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Rechtsvermoeden van Dienstbetrekking: The New Rule or Employers and Freelancers
The Dutch rechtsvermoeden law passed 16 June 2026. See how the €38 threshold works, what it means for employers, and freelancer options.
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17 min
Intro
A Dutch BV that hires freelancers and a ZZP professional charging by the hour have spent the past few months reading about the same piece of legislation from two completely different angles. Most coverage picks one side and stays there: employer guides warn about compliance risk, freelancer guides talk about new leverage. The truth is that a single legal change is about to produce mirror-image consequences for both groups at once, and understanding your own side properly means understanding the other one too.
What follows works through what parliament actually passed and when, how the €38 threshold is built and why it will keep rising, what changes specifically for employers who use freelancers below that line, what changes for freelancers themselves and the choices genuinely available to them, and how this law fits into the wider enforcement picture already reshaping Dutch freelance work.
What Parliament Actually Passed and When
On 16 June 2026, the Eerste Kamer voted to adopt the Wet invoering rechtsvermoeden van arbeidsovereenkomst op basis van uurtarief. The law enters into force no later than 31 December 2026, by royal decree, and for practical purposes, the new rules apply from 1 January 2027.
The legislative path here matters, because it shapes what actually survived into law. The bill began life as VBAR, the Wet Verduidelijking Beoordeling Arbeidsrelaties, a two-part proposal meant to both clarify the legal criteria for assessing employment relationships and introduce an hourly-rate-based presumption of employment. In March 2026, the clarification component was dropped through a formal amendment, leaving only the presumption to proceed. That single decision matters more than it might first appear: the nine criteria the Hoge Raad established in its 2023 Deliveroo ruling were never codified into statute. Those nine factors remain the operative legal standard courts use, but they exist as case law rather than as text written into Book 7 of the Civil Code.
The deadline itself was not arbitrary either. The law is tied to the Netherlands' Herstel- en Veerkrachtplan, the country's EU Recovery and Resilience Plan, and compliance with a specific milestone on schijnzelfstandigheid unlocks EU funding running up to 600 million euros. That funding link explains why the government pushed the bill through even after stripping out half of its original substance; missing the deadline had a price attached that missing the clarification component did not.
What the law actually does is narrower than its coverage in the press sometimes suggests. It introduces a rebuttable legal presumption that a working relationship is an employment contract whenever the hourly rate falls below 38 euros, at the 1 January 2026 reference point. It does not ban freelance work below that rate. It does not reclassify anyone automatically. It shifts the burden of proof onto the hiring party only once the worker actively invokes the presumption, and even then, only for relationships with business clients; work performed for private individuals falls outside its scope entirely. It is, throughout, a civil law instrument rather than a tax enforcement tool, which turns out to matter a great deal for how it interacts with everything the Belastingdienst has already been doing since 2025. Employers weighing how this fits into their broader staffing obligations should also read hiring staff as a sole proprietor, since the underlying employer duties described there apply just as fully once a freelancer relationship gets reclassified.
Where €38 Comes From
The 38-euro threshold is not an arbitrary round number picked for its simplicity. It is meant to represent something specific: the approximate cost of employing someone doing the same work under the same conditions, expressed as a single hourly figure. Seeing how it is actually built up explains both why it will keep rising and what it is genuinely designed to measure.
Component | What it represents | Approximate contribution |
|---|---|---|
Statutory minimum wage | Gross hourly wage for an adult employee | Base amount |
Employer social contributions | ZVW, WW-AWf, Aof, and WGA/ZW premiums an employer would otherwise pay | Significant; roughly 16 to 18% of gross wage |
Pension opslag | Notional pension premium equivalent, since a freelancer has no employer contributing on their behalf | Moderate |
Insurance opslag | AOV-equivalent cost the freelancer must bear that an employer would otherwise cover | Moderate |
Markup for non-billable hours | Vacation, illness, training, and administrative time that gets worked but never billed | Significant |
Markup for general work costs | Equipment, insurance, professional fees, and workspace costs an employer would normally absorb | Moderate |
Total | What it would cost to employ the same person for the same work | Approximately €38 per hour at the 1 January 2026 reference date |
A freelancer earning exactly 38 euros an hour is, in theory, earning roughly what it would cost an employer to hire someone comparable in an ordinary employment relationship. Below that figure, the reasoning goes, it becomes genuinely questionable whether the freelancer is actually bearing the economic risks and costs that self-employment is supposed to involve, rather than simply being paid less than an equivalent employee for identical work.
Key takeaway: The 38-euro threshold is not a salary cap or a minimum wage for freelancers. Working below it is not illegal on its own. It activates a legal presumption that the relationship is employment rather than genuine self-employment, and it shifts responsibility for disproving that presumption onto the hiring party rather than leaving it with the worker.
The threshold moves twice a year alongside the statutory minimum wage, tracking CAO wage development. That indexing means the 38-euro figure calculated at the 1 January 2026 reference point is already expected to sit closer to 39 euros by the time the law actually enters into force at the end of that same year, and it will keep climbing annually after that. Since this whole construction is built on top of ordinary payroll cost components, it is worth understanding alongside the broader picture of how much tax you pay as an entrepreneur, whether that entrepreneur is the freelancer or the business hiring them.
