10 January 2025

Update on pseudo self-employment in 2025: no fines to be imposed

10 January 2025

In November, we wrote a blog on pseudo self-employment and the lifting of the Dutch tax authority’s enforcement moratorium from 1 January 2025 onwards. The article provided a step-by-step plan for identifying collaborations with self-employed people and adjusting them where necessary and possible. The aim of all this was to avoid abusive employment relationships (as much as possible) and to be prepared for the Dutch tax authority’s doubling down on enforcement regarding pseudo self-employment.

On 18 December 2024, the State Secretary for Finance further informed the Lower House about the enforcement plans for 2025. In addition, the Dutch tax authority has published its Enforcement Plan for labour relations 2025 . The conclusion is that a number of mitigating measures have been taken, softening the blow from enforcement in 2025. In brief, these measures are as follows.

No fines from pseudo self-employment enforcement

The main update is that in 2025, the Dutch tax authority will impose no fines whatsoever on employers who continue to work with self-employed workers on a pseudo self-employment basis. This applies to both default penalties and punitive fines (unless malicious intent is involved). It was already known that no punitive fines would be imposed; so what is new is that no default penalties will follow.

However, more relaxed measures have been announced to give companies and organisations more time to adjust their operations.

Soft landing for pseudo self-employment enforcement

The Dutch tax authority has further announced the following relaxations in its enforcement plans:

  • To begin with, ‘in principle’, there will be a company visit and thus ‘in principle’ not an inspection of the accounts (audit). In this way, the Dutch tax authority is responding to the request of the Lower House to be able to warn organisations before account inspections are initiated. A company visit is not a mandatory gateway, but it does offer the possibility of an initial warning. A warning is obviously less severe than enforcement, which will follow if something is found to be wrong during a company visit. When and which choice will be made for the type of visit is not yet entirely clear; there will be further guidance on this, expected during January 2025;
  • There is a possibility of pre-consultation with the Dutch tax authority, which can be requested via a digital application form. This makes sense if an organisation works with many self-employed people and to this end has developed a working method that properly ensures effective self-employment[1];
  • All currently existing approved model agreements will be automatically extended until 31 December 2029. This means that if the model agreement is strictly followed in practice, it should provide assurance that there is no pseudo self-employment. Of course, the trick remains to organise things on the shop floor in such a way that the self-employed worker actually determines his or her own work and there is no question of employer authority.

Enforcement in 2025

The measures announced by the Dutch tax authority may reduce the sense of urgency to adjust business operations with self-employed workers. However, despite the soft landing, which is certainly in place, as far as we are concerned, organisations would do well to make a start in 2025. Now is the time to develop a new and future-proof method of managing and embedding self-employed workers at clients’ workplaces.

Full enforcement will actually begin in 2026, meaning the reimposition of fines.

Contact

We are aware that many of our clients will be affected by Dutch tax authority enforcement. Within our team, Angela van der Does-Mekes and Gerard Zuidgeest deal with this topic on a daily basis. Do you also have questions and want to exchange views on whether the self-employed workers you hire are not actually employed? Then please contact either of these, or one of our other specialists.

The Dutch tax authority is again taking pseudo self-employment enforcement measures. La Gro – keeping you informed of the latest updates, including that no fines will follow in 2025.

Author
A.I. (Angela) van der Does-Mekes

Attorney at Law

Call: +31 172 530 250