How to hire an employee in the Netherlands

Three things have to exist before a new employee starts work in the Netherlands: an employer registration with the Belastingdienst, an agreed arbeidsovereenkomst, and the employee’s BSN with a verified identity document on file. The registration is the one with a hard sequence attached. business.gov.nl states that it must be done before you hire staff, and it gives no number of days, so treat it as a precondition of the start date rather than a task for the first payroll run.

Registration produces the loonheffingennummer, the number used on every aangifte loonheffingen and in every dealing with the Belastingdienst about payroll. It arrives with three other things: an aangiftebrief setting out which returns are due and when, a sectoraansluiting letter, and the Whk percentage notice.

The sectoraansluiting letter is a cost document rather than an administrative formality. Sector classification fixes which Whk rate a small employer pays, and the 2026 small-employer sector rates run from 0,76% at the bottom of the Belastingdienst table to 6,63% at the top. Two employers paying an identical salary can sit several percentage points apart on that one line.

Where the person is not an EU national, right-to-work checks sit alongside all of this and are separate from the tax registration. The order that works is: register as employer, agree and sign the contract, run the identity and BSN check, then set the start date. Doing the first step last is the most expensive way to hire in the Netherlands, because the withholding rate on day one depends on the third.

None of this is a judgement call. It is a checklist with a fixed sequence, and the sequence is what a first Dutch hire usually gets wrong. Everything downstream, including the monthly loonaangifte and every correction made to it, runs off the loonheffingennummer issued at step one.

An offer becomes an arbeidsovereenkomst the moment the person accepts it, and article 7:610 BW imposes no form requirement at all. An oral agreement to perform work for pay, over a period of time, in the service of the employer, is a valid Dutch employment contract. That is a trap rather than a convenience.

It is a trap because the clauses a foreign employer cares about most are the ones that die without writing. A proeftijd is void unless written, under article 7:652(2) BW. A concurrentiebeding is void unless written, under article 7:653(1)(b) BW. A beëindigingsovereenkomst carries the same requirement under article 7:670b(1) BW. None of the three is repaired by a later email.

There is a price attached as well. The low AWf rate of 2,74% applies in 2026 only where the contract is for an indefinite period, is in writing, and is not an oproepovereenkomst. Fail any one of those three and the high rate of 7,74% applies instead, which is 5,00 percentage points of extra employer cost on pay up to € 79.409. An unwritten contract is the most expensive kind of Dutch contract there is.

State the pay as a bruto jaarsalaris or a bruto maandsalaris, and say in the same sentence whether the 8% vakantiegeld is included or sits on top. Dutch salaries are normally quoted excluding it, and that convention rather than any rule is why offer letters get argued about months later.

If the role is fixed term, the ketenregeling is already running from the first contract: three contracts or 36 months, whichever comes first, broken only by an interval of more than six months. The detail of that chain and the rest of the clause library belong to Dutch employment contracts; at the offer stage the point is simply that the first fixed term is not a free trial.

Article 7:655 BW obliges the employer to give the employee a written or electronic statement of the main terms of the employment. It sits on top of the contract rather than replacing it, and in practice a properly drafted arbeidsovereenkomst carries the statement inside it, which is the reason Dutch contracts read longer than their foreign equivalents.

Among other things, the statement must cover:

• the names and places of residence of both parties, and the start date
• the place or places of work, or a statement that the employee works in various places or is free to determine the workplace
• the function or the nature of the work, and for a fixed term the end date or the duration
• holiday and other paid leave entitlement, or the method of calculating it
• the pay: the starting amount, its separate components, and the method and frequency of payment
• the termination procedure, including the notice periods or how they are determined

Working time gets its own treatment and it splits in two. Where working times are largely predictable, the statement gives the normal daily and weekly hours, the arrangements for work outside them and the pay for that work, together with any shift-swap rules. Where working times are largely unpredictable, it gives the principle that times vary, the number of guaranteed paid hours and the pay above them, the days and hours on which the employee can be required to work, and the notice periods under article 7:628b(3) BW.

