Future rules may clarify independence, but today’s working reality still carries the risk.
A founder hires an independent professional for a defined assignment. Six months later, that person attends the weekly team meeting, uses the company systems and waits for a manager to set priorities. The invoice still says consultancy. The agreement still says contractor. Yet the work has quietly changed.
This is how classification risk usually enters a small business. Not through one dramatic mistake, but through continuity. A temporary solution becomes ordinary capacity. Independence remains in the contract while direction, availability and integration move closer to employment.
The proposed Dutch Self-Employment Act, the Zelfstandigenwet, may eventually offer a clearer route. As of 6 November 2026, however, it remains in preparation. The consultation has closed, and the government has stated an intended commencement date of January 2028. That is a policy direction, not protection for today’s working arrangement.
Two questions, not one label
The proposal contains two tests. One considers the person’s broader position as an entrepreneur. Factors include invoicing, registration with the Chamber of Commerce, the number of clients and arrangements for entrepreneurial risk. The other considers independence within the specific assignment, including freedom to organise the work and working for one’s own account and risk.
I find that separation useful, even before the proposal has legal effect. It exposes a distinction that businesses often miss. Someone can operate a genuine company, serve several clients and send proper invoices, yet still perform one particular assignment in circumstances that resemble employment.
The reverse also deserves attention. Two people may perform similar work for the same client but occupy different commercial positions. The Dutch Supreme Court confirmed this in its judgment of 21 February 2025, ECLI:NL:HR:2025:319. Classification depends on all circumstances considered together. There is no fixed hierarchy among the relevant factors, and the worker’s position as an entrepreneur can matter.
This is why a KvK number is evidence of registration, not an answer. An invoice proves that an invoice was issued. Neither fact settles who controlled the work, who carried commercial risk or whether the contractor could genuinely behave as an independent business.
Enforcement is already here
The practical date for companies is not January 2028. It is 1 January 2025, when the enforcement moratorium ended. The Belastingdienst can impose correction obligations and additional payroll-tax assessments when it concludes that supposed self-employment is employment in reality.
The 2026 approach still contains part of the earlier soft landing. A business visit generally remains the starting point, and default fines are not imposed during 2026. Yet deliberate or grossly culpable conduct can attract a culpability-based fine. The assessment itself has not been suspended.
Payroll-tax assessments generally reach back no further than 1 January 2025. In cases involving bad faith or failure to follow an earlier instruction, the period can extend to five years. For a small company, the immediate burden may include more than tax. Management must reconstruct hours, payments, instructions, project changes and approval routes while continuing to serve customers.
Existing approved model agreements remain usable in principle through December 2029 as the system is phased out. Their value still depends on conduct. A well-written substitution clause carries little weight if substitution was never realistic. Contractual freedom over working hours looks weak when the contractor has followed the company roster for a year.
The rate changes the argument, not the answer
From 31 December 2026, a contractor paid less than €38 per hour can invoke a statutory presumption of an employment contract. The client must then show that no employment contract exists. This turns a low rate into more than a purchasing decision. It changes who must carry the evidential burden.
A higher rate does not establish independence. The ordinary assessment of the relationship still applies. Price may show bargaining strength or specialist value, but it cannot erase managerial control, fixed availability or deep integration into the client’s ordinary operations.
The market is also moving. CBS reported that almost 1.5 million people had self-employment as their main job in the third quarter of 2026. The number of self-employed people without staff fell by 11,000 from the previous quarter, marking a seventh consecutive quarterly decline. Those figures do not explain each individual decision, but they do show that companies are planning contractor use inside a changing labour market.
A business dependent on several long-term contractors for core delivery has two connected risks. One concerns legal classification. The other concerns continuity if those contractors leave, seek employment or renegotiate their position. Staffing resilience and compliance discipline meet at the same table.
Return to the working day
Consider the contractor from the opening scene. The useful review does not begin by rewriting the agreement. It begins by looking at Monday morning. Who assigns the work? Can the contractor refuse it? Who determines the method and timing? Who corrects errors at their own cost? Is replacement possible in reality? Does the contractor build a market beyond this client?
Finance should then compare those answers with the invoices and payments. Operations should compare them with schedules, systems access and customer contact. The person responsible for contracts should check whether the assignment still resembles what was originally signed. One named owner should connect these views, because responsibility easily disappears between management, administration and payroll.
My hard conclusion is simple. Dutch business is moving away from status by declaration and towards status by credible conduct. The proposed Zelfstandigenwet may give that movement a clearer structure in 2028. It does not postpone the present duty to understand how work is organised.
Contractors remain valuable to small firms. They bring skill, speed and genuine enterprise. The answer is not to remove them automatically. It is to design assignments that respect real independence and to revisit them when the work changes. In the Netherlands, the strongest explanation is rarely the label chosen at the start. It is the working reality the company can still explain at the end.
If your contractor arrangements have evolved in practice, review the working reality before the contract becomes your weakest evidence.
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Paolo Maria Pavan before publication.
References
- Zelfstandigenwet: gewijzigd toetsingskader
- Rijksoverheid - Status and design of the proposed Zelfstandigenwet
- Overheid.nl Wetgevingskalender - Legislative stage after consultation
- Belastingdienst - Current enforcement of sham self-employment
- Belastingdienst Newsroom - 2026 enforcement approach and model agreements
- Hoge Raad via Rechtspraak - Existing assessment framework: Deliveroo factors and entrepreneurship
- Belastingdienst - Published Belastingdienst assessment guidance
- Ondernemersplein - Low-rate statutory presumption of employment
