatory memorandum records as a deliberate choice.
How this law got here
This is the surviving half of a much broader bill. Following the split matters, because a lot of published guidance still describes the version that no longer exists.
- 7 July 2025: The cabinet sends the Wet VBAR to parliament. It had two halves: a statutory clarification of when someone works as an employee, and a presumption of employment based on an hourly rate.
- 6 March 2026: The cabinet withdraws the clarification half, citing a lack of support, and keeps only the hourly rate presumption. The classification criteria are redirected to a future separate law.
- 21 April 2026: The Tweede Kamer adopts the remaining bill.
- 16 June 2026: The Eerste Kamer adopts it.
- 18 June 2026: The law is signed and later published as Staatsblad 2026, 158.
- 13 and 15 July 2026: A royal decree is signed and published as Staatsblad 2026, 207, fixing the entry into force.
- 31 December 2026: Article 7:610aa of the Civil Code enters into force.
You may see 1 January 2027 quoted as the start date. That is the deadline the Netherlands agreed with the European Commission, and the royal decree explicitly deviates from the normal fixed change moments in order to beat it. The operative date in the decree is 31 December 2026.
What the article actually says
The provision is short. It has three paragraphs, and each one carries weight.
Article 7:610aa, first paragraph
Hij die ten behoeve van een ander tegen een beloning door die ander van ten hoogste € 36,- per uur, arbeid verricht, wordt vermoed deze arbeid te verrichten krachtens arbeidsovereenkomst. (Staatsblad 2026, 158)
First paragraph: the trigger
Someone who performs work for another party for pay of at most the stated amount per hour is presumed to perform that work under an employment contract. The trigger is the rate, nothing else. It does not ask about hours worked, duration, or the content of the contract.
Second paragraph: indexation
The minister of Social Affairs and Employment changes the amount using the indexation method of article 14 of the minimum wage act. The number in the statute is therefore a starting point, not a permanent figure.
Third paragraph: who is excluded
The article does not apply where the other party is a natural person who is not acting in the course of a profession or business. The exclusion is about the capacity of the party hiring you, not about you. Private households fall outside it.
Is it 36 euro or 38 euro per hour
Both numbers are real and they come from different places. Anyone quoting one figure without the other is giving you half the picture.
36 euro: what the statute says
The enacted text of article 7:610aa names at most 36 euro per hour. This is the figure printed in the Staatsblad.
38 euro: what the government communicated
In its 6 March 2026 announcement about splitting the bill, the government described the measure as covering self-employed workers earning up to 38 euro per hour, with a reference date of 1 January 2026.
Why they differ
The law contains a transitional provision stating that, for the first application of the article after it enters into force, the applicable amount is set by ministerial order, departing from the figure in the first paragraph. So the statute holds a base number, and a separate ministerial order is meant to supply the operative one.
As at the date of this article, no ministerial order fixing an indexed amount could be located in the official gazette, and the consolidated text of the article as it is due to read on 31 December 2026 still shows the 36 euro figure with no amendment recorded against it. That can change before the entry date. Do not treat either figure as the settled threshold: check the amount in force on the official source at the moment you need it, especially if your rate sits anywhere near the range between the two.
How a rechtsvermoeden actually works
A legal presumption does not decide a case. It moves the burden of proof, which in a dispute is often the whole ball game.
1. The worker makes the trigger plausible
The person doing the work has to show that the pay is at or below the threshold. This is a lighter burden than proving an employment relationship from scratch.
2. The presumption applies
The law then treats the work as performed under an employment contract, without the worker having to prove the classic elements of employment.
3. The client must produce counter-evidence
To escape the outcome, the client has to rebut the presumption by showing the relationship is not in fact employment. The presumption is rebuttable, not absolute.
4. If the rebuttal fails
The relationship is treated in law as an employment contract, and the civil consequences of employment attach to it.