Article 7:655 continues past that point. The list above is the part worth putting in front of a hiring manager, not the whole of the article. One diary note for anyone drafting a template now: article 7:655 carries an amendment that takes effect on 1 January 2028, so a contract template written in 2026 needs a review date on it.

Probation is capped by article 7:652 BW and the cap depends on the contract. Two months is the maximum in an indefinite contract and in a fixed term of two years or longer. One month is the maximum in a fixed term longer than six months but shorter than two years, and in a fixed term with no calendar end date.

In a contract of six months or less there can be no proeftijd at all. Article 7:652(6)(a) BW says so in terms, and article 7:652(8) makes any clause contrary to the article void. Void means the clause falls away completely. It is not read down to the lawful maximum, and there is no saving construction.

That produces the single most common error foreign employers make on Dutch contracts. A one-month probation written into a six-month contract has no effect whatever, so a dismissal in week two is a dismissal without permission, and prior permission from UWV or the kantonrechter is what Dutch termination runs on. The clause that felt like a safety net is the reason the ending is unlawful.

Two further rules catch people out. The proeftijd must be the same length for both parties, and it must be in writing. A proeftijd agreed in a successive contract with the same employer is void unless the new contract clearly demands different skills or responsibilities, and the same applies to a contract with a successor employer, so a second contract for the same job cannot carry a fresh trial period.

The practical consequence at the offer stage is that contract length and probation are one decision, not two. If the hiring manager wants a trial period with teeth, the first contract has to run longer than six months. If the budget only supports a six-month term, the probation conversation is over before it starts.

Before employment begins, the employer must hold a signed statement from the employee giving name, address, date of birth and BSN, and must verify the identity document itself. This is a check the employer performs and files, not a form sent off to be processed somewhere.

If those items are not held before the first working day, the employer must withhold at the anoniementarief. In 2026 that is 52,00% as the enkelvoudig rate and 108,30% as the tabeltarief, applied with no tax credits at all and with no ceiling on the employee insurance premiums. The employee’s net pay collapses, the employer carries the correction, and the conversation that follows is not one anybody wants in week one.

A BSN is issued when the person registers with a Dutch municipality. For someone moving to the Netherlands for the job, that registration appointment sits on the critical path to the start date, alongside the contract signature, rather than being a first-month formality. Someone already living in the Netherlands has a BSN already and the check takes minutes.

The same file drives the loonheffingskorting election. The employee states in writing with which employer the tax credits are applied, and they may be applied by only one withholding agent at a time. Someone with two jobs who applies them with both under-withholds across the year and receives an assessment for the difference, which is the most common complaint a Dutch employee brings to payroll. Ask the question at onboarding, keep the signed answer, and the problem does not arise.

How the credits then work through the monthly tables, and what the employer pays on top of the wage, is set out in Netherlands payroll explained.

Budget about 26% on top of base salary: 8% vakantiegeld plus about 18% employer social charges, both expressed on base salary, assuming no CAO applies and no occupational pension scheme is compulsory. On a € 48.000 base that is roughly € 60.500 of total employer cost for 2026, and the worked example shows every line of it.

Pay itself has a floor set by the hour rather than the month. The minimumuurloon for workers aged 21 and over is € 14,71 from 1 January 2026 and € 14,99 from 1 July 2026, so a lawful monthly minimum is simply hours worked multiplied by the rate in force for that half of the year. The 2026 minimum wage figures include the youth rates, which move with a birthday rather than with a contract.

The other route is an employer of record. Employer of Record Netherlands arranges Dutch employment for people you have already chosen, and runs the payroll and the administration that goes with it. The EOR becomes the legal employer of the person you hire: the arbeidsovereenkomst is between the worker and the employing company, which runs payroll in euro, withholds and files loonheffingen, and carries the statutory employer duties. Your business chooses the person, sets the pay and runs the work.

Setting up your own company instead means a notarial deed before a Dutch notaris and registration in the Handelsregister before any of the registration steps above can even begin. Which route fits depends on how many people you expect to employ in the Netherlands and for how long, and the honest test is whether a Dutch payroll, a Dutch contract template and a Dutch reintegration process are things your business wants to own permanently.