{
  "schema_version": "1.2",
  "type": "howto_guide",
  "slug": "check-your-employment-contract",
  "canonical_url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract",
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract",
    "json": "https://howtoin.nl/content/guides/check-your-employment-contract.json",
    "markdown": "https://howtoin.nl/md/check-your-employment-contract.md"
  },
  "title": "How to check your employment contract in NL",
  "short_title": "check your employment contract",
  "summary": "What to read before you sign a Dutch employment contract, and what your employer must put in writing in the first week and the first month. Covers probation, notice, the CAO and the non-compete clause (concurrentiebeding).",
  "themes": [
    "Work"
  ],
  "keywords": [
    "dutch employment contract",
    "arbeidsovereenkomst controleren",
    "probation netherlands proeftijd",
    "non-compete netherlands concurrentiebeding",
    "opzegtermijn notice period netherlands",
    "cao collective labour agreement netherlands",
    "temporary contract netherlands"
  ],
  "audience": "Anyone about to sign, or who has just started on, a Dutch employment contract",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-09-02",
  "estimated_time": "An hour to read the contract properly against this checklist, and a second hour if a collective labour agreement applies and you have to read that too. Ask for the time: an employer that will not give you a day to read a contract has told you something useful.",
  "intro": "A Dutch employment contract sits on top of two things it will not always mention: the statutory minimums in the Civil Code, and any collective labour agreement (cao) that applies to the sector or the company. Those set floors the contract cannot go below, and in some places they set the terms outright. This guide is the pre-signing and first-week read. What your rights are once you are working, and what to do when something goes wrong, is a separate guide.",
  "before_you_start": "Ask two questions before you read a word of the contract. Does a collective labour agreement apply, and if so which one, because it can override what the contract says about pay, probation and notice. And is this a fixed-term contract or a permanent one, because almost every rule below branches on that. If the contract is in Dutch and you are not confident reading it, ask for an English version alongside; you are signing the Dutch one either way, so it is worth understanding it.",
  "timing": "The employer's written information duty runs from your start date, not from signature. Rijksoverheid states that within 1 week of starting work you must be given in writing the names and places of residence of both parties, the place or places where you work, your role or the kind of work you do, the date you started, the duration of a temporary contract, your hours per day or per week, the amount of your salary and when it is paid, and the length of any probation period. Within 1 month you must be given the amount of the holiday allowance, the number of holiday days, the length of the notice period, and where they apply your pension scheme, your non-compete clause and the collective labour agreement.",
  "authorities": [
    "het-juridisch-loket",
    "overheid-nl",
    "rijksoverheid"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
      "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
      "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/wat-staat-er-in-een-arbeidsovereenkomst",
      "label": "What is in an employment contract, and what must be given in writing"
    },
    {
      "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
      "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
      "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/hoelang-duurt-een-proeftijd",
      "label": "How long a probation period may be"
    },
    {
      "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
      "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
      "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/ontslag/ontslagen-worden-opzegtermijn-werkgever",
      "label": "The employer's statutory notice period by length of service"
    },
    {
      "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
      "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
      "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/wat-is-een-concurrentiebeding",
      "label": "The non-compete clause, and the status of the proposed reform"
    },
    {
      "authority_id": "het-juridisch-loket",
      "organisation": "Het Juridisch Loket",
      "url": "https://www.juridischloket.nl/werk-en-inkomen/",
      "label": "Work and income: free legal information"
    }
  ],
  "steps": [
    {
      "number": 1,
      "id": "step-1",
      "anchor": "#step-1",
      "url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract#step-1",
      "title": "Find out whether a collective labour agreement applies",
      "description": "A collective labour agreement (cao) can set pay scales, allowances, probation, notice and much else, and where it applies it can override what the contract in front of you says. It is also where several statutory rules allow deviations that are otherwise not permitted, including different probation rules on temporary contracts. Rijksoverheid lists the collective agreement among the things the employer must give you in writing within a month of starting, but you want to know before you sign, not after.",