Dutch law already contains presumptions of this shape. One presumes an employment contract from a pattern of work over three consecutive months, and another presumes the agreed number of hours from the average worked over the preceding three months. The new provision is the same legal device with a different trigger: price instead of hours or duration.
What this law is not
Four things are widely misreported about this measure. Getting them wrong leads to the wrong action.
Myth: It is a new Belastingdienst test for schijnzelfstandigheid.
It is not. The parliamentary papers state that the Belastingdienst cannot independently test against the presumption when assessing a working relationship. It is a civil law instrument between the worker and the client. Implementing bodies can rely on a court ruling that establishes employee status, but they cannot invoke the presumption themselves.
Myth: It takes effect automatically, so low paid self-employed workers become employees on 31 December.
It does not convert anyone automatically. The shift of the burden of proof bites in a procedure. Someone has to invoke it, in practice before the kantonrechter, for the legal effect to land.
Myth: It finally defines when you are self-employed.
That was the other half of the bill, and it was withdrawn on 6 March 2026. Classification still runs on case law, not on a statutory checklist.
Myth: A rate above the threshold makes you safe.
The presumption simply does not apply above the threshold. Classification is then assessed the way it always was, on the full set of circumstances. A high rate is one factor among many, not a shield.
The test that still decides classification
Because the statutory criteria were withdrawn, classification continues to run on the Hoge Raad's Deliveroo judgment of 24 March 2023. The court held that whether an agreement counts as an employment contract depends on all the circumstances of the case considered together, and listed the following as potentially relevant. A later judgment of 21 February 2025 confirmed there is no ranking among them.
1. Nature and duration of the work
What the work is and how long the arrangement runs.
2. How the work and working hours are determined
Who decides what gets done and when it gets done.
3. Embedding in the organisation
Whether the work, and the person doing it, are embedded in the client's organisation and business operations.
4. Obligation to perform personally
Whether or not there is an obligation to carry out the work in person.
5. How the contractual arrangement came about
The circumstances in which the parties settled the terms between them.
6. How the pay is determined and paid out
The way the remuneration is set and the way it is actually paid.
7. The level of the pay
The amount of that remuneration. This is the factor the new presumption converts into a bright line trigger, while the rest of the assessment stays open.
8. Commercial risk
Whether the person doing the work bears commercial risk in doing it.
9. Behaving as an entrepreneur
Whether the person acts, or can act, as an entrepreneur in economic traffic, judged by reputation, acquisition, tax treatment, the number of clients they work for, and how long they usually commit to one client.
The 2025 judgment added a point that helps genuinely independent workers. Evidence of entrepreneurship is not confined to the specific relationship under review, so a real client base and an independently built reputation count even though they sit outside the one engagement being examined. That factor still carries no more weight than any other.
If you are the ZZP'er
The presumption is a lever, and it is yours to use or not. Nothing obliges you to invoke it.
- Work out your effective hourly rate, not your headline rate. The explanatory memorandum deals with assignments that use no hourly rate and confirms fixed price and piece rate work are covered, with the worker making it plausible that the fee corresponds to a number of hours. A project fee divided by the hours it really takes can land lower than you expect.
- If your rate sits near the threshold, check the amount in force on the official source rather than relying on a number from a news article.
- Understand what invoking the presumption means. It asserts that you are an employee of that client, with the protections that brings and also the loss of your independent status in that relationship. For many people that is not the goal.
- Remember it is civil law. Invoking it does not by itself change anything for wage tax purposes, and it is a matter between you and your client rather than something the tax authority applies.
- If your independence is genuine, the practical work is unchanged: keep several clients, carry real commercial risk, and make sure your day to day practice matches your contract.
If you are the client hiring self-employed workers
This is where the exposure sits. A BV that engages self-employed workers at modest rates now faces a reversed burden of proof in any dispute with them.
- Identify every engagement paid at or near the threshold. That is your exposure list, and it is defined by rate rather than by role or contract type.
- Do not rely on contract wording alone. The classification test looks at lived practice, and a clause that daily reality contradicts carries little weight.