The Employer's New Position
For a Dutch BV using freelancers below 38 euros an hour, the law creates a very specific new exposure: a freelancer who later invokes the rechtsvermoeden forces the hiring company to prove the relationship was genuinely self-employed, and if that proof falls short, the consequences reach backward, not just forward from the date of the claim.
The most significant shift is exactly where the burden of proof now sits. Under the previous position, a worker claiming employee status had to demonstrate that the relationship actually met the criteria for an employment contract. Under the rechtsvermoeden, for anything below the threshold, that work is done automatically by the presumption itself; the law simply assumes employment exists, and the hiring party has to disprove it. Disproving it means producing evidence that points clearly toward genuine self-employment under the nine Hoge Raad factors: multiple clients, work performed outside the hiring party's core business, use of the worker's own equipment, freedom from instruction and supervision, and real commercial risk carried by the worker rather than the client.
A Dutch BV that has used the same single freelancer for eighteen months, on tasks that sit squarely inside its core business, under close day-to-day supervision, with that freelancer holding no other clients, is in a genuinely difficult rebuttal position, regardless of how carefully the contract itself is worded.
None of this replaces the Belastingdienst's own enforcement track, which runs entirely in parallel rather than merging with it. The Belastingdienst has been actively enforcing Wet DBA since 1 January 2025 and can issue naheffingen, back-assessments of payroll taxes and social contributions, entirely independently of any rechtsvermoeden claim. A civil case built on the rechtsvermoeden and a Belastingdienst back-assessment covering the exact same underlying relationship can surface separately, applying separate legal standards through separate authorities that do not need to coordinate with each other at all.
Before 31 December 2026, this genuinely calls for action rather than passive awareness. Every freelancer relationship priced below roughly 40 euros an hour deserves a proper look against the nine Hoge Raad factors. Relationships that are core business, personally performed, closely supervised, and lack other clients should either move toward employment or get restructured to reflect genuine independence. Written documentation explaining why each contractor relationship qualifies as self-employment is worth having in place now, since it becomes the rebuttal evidence if a claim ever arrives. And for relationships that are genuinely self-employed but simply happen to be priced below the threshold, raising the rate is a legitimate way to remove this specific risk, even if it does nothing on its own to address a Wet DBA exposure sitting underneath a relationship that is functionally employment regardless of price.
Watch out: Raising a freelancer's hourly rate above 38 euros removes the rechtsvermoeden risk specifically, but it does nothing to eliminate Wet DBA risk if the working relationship itself is functionally an employment relationship. Both systems run at once. The rate is the trigger for one mechanism; the actual nature of the relationship governs the other, entirely separately.
The Freelancer's Choice
For a ZZP freelancer earning below 38 euros an hour, the rechtsvermoeden is a tool sitting in reserve, not a verdict handed down automatically. The law reclassifies no one on its own; it simply creates a right that a worker may exercise, or may just as reasonably leave unused.
Plenty of freelancers will fall into the first category and feel nothing change at all. Someone charging 30 euros an hour while building a client base, working part-time by choice, or operating in a sector where market rates simply sit lower than the threshold is not automatically converted into an employee by this law. The presumption only activates when a worker actively claims it. A freelancer who is genuinely content with ZZP status, has a real independent working arrangement, and has no interest in employee protections has no obligation to do anything differently because this law now exists.
The second category looks very different. A freelancer who is, in practical terms, already working as an employee but operating under a ZZP contract now has a considerably simpler path to claiming the protections that come with that reality. Invoking the rechtsvermoeden at the UWV or a civil court activates the presumption immediately, shifting the burden onto the hiring party to disprove it. If that party cannot demonstrate genuine self-employment using the nine factors, the freelancer gains entitlement to sick pay for up to two years, dismissal protection, vacation days, CAO rights, and potentially pension participation as well. For someone who has effectively been working as an employee under a freelance label and wants that recognised formally, this law makes the claim meaningfully more accessible than it was before.
There is a third, quieter angle worth naming too: simple awareness of the threshold is itself a negotiating tool. A freelancer genuinely operating as self-employed, currently priced below 38 euros, now has a structural argument for a rate increase that did not exist in quite the same form before, since the hiring party has a clear incentive of its own to move rates above the threshold if it wants to preserve a genuinely independent relationship without the added compliance overhead. Understanding the full landscape of ZZP status, including how it differs from other structures, is worth reading alongside this; ZZP vs eenmanszaak covers that broader context for anyone weighing their position.
One Piece of a Larger Picture
The rechtsvermoeden does not stand alone. It is the newest layer in a multi-year construction that has quietly made the pre-2025 approach to freelance contracting, sign a model agreement and stop thinking about it, no longer viable for either side of the relationship.