      "action": "Ask the employer, in writing, which collective labour agreement applies, and ask for a copy or a link to it.",
      "documents": [
        "The job offer",
        "The name of the collective labour agreement, if one applies"
      ],
      "timing": "Ask before you sign",
      "warning": "Assuming no collective agreement applies because the contract does not mention one. Ask the question directly.",
      "source": {
        "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
        "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
        "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/wat-staat-er-in-een-arbeidsovereenkomst",
        "label": "What is in an employment contract, and what must be provided in writing"
      }
    },
    {
      "number": 2,
      "id": "step-2",
      "anchor": "#step-2",
      "url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract#step-2",
      "title": "Check the probation clause against the contract length",
      "description": "Probation is where contracts most often overreach. Rijksoverheid states that with a temporary contract of 6 months or shorter the employer may not agree a probation period at all. For a temporary contract longer than 6 months but shorter than 2 years, and for a temporary contract with no fixed end date, the maximum is 1 month. For a temporary contract of 2 years or longer, and for permanent employment, the maximum is 2 months. A probation period is never longer than 2 months. Other rules for temporary contracts are possible only where a collective labour agreement provides for them.",
      "action": "Read the contract length and the probation clause together, and challenge any probation period that exceeds the maximum for that length.",
      "documents": [
        "The draft contract",
        "The collective labour agreement, if one applies"
      ],
      "timing": "15 minutes",
      "warning": "A probation clause in a contract of 6 months or shorter is not valid, and one that runs beyond the maximum is a problem the employer needs to fix before you sign.",
      "source": {
        "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
        "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
        "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/hoelang-duurt-een-proeftijd",
        "label": "How long a probation period may be"
      }
    },
    {
      "number": 3,
      "id": "step-3",
      "anchor": "#step-3",
      "url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract#step-3",
      "title": "Check the notice period on both sides",
      "description": "For permanent employment the employer's statutory notice period depends on your length of service: 1 month under 5 years, 2 months between 5 and 10 years, 3 months between 10 and 15 years, and 4 months at 15 years or longer. From your AOW age the employer's notice period is 1 month. Longer periods can be agreed in the contract and shorter ones can come from a collective labour agreement, and where your own notice period is set longer than one month the employer's must be twice as long. A fixed-term contract has no notice period at the end: it ends on the agreed date.",
      "action": "Read your own notice period and the employer's together, and check the relationship between them if yours is longer than a month.",
      "documents": [
        "The draft contract",
        "The collective labour agreement, if one applies"
      ],
      "timing": "15 minutes",
      "warning": "The general statutory ladder tops out at 4 months. A claim that employer notice runs to five months is not the ordinary rule.",
      "source": {
        "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
        "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
        "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/ontslag/ontslagen-worden-opzegtermijn-werkgever",
        "label": "The employer's notice period by length of service"
      }
    },
    {
      "number": 4,
      "id": "step-4",
      "anchor": "#step-4",
      "url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract#step-4",
      "title": "Read the non-compete clause and its written justification",
      "description": "A non-compete clause (concurrentiebeding) restricts what you can do after this job ends, so it is the clause with the longest reach. In a temporary contract it is generally not allowed, with one exception: where the employer can show compelling business or service interests. Rijksoverheid states that a motivation in the contract must make clear why those interests exist, and that without that motivation the clause is not valid. Reform has been announced, including a maximum duration of one year, a stated geographic scope and compensation, but Rijksoverheid states that the government expects to send the bill to the Tweede Kamer at the end of 2026 after the Council of State has advised. That is a proposal, not the law you are signing under.",
      "action": "If the contract is temporary and carries a non-compete clause, find the written justification in it and read what it actually says.",
      "documents": [
        "The draft contract",
        "Any separate confidentiality or non-solicitation clauses"
      ],
      "timing": "20 minutes",
      "warning": "Do not rely on the announced reform. Until the bill is passed and in force, the current rules apply to the clause you sign today.",
      "source": {
        "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
