Hiring in the Netherlands in 2026: The Last Year Before the Rules Shift
We priced a €4,500 offer line by line on the 2026 premium rates and reran an expat package under the 27% ruling that starts in January. We also compared four sector pay agreements and checked who signs the Dutch contract at ten EOR providers.
Five figures to check before you send a Dutch offer
Four costing errors that skew a Dutch offer
Dutch premium rates reset every January, and the minimum wage moves twice a year. The premium ceiling is easy to overlook, and two rule changes land on 1 January 2027.
Pricing the hire on last year’s rates
Since 1 January 2026 the Zvw health levy is 6.10%, down from 6.51%, and the premium ceiling is €79,409 a year. Keep the old levy on a €4,500 salary and you overstate it by about €20 a month, or €239 a year, before any other rate is checked.
Leaving the 8% holiday allowance out of the base
The 8% allowance is a legal minimum under the 2026 rules, and it counts as premium wage up to the €79,409 ceiling. Skip it on €4,500 a month and your cost comes to €5,310 instead of €5,734, so the budget falls €425 a month short.
Picking an EOR without asking about the Wtta
The staffing admission law starts on 1 January 2027, with registration open from 1 November 2026. From 1 January 2028 a company that uses a supplier without admission can be fined up to €90,000 per offence.
Budgeting an expat on the old 30% ruling
From 1 January 2027 the tax-free share is 27% for every ruling that began in 2024 or later. On an €84,000 package that costs the employee €1,272 a year, and €2,731 a year to make good, as our expat section below shows.
Rates as in force on 22 October 2026. Euro figures assume a permanent contract below the premium ceiling.
The expat ruling drops to 27%, and an €84,000 hire costs €2,731 more to keep whole
Expats hired from abroad can get part of their pay tax free. From 1 January 2027 that share falls from 30% to 27% for anyone whose ruling began in 2024 or later, and for every new hire. Only rulings that started before 2024 keep 30%.
€84,000 package in 2026
30% tax freeSame package in 2027
27% tax freeThe cut raises your premiums even if you change nothing. The tax-free part of pay carries no employee insurance premiums or health levy. Moving 3% of this package back into taxed pay adds €453 a year to the employer premiums alone.
Package includes holiday allowance. Both columns use 2026 tax brackets and credits for a resident under state pension age, so only the ruling changes. 2027 brackets were indexed only partly. Premiums at 17.99% on taxed pay, below the €79,409 ceiling. New hires from 2027 also face a higher salary floor for the ruling, €50,436 before indexation.
Year one for a €54,000 hire, at three EOR price points
The Dutch costs don’t change with the provider. Only the fee does. So the table keeps the euro costs and the dollar fee apart, which is how most quotes arrive.
The contract type can move this bill almost as much as the provider does. Awf is 2.74% only on a permanent written contract. Put the same hire on a fixed-term contract and the rate is 7.74%, which adds €2,916 a year. That is close to the $3,600 gap between the budget and mid-price fees.
Not in these totals: pension, which depends on the scheme or sector fund, and any deposit, setup or exit fee. Our Netherlands EOR fee table lists what each provider publishes.
Test a Dutch salary of your own
The Netherlands is already selected. Type in a monthly gross salary to see the employer premiums line by line, then add a provider’s monthly fee to see what the hire costs in total.
Your sector’s CAO can set the pay, the hours and the pension fund
Many Dutch employees work under a collective labour agreement, or CAO. Once a CAO is declared generally binding it applies to the whole sector, including employers who never signed it. So the same job title can come with a different week and a different pension fund depending on the industry.
Leave is where the agreements drift furthest apart. Metalektro gives 27 days plus 13 roster days off on a 40-hour week. Retail Non-Food gives 24 days on 38 hours. The legal minimum is 20. Metalektro and Horeca both expire at the end of 2026, and neither had a 2027 deal in the pay tables we checked.
Pay rises apply to the CAO pay scales. Retail Non-Food links its 2027 rises to the minimum wage. An EOR hire counts as a payroll employee under Dutch law, so the EOR must match the terms your own staff get, or the sector CAO if you have no Dutch staff, and offer an adequate pension. Checked 22 October 2026.
When a Dutch BV becomes cheaper than paying EOR fees
Deel’s June 2026 Netherlands guide puts an own entity at €36,407 to set up and €48,681 a year to run. Its EOR costs €6,217 a year per employee. We ran the team sizes against both.
