Working From Home In The Netherlands: 4 Points Of Interest For Foreign Employers – Employee Benefits & Compensation – Netherlands

Your employee lives in the Netherlands and wants to work from
home while your company is not located there. What do you as an
employer have to pay attention to before granting such a
request?

These days, working
from home or working remotely has become quite common. So you
may receive a request of an employee who wants to work from home in
the Netherlands, for example in connection with sick family
members, whom the employee wants to take care of. But be aware,
this may have unexpected consequences if your company is not based
in the Netherlands. Does Dutch employment law have to be applied?
Do you suddenly have to pay social security contributions in the
Netherlands? And how do you ensure that the employee has a good
workplace in the Netherlands?

1. Permit

If you have an employee who wants to work from home in the
Netherlands, you should take into account that permits may be
required for this purpose.

First, the employee must have the right of residence in the
Netherlands. If the employee has Dutch nationality or the
nationality for a EU/EEA member state or Switzerland, no residence
permit is required, nor is a work permit necessary.

If the employee has another nationality, he or she will often
need to apply for a residence permit, depending on his or her
nationality, position and length of stay. In addition, it needs to
be considered whether applying for a work permit is also necessary.
In that case, you may need to register as an employer in the
Netherlands.

2. Applicable employment law

If you have an employee who will be working from home in the
Netherlands, Dutch employment law may become applicable to the
employment contract. In principle, the employer and employee are
free to state in their employment contract which law will be
applicable, but mandatory international and national rules of law
may render this choice of law inoperative in whole or in part.

If you are a foreign employer based in a EU/EEA member state or
Switzerland and your employee is going to work temporarily in the
Netherlands from home, in principle nothing will change regarding
the applicable employment law. But if the employee starts working
structurally from the Netherlands, this will become the place from
which the employee performs his or her work, “the habitual
place of work”. Despite the choice of law made in the
employment contract, under European law, the employer may not
deviate from mandatory provisions of Dutch employment law insofar
as these are more favourable to the employee than the law declared
applicable to the employment contract.

If you are a foreign employer who is not based in a EU/EEA
member state or Switzerland and one of your employees wants to work
in the Netherlands from home, you as an employer may have to adhere
to certain Dutch employment law provisions.

3. Social security

If you are a foreign employer based in a EU/EEA member state or
a country with which the Netherlands has a social
insurance agreement, and one of your employees is going to work
temporarily in the Netherlands from home, this employee remains
socially insured in the country where he/she worked. As an
employer, you can apply for an A1 certificate from the authority of
the country where the social security contributions are paid, which
serves as proof that the contributions are paid outside the
Netherlands.

Based on European law, an employee is in principle socially
insured in the country of employment. However, if you employ an
employee who lives in a different EU/EEA member state than where he
or she habitually works and who is going to work from home on a
structural basis for 25% or more, you must pay the employee’s
social insurance contributions in the employee’s country of
residence. If that is in the Netherlands, you must pay social
insurance contributions in the Netherlands, according to Dutch
rules. In that case you may need to register as an employer in the
Netherlands.

If you are a foreign employer who is not based in a EU/EEA
member state and one of your employees wants to work in the
Netherlands from home, the employee’s social security position
is determined by concluded social security treaties. If no treaty
has been concluded between the country of usual employment and the
Netherlands, the national social security legislation of the
country of usual employment and the Netherlands will determine
where the employee should be socially secured. Due to the
concurrence of social security systems, you may have to pay social
security contributions not only in your home country, but also in
the Netherlands.

4. Information obligation

If you are an employer based in a EU/EEA member state or
Switzerland, the following information obligation applies to
you. If an employee is going to work abroad for more than one
month, the employer is obliged under European regulations to
provide the employee with a statement containing information
on:

• The country where the work is to be performed and its
  duration;




• If applicable, the benefits in cash or in kind associated with
  the employment, and;




• The return to the regulations applicable thereto.

Conclusion

So there are more difficulties to working from home in the
Netherlands for a company from a foreign country than appears at
first sight. We therefore recommend employers and employees map out
in advance the possible consequences of employees working from home
and whether steps/measures needed have to be taken to make working
from home possible.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.