CBS shows more employees commuting from Belgium and Germany as employers weigh capacity against proof.
A small employer near Venlo does not experience the labour market as a chart. It is Thursday morning, one person is ill, a customer wants the order before the weekend, and the owner is wondering whether the extra shift can run. At that moment, a worker who lives across the border is not a statistic. He or she is the difference between yes and no.
The signal has to become readable
CBS put a sharper number on that scene on 26 June. In 2024, 91.9 thousand employees worked in the Netherlands while living in Belgium or Germany. That was 3.4 thousand more than in 2023, and the fourth yearly rise in a row. The total was almost evenly split: 45.3 thousand from Belgium and 46.6 thousand from Germany.
That is no longer a small border anecdote. It is a maturing staffing pattern. Some Dutch employers no longer recruit only from a local labour pool. Their rosters now depend on people who live outside the Netherlands, travel into a Dutch workplace, and bring payroll, tax, social security, and supplier questions with them.
The border is capacity, not comfort
The regional picture matters. CBS shows the incoming cross-border share was highest in Noord-Limburg at 7.0 percent of employees. Zuid-Limburg followed at 6.2 percent, Midden-Limburg at 5.1 percent, and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen at 4.5 percent.
Zuid-Limburg received 11.7 thousand employees from Belgium in 2024. Zuidoost-Noord-Brabant, around Eindhoven, received 10.2 thousand. Noord-Limburg received 9.6 thousand from Germany. Those are not abstract places for small business. They are logistics yards, metal workshops, care providers, shops, installers, farms, restaurants, and technical suppliers.
In those firms, one extra reliable worker can protect opening hours, production promises, or delivery dates. The wider Dutch labour market has cooled from the peak pressure of 2022, but it is still tight. CBS counted 378 thousand open vacancies at the end of the first quarter of 2026, with 91 vacancies for every 100 unemployed people. In April, 64 percent of businesses still reported staff shortages. UWV still describes Noord-Limburg, Zuidoost-Brabant, and Zeeland as tight or very tight labour markets.
So the practical question has changed. It is no longer only whether labour exists. It is whether the available labour fits the place, the hours, the skills, the language, the wage level, and the contract route.
The wage is still local
Capacity is not free because it crosses a border. From 1 July 2026, the statutory minimum hourly wage for employees aged 21 and older is €14.99. Collective agreement rates, allowances, agency margins, travel time, onboarding, and supervision can push the real cost higher.
What the signal changes
For a small employer, this is where the roster meets the margin. If cross-border staff allow more work to be accepted, the customer price must carry the labour cost. Payroll often lands before the customer pays. More work can still strain cash if debtor days stretch or if agency invoices arrive faster than sales money.
The border worker may fill a shift, but the file behind that shift still needs discipline. A cheap-looking hour can become expensive once the wage floor, travel pattern, and extra control time are counted together.
Tax, social security and the payslip
Belastingdienst says separate rules and treaties apply when personnel live or work abroad. In many treaty situations, the work country has the right to tax wages earned there. The 183-day rule only works if all of its conditions are met.
Rijksoverheid also points out that cross-border work can affect social security, including AOW accrual and Dutch health insurance coverage. That means the owner near Venlo needs more than a warm body for the shift. The company also needs to know where the person lives, where the work is done, who the employer is, and which payroll route supports the payslip.
When the facts are unclear, the payroll problem arrives late. The shift is already worked, the invoice is already sent, and the correction comes through tax or social security questions that should have been settled earlier.
The route into the workplace
CBS also shows that the nationality mix has shifted. Among employees commuting from Germany, EU citizens with Central or Eastern European nationality rose from 9.4 thousand in 2020 to 15.7 thousand in 2024. In 2024, they formed 34 percent of that group. Among employees commuting from Belgium, 54 percent had Dutch nationality and 33 percent had Belgian nationality.
That makes a Belgian or German home address a starting point, not the whole story. Dutch, other EEA, and Swiss nationals may work in the Netherlands without a work permit. Non-EEA workers often need a TWV or GVVA. Ukrainian temporary protection situations have their own notification route.
The route into the workplace matters even more when a labour lender is involved. A company that buys labour through an agency, secondment firm, or other lender is buying more than hours. It is buying a supplier file.
What founders should check
The Wet toelating terbeschikkingstelling van arbeidskrachten points in that direction. Labour lenders will need admission, and hirers may only work with admitted lenders. From 1 January 2028, the Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie may supervise and fine lenders and users that do not comply.
Posted work carries its own proof burden. Under WagwEU, employment contracts, payslips, hours records, A1 forms, and payment proof must be available at the Dutch workplace or directly digitally available for five years after the work ends.
The real decision sits on the staff list
The useful move this week is not a grand labour strategy. It is a sober look at the staff list. Which workers live in Belgium or Germany? Which are direct employees? Which come through an agency, secondment firm, or other lender? Which workers are posted by a foreign employer? Which roles sit close to the minimum wage floor? Which customer contracts absorb higher labour costs, and which do not?
This is not paperwork for its own sake. It protects against a familiar small-business mistake: solving the roster and creating a hidden margin or compliance problem. The owner sees the shift filled and feels relief. The accountant later sees agency margins, unclear social security, weak hours records, or pricing that never caught up with payroll.
The market adds another pressure. CBS reported business confidence at -14.8 at the start of the second quarter of 2026. Labour shortage remained a main obstacle for 30.1 percent of businesses, while 19.6 percent named insufficient demand. A company can need workers and still hesitate over demand. That leaves little room for casual hiring decisions.
Back in the small workshop near Venlo, the right answer may still be yes. The extra worker may protect a customer, keep a machine running, or give the owner a weekend without calling every contact in the phone.
Border labour can be real relief. Relief is strongest when the business can explain it. Who works, where, for whom, at what wage, through which supplier, under which payroll and social security position, and with what evidence if asked. That is the normal discipline of running a company in a labour market where the border has become part of the working day.
Sources
- CBS source
- CBS – Latest national labour market pressure
- CBS – Most recent unemployment signal
- CBS – Business response to staff shortages
- CBS – Business confidence and demand risk
- CBS – Foreign-born agency work
- UWV – Noord-Limburg labour market
- UWV – Zuidoost-Brabant labour market
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The Polder is written for readers who need the Dutch business environment translated into practical meaning. Corrections, source policy and editorial accountability are part of the publication record.
