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Starting in 2025, the Dutch Tax Authority will enforce stricter rules on cases of clear false self-employment, as the enforcement moratorium on the DBA law will be lifted. While this won’t result in drastic changes, it’s essential for businesses working with freelancers to understand how to correctly classify employment relationships. In this article, you’ll learn what changes are coming and how you can prepare.
About the DBA law
The DBA law was introduced in 2016 with the goal of providing more clarity on how to qualify employment relationships and to prevent false self-employment. However, the law failed to provide the clarity needed, causing significant unrest among organisations, clients, and freelancers.
False self-employment refers to situations where a person is officially working as a freelancer, but in reality, should have been hired as an employee. Learn more about this in our article: What is false self-employment and how to avoid it as a business.
Due to the unrest in the market, an enforcement moratorium was put in place. This means that the Dutch Tax Authority hasn’t been actively monitoring and won’t impose retroactive fines or after-taxes unless there's evidence of deliberate non-compliance or an official warning from the Tax Authority that is not followed. This warning gives businesses time to adjust their employment arrangements to avoid false self-employment.
Read more about what the DBA legislation means for you as a client in our article.
Key changes in freelance regulations in 2025
Now, nine years after the law was enacted, it has been decided to lift the enforcement moratorium. This has again raised concerns in the market, as businesses fear fines and tax recoveries. In response, the Dutch Parliament has recently passed several important motions indicating that there will be a "soft landing" approach, with a primary focus on addressing the most extreme cases of false self-employment and labor abuses.
This means that the Tax Authority will target problematic cases such as forced self-employment, underpayment, clear false self-employment, and migration-related labor schemes. This will allow businesses and freelancers to continue working together without fear of immediate fines and tax recoveries.
For freelancers working through Temper, there are no signs of labor exploitation or misconduct. Freelancers who use Temper work entirely voluntarily, meaning there’s no forced self-employment. Additionally, they consistently earn well above the legal minimum wage, have the freedom to appoint substitutes, negotiate their rates, work for multiple clients, and bear commercial risk themselves. These factors are clear indicators of true self-employment.
Are you unsure as a client how to determine the correct employment relationship? Check out our blog on determining the correct employment relationship, which includes a handy scorecard.
What are the implications of these new rules for clients?
Contrary to what many people think, no new rules will come into effect in 2025. The law (DBA law) remains unchanged, and the criteria (from the Deliveroo ruling) for determining whether someone is working as an employee or as a self-employed individual also remain the same. However, this does not mean that clients can simply relax.
The main difference is that, as of January 2025, the Tax and Customs Administration can immediately impose an additional payroll tax assessment in cases of false self-employment, without first issuing a warning. These additional assessments will only apply to the period from 1 January 2025 onward. The Tax Administration has also stated that it will not impose fines and will initially spare the freelancers themselves from penalties.
For clients, this means they must be alert about how they engage freelancers within their organisation. It is important to ensure that there is no employment relationship that the Tax and Customs Administration could classify as an employment contract.
The risk of additional assessments is explained below.
What is the risk of tax recoveries and fines from the tax authority?
Before the Dutch Tax Authority can impose tax recoveries in cases of false self-employment (only after the enforcement moratorium ends), it must first establish that an employment contract exists between the client and the freelancer. In practice, determining the exact nature of this relationship can be complex and often involves a detailed evaluation. It is important to consider all relevant facts and circumstances, known as the holistic test.
The Tax Authority has indicated that it will conduct checks using what is known as the “layered approach.” This means that if a business can demonstrate during an initial check that it is actively taking measures to prevent false self-employment, the Tax Authority won’t proceed to further investigation ("not advancing to the next layer"). In addition, the Tax authorities has stated that it will be very cautious in imposing fines in 2025.
Read more about the steps you can take to ensure your first layer is well-structured in this article.
How to avoid false self-employment?
Avoiding false self-employment begins with clarity. Does the contract still meet the conditions for hiring someone as a freelancer? There are a total of nine criteria—known as "perspectives"—that the Dutch Tax Authority will assess to determine whether false self-employment is occurring. These perspectives are assessed holistically, meaning that each case will be reviewed based on all the criteria collectively.
This holistic review is crucial because one criterion may indicate an employee relationship, while another points toward a contract relationship. Therefore, the case is evaluated as a whole to determine which factors carry the most weight.
Check the full list of all nine perspectives and applications in our blog or through our handy scorecard.
What if a freelancer performs the same tasks as permanent employees?
Many entrepreneurs work with freelancers who perform tasks that are also carried out by permanent staff and wonder if there is a case of false self-employment. For example, if a barista in a coffee shop does the same work as the regular staff, this could indeed be considered 'embedding of work' – the work of the freelancer closely mirrors the work of the employees. As mentioned earlier, however, all facts and circumstances must be taken into account. Embedding is just one of the nine criteria. Moreover, a distinction must be made between the embedding of the work and the embedding of the worker. In this situation, various factors are important to determine whether there is false self-employment, such as:
- The freelancer only works on short-term assignments
- The freelancer works for multiple clients
- The freelancer decides whether or not to accept a job
- The freelancer can negotiate their hourly rate
- The freelancer can appoint substitutes
- The freelancer behaves as a commercial entrepreneur and assumes commercial risk, such as non-payment of invoices
Thus, it’s not just about work integration—many other factors must be considered to assess whether false self-employment exists. Learn how these factors manifest in our article: How to determine the correct employment relationship with workers within your organisation.
How does Temper supports clients?
Temper has been developed from the very beginning as a platform where freelancers can easily find interesting shifts. People who work through Temper are not called upon and are completely free to decide where, when, and for what rate they will work. This dynamic offers a high degree of freedom, which is often not the case when entering into an employment contract.
Through Temper, only short-term assignments are available. A shift on the platform lasts on average 6.5 hours, and freelancers work for a wide range of different clients. In addition, Temper is the only platform in the Netherlands that uses the 660-hour scheme. This arrangement, which has been developed in consultation with the Tax authorities, ensures that freelancers can never work for the same client for more than 660 hours. This encourages freelancers to take on assignments from multiple clients.
Freelancers working through Temper also have the opportunity to negotiate their rates via the platform. Additionally, they can freely substitute themselves both on and off the platform. Both of these options are not just theoretical but occur frequently in practice. These characteristics are clear indicators against the existence of an employment relationship between the client and the freelancer.
Finally, freelancers send invoices (including the correct VAT application) to clients via the platform. They also bear the commercial risk. If the client does not pay or a dispute arises, the freelancer assumes the risk.
For clients, these measures provide additional protection, as they create clarity regarding the relationship with the freelancer. This helps companies demonstrate that they are complying with the law and that there is no disguised employment relationship.
Would you like to learn more about working with freelancers through Temper and how to build a flexible workforce around your core business? Book a free demo, and we’ll be happy to tell you more.