- Check embedding honestly. Fixed team meetings, a company email address, appearing on the org chart and sitting inside normal business operations all point one way.
- If a substitution clause exists, make sure it is genuinely usable and actually used. A right on paper that can never be exercised does little.
- Look at how you pay. A fixed periodic amount that behaves like salary reads differently from invoicing against deliverables.
- Do not assume hiring through an intermediary moves the risk. The Belastingdienst states it looks at the whole chain or triangle, not only your paper counterparty.
- Use the official assessment tools rather than a private template: the choice aid at hetjuistecontract.nl, the assessment web module at beoordelingarbeidsrelatie.nl, and a formal request for advance consultation with the Belastingdienst for a specific arrangement.
Where Belastingdienst enforcement stands in 2026
This runs on a separate track from the presumption, and it is the track that produces tax assessments. The figures below come from the Belastingdienst's own enforcement plan for working relationships for 2026.
- Enforcement moratorium: Lifted since 1 January 2025
- Verzuimboetes for misclassification: None imposed over 2026. This part of the soft landing falls away on 1 January 2027
- Vergrijpboetes for intent or gross negligence: Possible from 1 January 2026, unlike 2025
- Corrections relating to 2025: Still covered by the soft landing, no fines for misclassification
- How far back corrections reach: Not before 1 January 2025 until 2030, absent bad faith or an earlier instruction
- Standard first step: A company visit
The plan also states that whether self-employment was coerced, underpaid or part of a labour migration construction is not fiscally relevant, and that the Belastingdienst does not hold that information. Enforcement here tests the wage tax qualification and nothing else.
What to do before 31 December 2026
Short, concrete, and all of it doable this quarter.
- List every self-employed engagement and calculate the real hourly rate on each one.
- Flag everything at or near the threshold, and check the amount in force on the official source.
- For flagged engagements, compare the contract against what actually happens week to week, and fix whichever one is wrong.
- Review substitution, commercial risk and embedding on those engagements specifically.
- Run an uncertain arrangement through the official assessment web module, and consider a request for advance consultation with the Belastingdienst where the stakes justify it.
- Check whether any model agreement you rely on is still current, and stop treating a contract template as protection on its own.
- Diarise a check of the ministerial order that sets the applicable amount, because the figure can move with the indexation mechanism.
How Taxmo helps
Most of the work here is knowing what you actually bill per hour, per client, and being able to show it.
- Your invoices and hours sit in one place, so an effective hourly rate per client is something you can read off rather than reconstruct.
- Client concentration is visible, which matters because the number of clients you work for is one of the classification factors.
- Invoices, contracts and correspondence stay filed against the client, so a file is ready if a working relationship is ever questioned.
- Hour registration supports the 1,225 hour criterion at the same time, so one record serves both purposes.
Questions people are asking
When does the hourly rate presumption of employment enter into force?
On 31 December 2026. The law itself did not fix a date: it delegated that to a royal decree, and that decree, published as Staatsblad 2026, 207, sets 31 December 2026. The decree notes this deviates from the normal fixed change moments because the Netherlands committed to the European Commission that the law would be in force before 1 January 2027.
Is the threshold 36 euro or 38 euro per hour?
The enacted statute says at most 36 euro per hour. A second paragraph lets the minister of Social Affairs adjust that amount using the indexation method of the minimum wage act, and a transitional provision says the amount that applies on first use of the article is set by ministerial order. The government separately communicated 38 euro per hour with a reference date of 1 January 2026. Because that ministerial order could not be located in the official gazette, check the applicable amount on the official source before relying on either figure.
Can the Belastingdienst use the presumption against my client?
No. The parliamentary papers state plainly that the Belastingdienst cannot independently test against the presumption when it assesses a working relationship. The presumption is a civil law instrument between the worker and the client. Implementing bodies can, however, rely on a court ruling that has established employee status.
Does the presumption apply automatically, without going to court?
