The long-awaited amended bill on the Clarification of the Assessment of Employment Relationships and Legal Presumption (Verduidelijking beoordeling arbeidsrelaties en rechtsvermoeden; Vbar Bill) was submitted to the House of Representatives on 7 July 2025. In the original proposal from 2023, the legal assessment of the employment relationship consisted of three elements: criteria indicating employee status (W), criteria indicating self-employment within an assignment (Z), and Personal Entrepreneurship (outside the assignment) (OP). The assessment initially focused on whether clarity regarding the employment classification could be obtained based on W and Z. If this was not possible, OP was then considered.
The government amended the bill following the Supreme Court’s Uber judgment (HR 21 February 2025, ECLI:NL:HR:2025:319), which held that no hierarchy should be applied to the factors as formulated in the Deliveroo judgment (HR 23 March 2023, ECLI:NL:HR:2023:443). This meant that the hierarchy previously established in the bill between the W and Z criteria on the one hand, and the OP criteria on the other, could not be maintained.
In the amended bill, the qualification of the employment relationship is now based on two elements: W and Z. The OP element has been incorporated into the self-employment assessment. The criteria regarding independent entrepreneurship are primarily aimed at whether the self-employed person operates at their own expense and risk. The criteria for employee status focus on substantive or organizational direction and control. Companies will need to assess, for each assignment, whether the individual qualifies as self-employed or as an employee.
Additionally, the bill aims to provide greater protection to low-paid pseudo self-employed workers by introducing a legal presumption. For self-employed persons (zzp’ers) earning less than EUR 36 per hour, there will be a legal presumption of employee status. This will make it easier for them to claim employee rights. If a self-employed person invokes this presumption, it is up to the employer to prove that the individual is genuinely self-employed and not an employee. This provision remains unchanged from the previous version of the Vbar Bill.
The bill still needs to be considered by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The intended effective date is 1 July 2026. The law does not provide for transitional arrangements, meaning that the new rules will apply immediately upon entry into force. The bill has competition, given the recently published private member’s bill self-employed persons (Zelfstandigenwet).
From:
To:
