The Self-Employment Act will give companies and freelancers a clearer legal test for what counts as genuine self-employment versus disguised employment. For tech hiring, it means rates, contracts, and how much control you exercise over a contractor will matter more than they do today. Get it wrong, and you risk back taxes and fines.

You're hiring a contractor. Maybe a DevOps engineer for a six-month migration. Maybe a senior architect to unblock a stalled platform rebuild. The work is clear. The rate is agreed. The only question nobody wants to ask out loud: is this actually a freelance arrangement, or does it look enough like a job that the tax authority could disagree?

That question is about to get a legal answer. The Self-Employment Act (Zelfstandigenwet) is working its way through the Dutch legislative process, with a target start date of 2028. For anyone hiring or working as an IT contractor, this isn't abstract policy. It changes how you structure contracts, what rates look defensible, and how much oversight you can put on a freelancer without triggering an employment relationship.

The new law replaces the patchwork of rules that came before it, including the much-criticized Wet DBA enforcement model. Instead of assuming employment and letting freelancers prove otherwise case by case, the Zelfstandigenwet introduces structured tests: an entrepreneurship test and a work-relationship test, plus sector-specific presumptions.

In plain terms: the government wants clarity upfront, not disputes after the fact. That's a genuine improvement over the current situation, where contractors and clients often don't know where they stand until the tax authority shows up.

A related but separate measure is already moving faster. A civil-law presumption of employment applies to anyone working as a freelancer at an hourly rate below €38, with a reference date of 1 January 2026, according to legal analysis from a Dutch employment-law advisory site.

For IT contracting, where junior and mid-level rates can dip toward that threshold, this presumption arrives well before the main law does.

The cabinet is targeting 1 January 2028 for the Zelfstandigenwet to enter into force, following parliamentary debate throughout 2027, according to an overview of upcoming zzp legislation. A concept version of the bill is expected before the end of September 2026, after which it goes through internet consultation and review by the Council of State.

That's a longer runway than the rate-based presumption rule, which is arriving first as a kind of preview. If you hire contractors below the €38 mark today, that's where enforcement risk shows up soonest.

Nothing here is final. The exact wording of the tests, the sector exceptions, and how strictly the work-relationship test gets applied could all shift during the legislative process. What's not likely to shift: the direction. Enforcement is tightening, not loosening.

IT contracting has a structural problem the new law is aimed squarely at: a lot of freelance tech work looks a lot like a job. Same hours as the team. Same stand-ups. Same manager giving direction. Same laptop, same Slack channel, same badge.

That's not a criticism of how contractors work. It's just how agile teams operate. But it's precisely the kind of integration that the work-relationship test is built to catch.

The enforcement moratorium on the Wet DBA was lifted as of 1 January 2025, meaning the tax authority can now levy back taxes on wage tax and social premiums for misclassified relationships, according to guidance for employers on the 2026 rules. There's a soft landing through 2026, with no penalties for simple negligence, but intentional or grossly negligent misclassification can still trigger fines up to 100% of the additional tax assessment.

That's not a rounding error. That's the kind of number that gets a CFO's attention.

Waiting until 2028 is a mistake. The presumption rule lands first, and enforcement is already active. If you're staffing tech teams with contractors, three things need attention now.

Documentation. Genuine self-employment needs paper trails: multiple clients, business risk, own tools, minimal integration into your org chart. If a contractor has worked exclusively for you for two years with your equipment and your schedule, that documentation won't hold up.

Rate structure. Contracts priced near or below the €38/hour threshold carry more risk under the presumption rule. Not every low-rate contractor is misclassified, but the burden of proof does shift.

Contract design. Standard freelance templates built during the Wet DBA era won't automatically hold up. Contracts need explicit entrepreneurship indicators: right to substitute, own liability insurance, project-based rather than organizational responsibilities.

None of this is exotic. It's the same due diligence that should already exist for a role like an AI engineer role brought in on a project basis, just with sharper documentation behind it.

Expect the market to bend in a few directions. Clients nervous about the presumption rule will push toward direct employment for long-term, high-control roles. Others will lean into payrolling or employer-of-record structures for anything that sits close to the threshold.

The contractors who'll keep working as genuine freelancers are the ones who look like entrepreneurs on paper and in practice: multiple clients, their own tooling, real business risk, and enough seniority that a €38 floor is almost irrelevant to their actual rate.

Vergrijpboetes can reach 100% of the additional tax assessment in cases of deliberate or grossly negligent misclassification, following a tax office visit and audit.

That pushes demand up-market. Junior and mid-level contractor placements, the kind priced closest to the presumption threshold, become the segment most likely to convert into permanent hires or payroll arrangements. Senior specialists with genuine independence, think a contractor doing short, well-defined Azure infrastructure work across several clients, are in a much stronger position.

If you're a contractor reading this wondering whether your setup holds up, ask yourself a blunt question: could a tax inspector tell the difference between you and an employee, just by looking at how you work?

If the answer is no, that's worth addressing before the law forces the issue. Diversify clients where you can. Keep your own tools and insurance. Push back on schedules that mirror employee hours if that's not really how you want to work.

None of this is about being difficult. It's about making sure your freelance status is actually true, not just written on a contract.

The Self-Employment Act won't land until 2028. The rate-based presumption rule arrives much sooner, and enforcement against misclassification is already active. For hiring managers, that means reviewing contractor documentation and rate structures now, not waiting for the final text. For contractors, it means making sure independence is real, not just written down.

We help clients structure contractor and permanent hires so both sides know exactly where they stand, no ambiguity, no surprises later. If you're staffing tech roles and want a second opinion on how a contractor arrangement holds up, that's a conversation worth having before the law forces it.

1. het slotstuk van nieuwe zzp wetgeving.
2. Kabinet kiest voor meer rust en duidelijkheid voor zzp'ers en ...
3. Nieuws – Flexnieuws.nl
4. Wet DBA, rechtsvermoeden & Zelfstandigenwet: wat zzp'ers ... - Yezzer
5. Zelfstandigenwet 2026: wat verandert er voor zzp'ers?
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Written by our AI, read by a flesh-and-blood recruiter.