        "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
        "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/wat-is-een-concurrentiebeding",
        "label": "The non-compete clause, and the status of the proposed reform"
      }
    },
    {
      "number": 5,
      "id": "step-5",
      "anchor": "#step-5",
      "url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract#step-5",
      "title": "Work through the rest of the checklist",
      "description": "Beyond the clauses with statutory maximums, check the things that are only agreements and are therefore easy to get wrong: the employing entity's exact name, your job title and duties, the start date, whether it is fixed-term or permanent, contracted hours, gross salary and when it is paid, holiday days, holiday allowance, pension, where you work and any hybrid arrangement, overtime, training, and whether you are being engaged directly, through an agency or on a payroll construction. The statutory minimum holiday entitlement is four times the number of hours you work per week per year, which is four weeks.",
      "action": "Go through the contract clause by clause against this list and write down every point that is missing or that does not match what you were told.",
      "documents": [
        "The draft contract and its annexes",
        "The written offer or email trail"
      ],
      "timing": "An hour",
      "warning": "A contract that states a monthly salary but no hours, or duties defined only as 'such work as the employer directs', leaves you without the anchors you need later.",
      "source": {
        "authority_id": "overheid-nl",
        "organisation": "Overheid.nl",
        "url": "https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005290/2026-07-01#Boek7_Titeldeel10_Afdeling3_Artikel634",
        "label": "Burgerlijk Wetboek Book 7, article 634 (minimum holiday entitlement)"
      }
    },
    {
      "number": 6,
      "id": "step-6",
      "anchor": "#step-6",
      "url": "https://howtoin.nl/check-your-employment-contract#step-6",
      "title": "Check the written information you are owed after you start",
      "description": "Two deadlines run from your start date rather than from signature. Within 1 week you must have in writing the names and places of residence of both parties, the place or places where you work, your role or the kind of work, the start date, the duration of a temporary contract, your hours per day or week, your salary and when it is paid, and any probation period. Within 1 month you must have the holiday allowance, the number of holiday days, the notice period, and where they apply your pension scheme, your non-compete clause and the collective labour agreement.",
      "action": "Diarise both dates, check what you have received against the two lists, and ask in writing for anything missing.",
      "documents": [
        "The signed contract",
        "Everything the employer sent after your start date"
      ],
      "timing": "1 week and 1 month from your start date",
      "warning": "Waiting quietly for missing information. Asking in writing costs nothing and creates the record you would need later.",
      "source": {
        "authority_id": "rijksoverheid",
        "organisation": "Rijksoverheid",
        "url": "https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/vraag-en-antwoord/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/wat-staat-er-in-een-arbeidsovereenkomst",
        "label": "The information the employer must give in writing, and when"
      }
    }
  ],
  "documents": [
    "The draft contract, in full, including any annexes or staff handbook it refers to",
    "The collective labour agreement (cao), if one applies",
    "The written offer or email trail, so you can check the contract matches what was agreed",
    "Your BSN and a copy of your ID, which the employer needs for payroll",
    "Your residence document, if your right to work depends on it"
  ],
  "costs": [
    {
      "text": "Checking a contract yourself costs nothing. Het Juridisch Loket publishes free legal information online for everyone, and states that people on a low income can also get personal advice from its lawyers."
    },
    {
      "text": "A lawyer or an employment law specialist reviewing a contract charges an hourly rate that varies widely by firm, so ask for the rate and an estimate before instructing anyone."
    },
    {
      "text": "Union membership is charged as a subscription and the amount depends on the union and on your income, so check the union's own scale."
    }
  ],
  "warnings": [
    {
      "kind": "common_mistake",
      "text": "Believing a Dutch employment contract has to be in writing to exist. Rijksoverheid states that you can conclude an employment contract in writing or orally. A written contract is far better evidence, but an oral agreement is not automatically invalid."
    },
    {
      "kind": "common_mistake",
      "text": "Accepting a probation clause that the contract length does not allow. A temporary contract of 6 months or shorter may not carry one at all, and the maximum is never longer than 2 months."
    },
    {
      "kind": "common_mistake",
      "text": "Assuming a non-compete clause in a temporary contract is unenforceable. It is generally not allowed in a temporary contract, but it is allowed where the employer can show compelling business or service interests, and the contract must contain a written motivation explaining them. Without that motivation the clause is not valid."
