On Friday afternoon, a small care provider looks at the Monday roster. A familiar zzp professional can cover the evening route, but only if the assignment stays independent. The manager wants fewer DBA worries. The clients still need washing, medication, food, and a face they know.
Since 1 January 2025, the Belastingdienst has again enforced against sham self-employment under Wet DBA. That pushes the issue beyond care. For a small employer, the invoice no longer tells the full story. The working relationship, the roster, the authority line, the price, and the paperwork all need to say the same thing.
The contract is not the whole relationship
Dutch law starts with a plain test, even if the consequences are not plain. Civil Code article 7:610 describes an employment contract through work, wages, service under another party, and time. Article 7:610a adds a legal presumption when someone works weekly for three consecutive months, or at least 20 hours per month, for payment.
The Supreme Court’s Deliveroo judgment, ECLI:NL:HR:2023:443, made the practical point sharper. Employment status depends on all circumstances of the working relationship. The label on the contract is not decisive. Belastingdienst guidance follows the same line: facts and practice carry weight.
That is where many small firms become exposed. They have a signed zzp agreement, invoices, and perhaps a model agreement. The daily pattern may say something else. The person works fixed hours, follows internal instructions, uses company tools, appears on the same roster as employees, and fills the same recurring gap every week.
Belastingdienst says existing DBA model agreements may still be used until 31 December 2029. That helps only if the parties actually work as described. Paper cannot rescue a relationship that behaves like payroll every morning.
The roster tells the truth
Care is a sharp mirror because it shows what happens when legal caution meets human availability. CBS reported sickness absence of 8.2 percent in health and welfare in the first quarter of 2026, the highest rate among sectors. That is the kind of pressure under which staffing choices get made.
A founder can change a contract faster than a roster. If a zzp worker is told the assignment must become employment, the worker may accept. The worker may also refuse, reduce hours, raise the rate, or move elsewhere. Rijksoverheid has noted signals that some principals reduced zzp assignments after enforcement resumed, driven by caution and uncertainty.
Return to the Friday manager. If the evening route leaves the zzp arrangement and no employee is ready, the tidy legal correction creates an operational gap. In care, that gap touches people directly. In logistics, it touches delivery promises. In a design studio, it touches deadlines. In a repair shop, it touches customers waiting at the door.
The useful reading is simple. DBA exposure is not only a tax risk. Tax may bring the correction. HR, clients, and cash feel the first shock.
Paper is not the relationship
The working facts matter more than the label on the invoice. A practical review starts with role, hours, duration, rate, location, tools, supervision, freedom to refuse work, substitution, and the place of the work in the business.
A clean answer usually shows itself fast. Does the person run an independent assignment, or fill regular capacity? Can the worker refuse jobs without awkward pressure? Can the business replace the worker without breaking the service? Does the company treat the person as part of the team, with the same routines and the same daily command line?
Money needs the same honesty. An invoice rate is not the same as payroll cost. Payroll brings wage tax administration, holiday pay, sickness exposure, employer charges, and pension or collective agreement questions where relevant. Losing the contractor can also cost revenue, client trust, recruitment time, overtime, and management attention.
That is why the useful file is not the contract alone. It is the whole company picture. Payroll, operations, finance, and the founder cannot each hold a different version of reality.
If the roster treats someone as staff, the contract should not pretend the person is a distant supplier of a finished result. The DBA review is not done when the paper is corrected. It is done when the company knows who does the work, at what cost, with what proof, and with what fallback.
Two clocks, one company
The policy route is still moving. On 6 March 2026, the cabinet scrapped the clarification part of the VBAR bill. It continues with a legal presumption of employment based on an hourly rate up to €38, with 1 January 2026 as the reference date. By 1 July 2026, that rate-based presumption had not yet entered into force.
So a small employer lives with two clocks. One is the policy clock, where bills, letters, and entry dates move through The Hague. The other is the business clock, where clients expect work tomorrow and staff expect a fair, workable plan.
Those clocks rarely move together. Waiting for perfect legal simplicity is not a staffing strategy. Panic conversion is not one either. A founder who changes every zzp assignment overnight may lose flexibility, margin, and people. A founder who changes nothing may keep a relationship that no longer fits the enforcement climate.
The better question is smaller and more useful: which work is truly independent, and which work is regular capacity in another form?
What a small employer can control
A useful review starts with the work, not the title on the invoice. Each zzp relationship has ordinary business facts. Role, hours, duration, rate, location, tools, supervision, freedom to refuse work, substitution, and core operations all matter.
The money also needs a clean view. An invoice rate is not the same as payroll cost. Payroll brings wage tax administration, holiday pay, sickness exposure, employer charges, and pension or collective agreement questions where relevant. Losing the contractor can cost revenue, client trust, recruitment time, overtime, and management attention.
This is not a reason to keep weak arrangements alive. It is a reason to decide with the whole company in view. Payroll, operations, finance, and the founder cannot each hold a different version of reality.
If the roster treats someone as staff, the contract should not pretend the person is a distant supplier of a finished result. The DBA question is not finished when the wording changes. It is finished only when the company can explain, pay, staff, and evidence the relationship it actually uses.
Zzp work is not wrong by nature. Payroll is not right by slogan. The honest test is whether the company can stand behind the way it works on Monday morning. If the roster depends on a zzp worker, the founder needs both answers: the DBA answer and the staffing answer.
Need a clear view of your zzp risk and staffing options before you change the file?
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Linda 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 Linda Pavan before publication.
