Bill Offering More Certainty to Flex Workers

On 19 May 2025, the Dutch government presented the legislative proposal ‘More Certainty for Flex Workers Act’ to the Lower House of Parliament. The proposal contains measures intended to strengthen the position of flex workers and to reduce the differences between fixed and flexible contracts. For employers this means a further restriction of the options to deploy employees on a flexible basis. Below, we will list the main changes proposed. 

The options to make repeated use of fixed-term employment contracts will be restricted:

• At present, employees can get a maximum of three temporary contracts within a period of three years, on the basis of the ‘chain provision’. After that period, the employee is entitled to a permanent contract. After an interval of six months, the employer may again offer the employee a temporary contract. This allows a ‘revolving door construction’ to arise. In the proposal, the interval is deleted and replaced by a 60-month period, in which a temporary contract cannot be entered into anew.
• The current regime that makes it possible to deviate from the chain provision in terms of duration and number of contracts in a CAO will lapse.
• The current option of deviating from the chain provision in terms of duration in a CAO if there are successive employers will be abolished. This creates the situation that the CAO can only allow deviation in respect of the number of temporary contracts in the case of subsequent employership.
• For minors, the current exception to the chain provision is maintained. For high school and higher education students who are of age and have a side job of 12 hours per week maximum, the current 6 months’ interval will remain.

On-call workers get more certainty about incomes and rosters: 

• Zero-hour contracts and min/max contracts will be abolished and replaced by bandwidth contracts.
• A bandwidth contract contains a limitation to the bandwidth of 130% of the minimal scope of work agreed.
• The availability of the employee is also restricted. Hours that can be scheduled will be 130% maximum of the guaranteed minimum hours.
• Minors, high school students and higher education students can keep working on-call, as long as they work a maximum of 16 hours per week on an annual basis. 

Workers who are made available, such as temp workers, will become entitled to equivalent terms of employment as ordinary employees:

• Workers who are made available (other than payroll workers) become entitled to a benefits package that is at least equivalent to that of the employees in identical/equivalent roles at the hirer.
• The substance of what is equivalent is set out in the CAO of the hirer. Essential terms of employment, such as salary and other emoluments and rules on work and rest times, cannot be traded off against other terms of employment.
• If there is no outsourcing CAO, the employee will be entitled to the same essential terms of employment as regular employees. In that event, the employer will have to ascertain the equivalence of the other terms of employment. 

If it concerns temp work, the temp regime remains in effect during the first 52 weeks. As a result, the employer can conclude an unlimited number of temporary contracts in this phase, include a temp work clause (which causes the contract to end when the commission stops at the hirer’s request), and exclude the obligation to continue paying wages.

Employment law has several specific prohibitions of detrimental action. It is proposed to delete these specific prohibitions and replace them by a general prohibition of detrimental action. Under this general prohibition, an employer cannot cause detriment to an employee due to the circumstance that the employee relied on the rights allocated to him. The new prohibition of detrimental action offers protection not only to flexible employees, but also to all employees who rely on a certain employee right. 

Before the new act can take effect, the proposal will have to be approved by the Dutch Senate and the Lower House of Parliament. The intended date of taking effect is 1 January 2027. An exception applies to the measures around equal terms of employment for temp workers; these could already enter into effect as of 1 January 2026. However, the recent fall of the cabinet makes it doubtful whether these dates are feasible. 

We will be monitoring developments and will of course keep you posted. Do you have any questions about the consequences of this bill for your organisation? Please feel free to contact us.