The pos­i­tion of (pseudo) inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors remains a sig­ni­fic­ant top­ic of dis­cus­sion, as is evid­ent from the Coali­tion Agree­ment (hoof­dlijn­enakkoord) and the 2025 Budget Memor­andum (mil­joen­en­nota 2025) issued by the gov­ern­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, the uncer­tainty sur­round­ing their live­li­hood secur­ity has garnered much atten­tion in recent years. Both the Coali­tion Agree­ment and the 2025 Budget Memor­andum address meas­ures aimed at improv­ing the social pro­tec­tion of inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors.

 

The vul­ner­able pos­i­tion of inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors

The Neth­er­lands has a large and grow­ing num­ber of inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors, act­ive in a wide range of sec­tors. For some, self-employ­ment is a con­scious choice, but oth­ers find them­selves in this pos­i­tion due to pseudo self-employ­ment or the lack of per­man­ent con­tracts. This absence of pro­tec­tion can res­ult in fin­an­cial insec­ur­ity, espe­cially in cases of ill­ness, inca­pa­city for work, or upon reach­ing retire­ment age.

The concept of live­li­hood secur­ity entails that an indi­vidu­al must be able to secure his or her means of sub­sist­ence, with suf­fi­cient income and access to social safety nets. While employ­ees in reg­u­lar employ­ment are often pro­tec­ted by stat­utory rights under Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code or col­lect­ive labour agree­ments, inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors are largely excluded from such pro­tec­tions. For example, inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors are gen­er­ally not insured against inca­pa­city for work and do not build up a pen­sion, unless they arrange this them­selves.

 

Meas­ures for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors

The Coali­tion Agree­ment acknow­ledges that inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors, par­tic­u­larly those in vul­ner­able sec­tors such as con­struc­tion, require addi­tion­al sup­port. In this con­text, vari­ous pro­pos­als have been put for­ward that are primar­ily aimed at nar­row­ing the gap between employ­ees and inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors. The most import­ant meas­ures in this regard are:

• Man­dat­ory occu­pa­tion­al dis­ab­il­ity insur­ance for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors: A man­dat­ory occu­pa­tion­al dis­ab­il­ity insur­ance for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors is set to be intro­duced. The absence of such a safety net is iden­ti­fied as one of the greatest risks for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors. By imple­ment­ing a man­dat­ory insur­ance scheme, inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors would be able to claim bene­fits in case of ill­ness or an acci­dent, com­par­able to the pro­tec­tion enjoyed by employ­ees under the Work and Income Act (Wet werk en inko­men naar arbeids­ver­mo­gen or WIA). This would be an import­ant step towards strength­en­ing the live­li­hood secur­ity of (vul­ner­able) inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors. The expec­ted date of entry into force of this man­dat­ory occu­pa­tion­al dis­ab­il­ity insur­ance for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors is cur­rently 2027. This is based on the advice of the Labour Found­a­tion (Sticht­ing van de Arbeid) and sub­sequent plans by the gov­ern­ment. How­ever, the exact imple­ment­a­tion date may vary depend­ing on the elab­or­a­tion of the legis­lat­ive pro­pos­al and the fur­ther legis­lat­ive pro­cess.
• Revi­sion of tax bene­fits for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors: Accord­ing to the 2025 Budget Memor­andum, the self-employ­ment deduc­tion will con­tin­ue to be reduced in 2024, as has been the case in pre­vi­ous years. The aim is to bring the tax treat­ment of employ­ees and inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors more in bal­ance. How­ever, it remains to be seen what effect this will have on inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors. A reduc­tion in the deduc­tion may res­ult in more equal treat­ment, but it could also put pres­sure on the income of many inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors, thereby affect­ing their fin­an­cial secur­ity. In addi­tion, this may also lead to self-employ­ment becom­ing less attract­ive, prompt­ing more (pseudo) inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors to claim the exist­ence of an employ­ment rela­tion­ship.
• Tight­en­ing of reg­u­la­tions on pseudo self-employ­ment: As pre­vi­ously dis­cussed in our blogs on the wetsvoorstel VBAR and the opheffing van het handhavingsmoratorium, reg­u­la­tions on pseudo self-employ­ment are being tightened. These rules aim to pre­vent inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors from being deployed in a man­ner that effect­ively cor­res­ponds to employ­ees, without being entitled to the employ­ment law pro­tec­tions under Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code. These reg­u­la­tions are primar­ily inten­ded to con­trib­ute to a fairer labour mar­ket in the long term, and con­sequently, to more live­li­hood secur­ity for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors.

In sum­mary, the above pro­pos­als seek to nar­row the gap between employ­ees and inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors, which should ulti­mately res­ult in bet­ter social pro­tec­tion and live­li­hood secur­ity for inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors. The ques­tion, of course, is wheth­er these meas­ures will achieve this object­ive and wheth­er they are indeed the right approach. This has already led to fierce dis­cus­sions with “genu­ine inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors” (not pseudo inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors), who dis­agree with these pro­pos­als. We will keep you informed as more inform­a­tion becomes avail­able on any of the above top­ics.

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