    },
    {
      "kind": "common_mistake",
      "text": "Treating the announced reform of non-compete clauses as if it were already law. Rijksoverheid describes proposals including a maximum duration of one year, a defined geographic scope and compensation, and states that the government expects to send the bill to the Tweede Kamer at the end of 2026 after the Council of State has advised. Until then the current rules apply."
    },
    {
      "kind": "common_mistake",
      "text": "Expecting the employer's notice period to run to five months. The general statutory ladder tops out at 4 months for 15 years of service or longer."
    },
    {
      "kind": "common_mistake",
      "text": "Signing without reading the collective labour agreement. Where one applies it can set pay scales, allowances, probation and notice, and it can be more favourable than the contract in front of you."
    },
    {
      "kind": "step_warning",
      "step": 1,
      "text": "Assuming no collective agreement applies because the contract does not mention one. Ask the question directly."
    },
    {
      "kind": "step_warning",
      "step": 2,
      "text": "A probation clause in a contract of 6 months or shorter is not valid, and one that runs beyond the maximum is a problem the employer needs to fix before you sign."
    },
    {
      "kind": "step_warning",
      "step": 3,
      "text": "The general statutory ladder tops out at 4 months. A claim that employer notice runs to five months is not the ordinary rule."
    },
    {
      "kind": "step_warning",
      "step": 4,
      "text": "Do not rely on the announced reform. Until the bill is passed and in force, the current rules apply to the clause you sign today."
    },
    {
      "kind": "step_warning",
      "step": 5,
      "text": "A contract that states a monthly salary but no hours, or duties defined only as 'such work as the employer directs', leaves you without the anchors you need later."
    },
    {
      "kind": "step_warning",
      "step": 6,
      "text": "Waiting quietly for missing information. Asking in writing costs nothing and creates the record you would need later."
    }
  ],
  "conditions": {
    "title": "Which contract are you being offered?",
    "intro": "The probation and notice rules turn on this, so establish it before you negotiate anything.",
    "options": [
      {
        "label": "A fixed-term contract of 6 months or less",
        "detail": "Rijksoverheid states that with a temporary contract of 6 months or shorter your employer may not agree a probation period at all. A probation clause in a contract of this length is not valid. There is no notice period to observe at the end: a fixed-term contract ends on the agreed date."
      },
      {
        "label": "A fixed-term contract longer than 6 months but shorter than 2 years",
        "detail": "The maximum probation period is 1 month, and the same maximum applies to a temporary contract with no fixed end date. Other rules for probation on temporary contracts are possible, but only where a collective labour agreement provides for them."
      },
      {
        "label": "A fixed-term contract of 2 years or longer",
        "detail": "The maximum probation period is 2 months, the same as for a permanent contract. Rijksoverheid states that a probation period is never longer than 2 months."
      },
      {
        "label": "A permanent contract",
        "detail": "The maximum probation period is 2 months. The employer's statutory notice period then depends on how long you have been employed: under 5 years is 1 month, between 5 and 10 years is 2 months, between 10 and 15 years is 3 months, and 15 years or longer is 4 months."
      }
    ]
  },
  "next_steps": [
    "Check that the written information duty was met: the first-week list within a week of starting, the rest within a month. If something is missing, ask for it in writing.",
    "Read the first payslip against the contract, line by line, and query anything that does not match.",
    "File the signed contract, the collective labour agreement and the written information somewhere you can find them, because they are the evidence in any later dispute.",
    "Once you are working, move on to what your rights are and where to go when something is wrong, which is a different question from what the contract says."
  ],
  "related_guides": [
    "understand-your-employment-rights",
    "apply-for-the-30-percent-ruling",
    "apply-for-a-gvva",
    "navigate-your-phd-career"
  ],
  "publisher": {
    "name": "How to in NL",
    "url": "https://howtoin.nl",
    "relationship": "publisher",
    "parent": {
      "name": "Flux Forward",
      "url": "https://fluxforward.world"
    }
  }
}