The Belastingdienst has been actively enforcing Wet DBA since 1 January 2025, and naheffingen covering payroll taxes and social contributions have been possible from that date for any misclassified relationship, regardless of rate. Enforcement initially concentrated on the largest platforms and highest-risk sectors, but it has been steadily broadening since, with vergrijpboetes, serious penalty surcharges, available in the more egregious cases.
The rechtsvermoeden sits as a civil law overlay running independently of that tax enforcement. It is initiated by the worker rather than any authority, and the consequence that flows from a successful claim is employment law liability, sick pay, dismissal protection, vacation entitlement, rather than a tax bill directly. That said, a successful rechtsvermoeden claim frequently draws Belastingdienst attention to the same relationship afterward, producing a tax assessment as a secondary consequence even though the two processes never formally merge.
A third piece, the Zelfstandigenwet, is still under development, with an expected earliest arrival around 2027. It is meant to provide a broader, more durable regulatory framework for the position of self-employed workers generally, rather than the narrower fixes the rechtsvermoeden and Wet DBA each represent on their own. Until it materialises, these two systems operate as a genuine two-front pressure on schijnzelfstandigheid, each with its own trigger and its own consequences.
For a Dutch BV that uses contractors as a matter of course, the cumulative effect of all this is straightforward even if the underlying law is not: documentation and substance now matter for every single contractor relationship in a way that simply was not true two years ago. A well-maintained contractor file, showing evidence of multiple clients, genuine independence, self-directed rate setting, and work that sits outside the hiring company's core business, functions as the primary defence against all three systems simultaneously, rather than needing a separate strategy for each one. Getting that documentation habit built into ordinary bookkeeping practice is exactly the kind of thing worth discussing directly; accountant or bookkeeper covers where that kind of professional support typically earns its fee.
Get Ahead of the 31 December 2026 Deadline
Whether you are the business paying a freelancer or the freelancer being paid, this law rewards preparation over reaction. Employers who audit their contractor relationships now, rather than after a claim arrives, keep the decision about restructuring in their own hands. Freelancers who understand the threshold, whether they intend to invoke it or simply use it in a rate conversation, are working from a stronger position either way.
If you want help reviewing your freelancer relationships against the nine Hoge Raad factors before the law takes effect, or setting up payroll correctly for contractors who need to move to employment, book a demo and we will walk through your specific situation. Our team can also help you incorporate your BV or get bookkeeping and payroll running correctly as your staffing structure evolves.
FAQs
What is the rechtsvermoeden van dienstbetrekking?
It is a legal presumption, introduced by a new Dutch law, that a working relationship is an employment contract whenever the hourly rate falls below a set threshold. It shifts the burden of proof onto the hiring party once the worker invokes it, rather than leaving the worker to prove employee status themselves.
When does the new law enter into force?
The law was passed by the Eerste Kamer on 16 June 2026 and must enter into force no later than 31 December 2026, by royal decree. In practical terms, most sources expect the rules to apply from 1 January 2027.
What is the €38 per hour threshold and how was it calculated?
It is built from the statutory minimum wage plus employer social contributions, a pension premium equivalent, an AOV-style insurance premium, and markups for non-billable hours and general work costs. The total, at the 1 January 2026 reference date, comes to approximately 38 euros an hour.
Does working below €38 per hour mean I am automatically an employee?
No. The threshold only activates a rebuttable presumption once the worker actively invokes it. It does not automatically reclassify anyone, and it does not apply at all to work performed for private individuals rather than businesses.
As a Dutch employer, what should I do before 31 December 2026?
Review every freelancer relationship priced below roughly 40 euros an hour against the nine Hoge Raad factors, document why each qualifies as genuine self-employment, and consider moving high-risk relationships toward employment or raising rates for contractors who are genuinely independent but underpriced.
What are the nine Hoge Raad factors and do they still apply?
They are the nine criteria from the 2023 Deliveroo ruling used to assess whether a working relationship is genuine self-employment or disguised employment. They were never written into this specific statute, but they remain the operative legal standard courts use to assess rebuttal evidence.
What is the difference between the rechtsvermoeden and Wet DBA enforcement?
The rechtsvermoeden is a civil law instrument invoked by the worker at the UWV or in court, leading to employment law consequences. Wet DBA enforcement is carried out by the Belastingdienst independently, leading to tax assessments. Both can apply to the same relationship, separately and simultaneously.
Can a freelancer invoke the rechtsvermoeden even if they prefer to remain ZZP?
Invoking it is entirely optional. A freelancer who is happy with self-employed status and has no interest in employee protections is under no obligation to invoke the presumption simply because their rate happens to fall below the threshold.
What happens if a rechtsvermoeden claim succeeds?
The relationship is deemed an employment contract, and the worker becomes entitled to protections including sick pay, dismissal protection, vacation days, and CAO rights. This often, though not automatically, draws Belastingdienst attention and a related tax assessment as well.
Will the €38 threshold change over time?
Yes. It is indexed twice a year alongside the statutory minimum wage, tracking CAO wage development, and is expected to have already risen to roughly 39 euros by the time the law takes effect at the end of 2026, continuing to rise annually after that.
Written by
Nick Knuppe
CEO & Founder
