A fast shift can still help. The labour chain now needs cleaner governance.
On a busy Friday, a small restaurant owner does not think in legal categories. The terrace is full, two people have called in sick, and an app offers someone who can start at six. The shift is saved. The bill comes later.
The signal has to become readable
That ordinary scene is why the Amsterdam Court of Appeal’s ruling matters. On 16 June 2026, in ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2026:1612, the court held that Temper workers are uitzendkrachten. It classified the relationship as an uitzendovereenkomst and reached the opposite conclusion from the court at first instance.
This is a governance signal, not a funeral for flexible work. The court has pushed a familiar business habit into a stricter corner of Dutch labour law. If a platform sends people into someone else’s work floor, the platform label matters less than who directs the shift.
The work floor decides more than the label
Article 7:690 BW sets the Dutch test. An uitzendovereenkomst exists when an employee is made available by the employer, in the course of that employer’s business, to a third party to work under that third party’s direction and supervision.
The Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie draws the same line in its Waadi guidance. Matching is one thing. Making workers available under the client’s direction and supervision is another.
For a small business, the difference shows up in the roster, the WhatsApp instruction, the kitchen briefing, the till password, the safety rule, and the person who says whether the work was good enough.
Yet the signal travels wider. When a worker enters an ordinary company shift, follows the client’s daily instructions, and works inside the client’s operational rhythm, the agency-work question moves closer to the file.
The clean invoice can hide a longer chain
Once the arrangement looks like terbeschikkingstelling, the invoice is only part of the story. Waadi rules enter the room. Workers made available, including agency workers and payroll workers, are entitled to the same or equivalent employment conditions as comparable employees at the inlener. That can reach pay, allowances, working time, and other terms.
What the signal changes
Registration matters too. Outleners that make workers available for payment must register that activity in the KVK Handelsregister. The inlener must be able to show the check. The Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie can fine both sides when registration is missing or incorrect. The current Waadi staffel runs from €8,000 for 1 to 10 workers to €32,000 for 30 or more.
Safety follows the person into the workplace. For agency workers, both the agency and the inlener have duties. The inlener carries the largest responsibility on site. Before the worker starts, the inlener must explain the work, risks, and safety measures, and send the relevant RI&E information to the agency.
Tax and cash sit in the same chain. The Belastingdienst ended its handhavingsmoratorium on employment relationships on 1 January 2025. Normal enforcement applies again. If it finds false self-employment, it can impose corrections and payroll-tax assessments without first giving aanwijzingen. From 1 January 2026, it can impose vergrijpboetes, while it says it will not impose verzuimboetes in 2026.
Inleners and doorleners can be held liable for an outlener’s unpaid wage tax and VAT. A verklaring betalingsgedrag, the right paperwork, and a g-rekening can limit the damage. They also change payment discipline, which is often where the real pressure starts.
The market pressure is real
That lands in a labour market already leaning hard on flexible capacity. CBS reported on 23 June 2026 that in the first quarter of 2026 there were 2.7 million flexible employees, 63 thousand more than a year earlier. It also reported nearly 1.5 million self-employed workers, 88 thousand fewer than a year earlier.
That is the market behind the restaurant terrace, the warehouse evening shift, and the event crew. Small businesses need people quickly. They also need prices that still work after payroll, safety, and tax rules have been counted.
False cheapness is the quiet risk. A platform rate may look tidy because it arrives as one number. If the relationship belongs in the agency-work corner, the cost base widens.
What founders should check
The 2026 AWf premium is 2.74 percent at the low rate and 7.74 percent at the high rate. The low rate belongs to written, indefinite, non-on-call contracts, subject to revision rules. Flexible arrangements usually have to be costed closer to the high rate. On top of that, UWV sets the base WAO/WIA premium from 1 January 2026 at 7.63 percent, with Whk components that vary by risk, size, and sector.
There is also a time problem. In Upfield, the Supreme Court held that successive assignments to the same inlener can become misuse when the period no longer reasonably looks temporary and no objective explanation exists. A general need for a flexible shell was not enough for thirteen years of continuous hiring-in of the same agency worker.
A calmer director response
The practical response begins with knowing what the company is really buying. A founder can separate true independent assignments, simple matching, staffing supply, and agency-style shifts. Each category needs a different record, a different price view, and a different level of supplier check.
Return to the Friday restaurant. If the app worker gets the table section, follows the manager’s instructions, uses the restaurant’s systems, works in the team’s safety rhythm, and is judged like other staff, the invoice is not the only relevant document.
In that situation, supplier registration, pay comparison, safety instruction, and tax-chain handling belong near the roster. The file should tell the same story as the shift.
A genuine independent specialist is different. That person brings a method, carries result risk, and stays outside daily supervision. Good governance keeps those stories apart before a question arrives from an inspector, a worker, a tax officer, or a court.
Flexibility can still be useful. The weaker habit is pretending that speed removes responsibility. A small company does not need courtroom language for every shift. It needs rosters, invoices, supplier checks, safety notes, and payment choices that tell the same story. That is how a fast solution stays clean after the person has gone home.
Sources
- CBS source
- Hof Amsterdam merkt Temper aan als uitzendonderneming
- Rechtspraak (Gerechtshof Amsterdam) – Temper ruling: platform workers are agency workers
- Wettenbank (BW Boek 7, art. 7:690) – Legal anchor: definition of an uitzendovereenkomst
- Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie (Waadi art. 8/8a) – Equal treatment for hired‑out workers (inlenersbeloning)
- Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie – Waadi registration duty and fines (art. 7a Waadi)
- Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie (Waadi art. 9 en 9a) – Belemmeringsverbod and no charging workers
- Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie – Intermediation vs hiring‑out: the functional test
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