The 2028 deadline is conditional, but the work design question has already arrived.
On a wet Tuesday afternoon, the owner of a small café can solve the week with three messages. One student covers Friday evening. A regular worker takes Sunday morning. Someone else is on standby if the terrace fills. To the owner, that feels like planning. Under the proposed Dutch flex-worker rules, it also becomes contract design.
The signal has to become readable
Rijksoverheid reported that the Tweede Kamer adopted the Wet meer zekerheid flexwerkers on 12 May 2026. The Wetgevingskalender places the bill in the Eerste Kamer phase, with a note dated 12 June 2026. If the Eerste Kamer agrees, entry into force can follow on 1 January 2028.
That gives time. It does not give room for loose habits. Small employers who still run rosters through WhatsApp, memory, and goodwill already know how quickly the real work can outrun the file.
The roster becomes contract design
The proposal covers temporary work, oproep work, and agency work. Ordinary oproep contracts are being replaced by contracts with a minimum number of paid and scheduled hours. For employers used to low paper guarantees and high real availability, that is the main break.
The proposed bandbreedtecontract gives the worker a guaranteed minimum. Required availability may reach 130 percent of that number. Above the maximum, the worker may refuse the work. Where working time is agreed over more than one month, wages must be spread evenly and paid at least monthly.
This becomes concrete when a café tries to staff a sunny Saturday. An eight-hour guarantee cannot quietly support twenty hours of compulsory availability. The minimum hours number stops being a template line. It becomes a business decision.
What the signal changes
For many small employers, that is where the pressure begins. The gap between what the file says and how work is planned becomes visible. The roster, contract, wage run, and proof file need to tell the same story. If they do not, the contradiction itself becomes the problem.
Payroll will see the mismatch first
The government’s implementation material treats salary administrators as practical support points for many SMEs. That is sensible. Payroll people often see the mismatch first. They see contracted hours, paid hours, wage periods, premium codes, and repeated patterns.
Payroll cannot make the model true. If a worker keeps being scheduled every weekend, or paid hours keep outrunning the contract, the wage file will not hide that tension. It will record it.
UWV says the low WW premium applies to a written indefinite contract that is not an oproep contract. A revision signal can arise when paid hours in a year are more than 30 percent above contracted hours. The government links the proposed 130 percent bandwidth to that existing 30 percent line.
For an employer, the control point is plain. Contract, roster, and payroll declaration have to speak the same language.
The labour market gives little spare room
CBS reported more than 2.7 million employees with a flexible employment relationship in the first quarter of 2026, up 17,000 from the previous quarter. CBS also counted 378,000 open vacancies, 91 vacancies per 100 unemployed people, and unemployment at 4.0 percent. The market has cooled, but it is still tight enough to reward sloppy planning.
Flexibility still needs a clean file
The reform does not end flexibility. Temporary contracts remain part of the picture. After Tweede Kamer amendments, the interruption period after three temporary contracts is three years, not the earlier proposed five years. Year-hours systems can still fit seasonal or project-based work. Certain young people, school pupils, students with side jobs, and AOW workers may still work on an oproep basis where the conditions are met.
Hospitality shows why that exception matters. UWV says almost 60 percent of hospitality workers are aged 15 to 25, mainly school pupils and students with side jobs who work evenings and weekends. UWV also cites CBS expectations that the number of 15 to 25 year olds will fall by 8.3 percent up to 2040.
So the student exception helps, but it does not solve every peak shift. A café, shop, festival, pool, caterer, or seasonal employer still has to ask which hours are predictable, which are seasonal, and which are covered only by habit.
The escape routes are narrower than they look
Moving work outside payroll does not remove the control issue. Belastingdienst enforcement on employment relationships resumed on 1 January 2025. If schijnzelfstandigheid is found, correction obligations and payroll-tax assessments can follow. From 2026, vergrijpboetes can also be imposed in these cases, while verzuimboetes are not imposed in 2026.
What founders should check
Agency labour is becoming more controlled too. Under the Wtta, assessment of labour-lending companies starts on 1 July 2027. From 1 January 2028, the Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie will supervise the admission system and may impose fines on non-admitted lenders and on borrowers that use them.
Buying labour through another company can still be lawful. It also becomes a supplier file, not just an invoice.
The cost is hidden flexibility
For many small employers, the first cost is not a legal memo. It is the loss of hidden flexibility. A guaranteed minimum gives the worker more income certainty, and that may help retention. It also gives the employer a steadier wage obligation.
That obligation has to sit beside rent, suppliers, tax dates, debtor days, and quiet months. The government estimated annual structural regulatory costs for companies at €7.23 million, with most costs expected at large companies. For a small employer, the more useful question is local: which hours are already predictable but are still treated as optional?
Before asking for a new template, map the work. Who is on oproep, min-max, temporary, student, AOW, agency, seasonal, or zzp terms? Which hours repeat every week? Which follow the season? Which are real emergency cover?
Back at the café, the owner still needs people on Friday night. The law will not pour coffee, prepare tables, or find a replacement for a sick cook. But it may change what a responsible roster looks like.
The best preparation is calm and early. Treat flexibility as something to design, price, document, and review. If the bill passes, 2028 will bring more than new worker rules. It will test whether the company’s people planning matches the work that actually happens.
Sources
- CBS source
- Wet meer zekerheid flexwerkers – rol salarisadministrateur voor mkb en bandbreedtecontract · Salaris Vanmorgen
- Rijksoverheid – Latest legislative status and 2028 timing
- Overheid.nl – Current parliamentary step
- Rijksoverheid – Core contract mechanics: zero hours, bandwidth, and payroll records
- Rijksoverheid – SME implementation, payroll administrator role, and practical doing ability
- Rijksoverheid – Regulatory burden and execution risk
- CBS – Who is inside flex: oproep, inval, students, and low-security work
Referenced in the article
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