Scale: €100,000 a year. Entity figures are Deel’s published estimates of €36,407 one-off and €48,681 a year, so €85,088 in year one. EOR fee at €6,217 per employee a year, Deel’s own figure.
On running costs alone, eight people on an EOR already cost more than a BV of your own. Count the setup in year one and the switch moves to fourteen. A BV can be registered in a few weeks. Payroll, a pension scheme, sickness insurance and an occupational health service all have to be in place before the first Dutch payslip, which is why most teams hire their first few people through an EOR.
Exact break-even falls at 7.83 employees on running costs and 13.69 once setup is counted. You can’t hire part of a person, so round up to 8 and 14. Both sides come from one cost estimate, so swap in your own entity and EOR quotes before you decide.
Which company signs your Dutch employee’s contract
The legal employer is the one that deals with UWV on sickness and dismissal. We read each provider’s own Netherlands page. Three of the ten we rank say they own a Dutch entity.
Oyster HR is the only provider that names its Dutch employer, Oyster HR Netherlands BV. Even Oyster hands one route to a partner. Non-EU hires on the highly skilled migrant permit go through Parakar.
Employs Dutch staff through a wholly owned BV in Amsterdam and bills month to month.
Scores 4.7 for compliance, the best of the ten. Ask which entity would employ your Dutch hire.
No setup or termination fee. A local partner holds the contract, so ask for its name and its Wtta plans.
Owns Oyster HR Netherlands BV and handles terminations inside the monthly fee.
Prices are published starting fees per employee per month, checked on vendor sites in October 2026.
See all 14 ranked providersThe cost of a Dutch dismissal at four lengths of service
For an employee on €4,500 a month, let go with a UWV permit or a court ruling. The transition payment builds up from the first day of work, at a third of a month’s pay for each year.
The transition payment is worked out on monthly pay including the 8% holiday allowance, so on €4,860 here and not €4,500. Using base salary alone would understate it by 8%. The 2026 cap is €102,000, up from €98,000, or a year’s salary if that is higher.
Most exits end in a settlement. A mutual settlement agreement avoids UWV and the court, and employees usually ask for more than the transition payment. The employee can still withdraw within 14 days of signing. Notice is shown at full statutory length. With a UWV permit you may take off one month, as long as one month remains.
Five questions that decide whether your Dutch freelancer is really staff
The tax office ended its enforcement freeze on false self-employment on 1 January 2025, and normal fines returned in 2026. Back tax can reach to the start of 2025. Each yes below moves the arrangement closer to employment.
Do you decide how, when and where the work gets done?
Yes adds riskIs the work part of your core business, done alongside your staff?
Yes adds riskHave they worked only for you for months at a time?
Yes adds riskDo they charge less than €38 an hour?
Yes adds riskDo they rely on you for nearly all of their income?
Yes adds riskParliament has finished with the €38 hourly presumption. The Eerste Kamer passed it on 16 June 2026, and the government has planned for it to apply from 31 December 2026. Below that rate, a freelancer can claim employee status and you must prove otherwise.
Tools and guides for a Dutch team
How we built this guide
Co-founder and Editor, HR Stacks
Manjuri runs the editorial process behind our provider reviews and country hiring guides. She has more than ten years of editorial experience, the last five spent on employer of record and global employment.
More from Manjuri- We calculated every euro figure ourselves from the 2026 premium rates set in the Staatscourant in December 2025, the July 2026 minimum wage and the 2026 income tax brackets and credits.
- We modelled the expat ruling twice on the same €84,000 package, once at 30% and once at 27%, and solved for the gross pay that keeps take-home level.
- We compared four sector CAOs through their 2026 pay tables and the union and employer announcements behind them.
- We checked each provider’s own Netherlands page in October 2026 for who holds the contract, and used the scores from our Netherlands EOR ranking. We also worked four dismissal cases through to a final euro figure.
- We recheck the page when a rule changes. The next dates are 1 January 2027, when the 27% ruling, the Wtta and a new minimum wage all start, and the entry into force of the €38 presumption.
Dutch hiring questions, answered with numbers
What is the minimum wage in the Netherlands in 2026?
How much does an employee cost on top of salary?
What changes in the 30% ruling in 2027?
How long is the notice period for a Dutch employer?
How much is the transition payment?
How long does an employer pay a sick employee?
When is my own Dutch BV cheaper than an EOR?
Price your first Dutch hire
Fourteen employer of record providers, ranked on what they charge in the Netherlands, which company signs the contract and how they scored on eight parameters.