The legal effect, meaning the shift of the burden of proof onto the client, is a courtroom mechanism. A worker can raise a low hourly rate with a client informally at any time as negotiating leverage, but forcing the client to produce counter-evidence or lose happens in a procedure, in practice before the kantonrechter.
What happened to the part of the law that would clarify when someone is self-employed?
The cabinet withdrew it on 6 March 2026, citing a lack of support. Only the hourly rate presumption was kept and fast-tracked. The criteria for classifying a working relationship therefore still come from case law, above all the Deliveroo judgment, and not from a statutory checklist.
Does the presumption apply if a private individual hires me?
No. The article does not apply where the party you work for is a natural person who is not acting in the course of a profession or business. A household hiring someone privately falls outside it.
What can a client lose if the presumption is not rebutted?
If a court concludes an employment contract exists, the civil consequences of employment follow, including continued pay during illness, dismissal protection, a transition payment on termination, and any applicable collective agreement and pension scheme. Tax consequences such as additional wage tax assessments run on a separate track through the Belastingdienst.
What happens to a contract that is already running on 31 December 2026?
The presumption reaches it. The law contains no transitional provision for existing arrangements. Its three articles cover the new Civil Code article, a duty to evaluate the measure within five years, and entry into force. The explanatory memorandum records this as a deliberate choice of immediate effect: parties in the consultation asked for transitional law and the government declined, stating the presumption applies to relationships already in place on the entry date as well as to those started later.
Can the presumption be used for work I already did before that date?
The parliamentary papers frame the measure as having immediate effect rather than retroactive effect, and distinguish it from both retroactivity and a rule that would leave existing situations untouched. On that framing it applies from the entry date forward, including to a relationship that was already running, but it does not reopen and requalify work already completed before then. No single sentence in the papers states this in those exact terms, so treat it as the reading the legislator's own framing supports rather than as a settled point.
What if I invoice a fixed project fee instead of an hourly rate?
The presumption still reaches you. The explanatory memorandum has a section on assignments where no hourly rate is used, and explains that fixed price and piece rate work are covered too. The worker has to make it plausible that the fee corresponds to a given number of hours, so that an implied hourly rate can be derived and compared with the threshold. In practice that means being able to show the hours behind the fee.
Does working through my own BV keep me out of this?
Not by itself, and be careful with how this question is usually answered. The government's own guidance on schijnzelfstandigheid states that setting up a BV, a maatschap, a cooperatie or an administratiekantoor does not prevent it, because the actual working practice decides. That guidance is about how the Belastingdienst qualifies a working relationship for tax purposes, and it does not address the new civil presumption, which the same guidance never mentions. So a BV is not a shield on the tax side, and the civil presumption is a separate question between the worker and the client.
Does a modelovereenkomst still protect me?
Treat it as a legacy instrument. The Belastingdienst has not assessed new model agreements since 6 September 2024, and states that agreements already approved remain valid until 31 December 2029, even where the agreement itself says something different about its validity. The protection a valid one offers was always conditional on the day to day working practice matching the paper, because the assessment looks at how the work is actually performed rather than at what the contract says. That is exactly what the case law test examines.
Sources
Every figure and date in this article traces to one of these. Where a fact could not be confirmed on an official source, the article says so rather than filling the gap.
- Staatsblad 2026, 158: the law introducing the presumption
- Staatsblad 2026, 207: the royal decree fixing entry into force
- Eerste Kamer dossier 36783
- Kamerstuk 36783 nr. 3, the explanatory memorandum, on immediate effect
- Kamerstuk 36783 nr. 4, on what the Belastingdienst can and cannot do
- Kamerstuk 36783 nr. 7, the government's answers to parliament
- Rijksoverheid, frequently asked questions on schijnzelfstandigheid
- Rijksoverheid, 6 March 2026: the cabinet splits the bill
- Hoge Raad 24 March 2023, the Deliveroo judgment
- Hoge Raad 21 February 2025, on ranking between the factors
- Belastingdienst, enforcement plan for working relationships 2026
