Employers’ Liability

As a Dutch employer you can also choose not to hire foreign personnel yourself, but to borrow them instead from an employment agency. Bear in mind that foreign temporary employees also need to have a work permit when they are from Romania, Bulgaria or any country outside the EU. In most cases, the employment agency takes care of these issues.

Liability of the hiring company

However, you are ultimately responsible for arranging the work permit as the hiring party, since the foreign employee actually works for you. So you should always check whether this document was actually requested and make sure you always get at least one copy of it. You also need a copy of the employee’s ID to keep in your administration.

The income tax and national insurance contributions, health insurance and employee insurance are withheld from the earnings of foreign employees by the employment agency and paid to the IRS.  However, as a hiring company, you will always have something to do with with the employers’ liability.

Because of the employers’ liability, you are always responsible for withholding the obligatory taxes as a hirer / employer, but also the national insurance contributions, the employee insurance and health insurance. You should do this for all employees foreign or national, even if you had an agreement with the employment agency that they would take care of paying the taxes and premiums for various insurance policies. If the employment agency fails to meet the agreement and doesn’t pay the obligatory taxes and contributions, then the UWV and the IRS will send the tax recovery to you, being the employer / hirer of personnel.