Home help, butler, care worker, domestic worker, governess, nanny, charwoman, companion, cleaner: you have rights, even as undocumented worker!
Check your rights as a domestic worker in Dutch.
What are the characteristics of a domestic worker?
Domestic workers are a colourful hotchpotch: home help, butler, care worker, gardener, governess, charwoman, nanny, cleaner, companion. All work in a private household; the employer is a person, not a company. Estimates about numbers run from hundred thousands to more than a million. All these workers share the following characteristics:
- They work on one, two or three days per week for the same employer (maybe for ten households or private employers per week);
- They have less social rights than all other workers. For instance: no entitlement to an unemployment benefit;
- Often their employers are not familiar with the employer obligations.
Dutch law distinguishes between domestic workers who work on one, two or three days for the same employer and domestic workers who work on four days or more. In the last case the domestic worker enjoys the same rights as all other workers in other sectors. Domestic workers who work on three days or less for the same employer have less social rights. The number of hours they work is not relevant in this respect. The domestic worker who works 24 hours in three days has less social protection than the one who works one hour per day Monday to Friday.
What are your rights in the Netherlands?
When you work on less than four days in a private household the so called Home Services Regulation is applicable (in Dutch: Dienstverlening aan huis). This is also the case when you work for several households, meaning several employers. The Homes Services Regulation implies amongst others that the employer is not responsible for deducting and transferring taxes to the Tax Office and that the worker is not entitled to social security benefits.
One of the government's main reasons for this special Home Services Regulation is that private households should not be burdened with all administrative requirements, connected to the hiring of employees.
However, some legal obligations are applicable. You are anyway entitled to:
- The Statutory Minimum Wage;
- Holliday Allowance of 8% on top of the wages;
- Four weeks of paid leave every year;
- Six weeks of sickness benefit (at least 70% of the wages);
- Safe working conditions;
- At least one month notification before termination of employments;
- Paid maternity leave (via UWV);
- Paid leave in case of emergency (including care responsibilities)
The employer is not obliged to supply you with an employment contract. However, if you ask for it a written statement with the terms of employment should be provided.
Download Loonwijzers model employment contract in PDF.
All domestic workers are entitled to these rights, regardless their legal status, working permit and/or residence documents. Applying for a maternity benefit at UWV can meet some difficulties because UWV will start to ask your citizen service number (BSN). The entitlement, however, exists in line with international legislation.
What wages could you negotiate?
Your employer ought to pay you at least the Statutory Minimum Wage. However, since you ‘enjoy’ diminished social protection, while your employer does not contribute to social security it is fair to negotiate about a higher wage. Some domestic workers have contributed to the Salaris-Enquête and the Salaris-Check. You can use the outcomes! Take into account that figures are most likely based on workers under a collective agreement, with full social rights. As domestic worker you ought to earn more, because you have to accumulate your savings for invalidity and old age pension yourself.
Domestic workers with some 15 years of work experience, who started at the age of 15, earn between € 14,25 and € 18,75 per hour (average € 19,60). With less experience average wages are less. You could ask for at least € 13,50 per hour. That is a little bit above the Statutory Minimum Wage, but hardly enough to make a living, even with ten employers! Therefore Loonwijzer advises you to request at least € 14 per hour: that is the level the statutory minimum wage ought to be if it had kept with the average wage growth over the last decade or so.
Anyway: at the moment there are shortages in the labour market in this sector. You should make use of that and ask for a higher wage!
Watch out: in case you work via intermediaries which pay your wages, the rules and rights as described above are not applicable, because you should have an agency work employment contract (in Dutch: uitzendovereenkomst).
The intermediary organisation is not allowed to charge you for any costs. In a court case of the FNV against Helpling the High Court in Amsterdam judged that Helpling is a Temporary Employment Agency (September 2021). This means that the Collective Agreement for Agency Work is applicable. In January 2023, Helpling NL was declared bankrupt. The opinion of the High Court in the Helpling case is nevertheless still relevant with respect to other intermediary organisations.