An international specialist accepts a Dutch job. The founder has discussed take-home pay, the recruiter has celebrated, and payroll expects the 30% facility to continue. Then someone notices that the employee left the previous employer more than three months before the new employment contract came into existence.
That boundary deserves attention. Article 10ed of the Uitvoeringsbesluit loonbelasting 1965 governs an external change of withholding agent. No more than three months may pass between the end of the former employment and the conclusion of the new employment contract.
Continuation is not automatic. The employee and new employer submit a joint request, and the new employer must establish that the employee still qualifies as an incoming employee. The Supreme Court confirmed in 2016 that the three-month boundary is a fixed condition.
The clocks do not agree
Recruitment creates more dates than most people expect. There is the former employment end date, the offer, acceptance, contract signature, first working day, application date and first payroll run. Each person involved tends to remember the date that belongs to their own work.
The law focuses on when the new employment contract was concluded. Belastingdienst guidance also refers to starting work within three months. Its 2026 application process asks for a signed contract and, where it was signed later, evidence that the agreement came into existence within the three-month period.
That makes a complete timeline a sensible control document. An accepted offer, a signed contract and a first working day may sit weeks apart. Payroll should not have to reconstruct that sequence after the tax treatment has appeared on a payslip.
Consider a software company hiring a specialist whose previous job ended on 31 March. The commercial team agrees the main terms in June. Legal finishes the contract in July, and the employee starts in August. Whether June produced a concluded employment contract now affects the tax treatment behind the promised package.
Promise meets payroll
For 2026, the standard salary test requires qualifying pay above €48,013, excluding the tax-free reimbursement. For an eligible employee under 30 with a qualifying master's degree, the figure is above €36,497. The maximum tax-free reimbursement is €78,600 for a full year. It is reached at annual salary of €262,000 or more.
Those figures turn a timing issue into a commercial conversation. If continuation cannot support the payroll treatment, the employee may receive less net pay than expected. The employer may face a request for compensation or a gross-up. A recruitment benefit can become an unplanned monthly cost.
The alternative is not always simple. Since 1 January 2026, extra living costs in the Netherlands and private calls with the country of origin no longer qualify for tax-free reimbursement under the ETK rules. Replacing the expatregeling with expense payments can therefore produce a very different tax result.
The package also needs a longer view. The maximum percentage remains 30% in 2026. It falls to 27% from 2027 for relevant newer entrants, subject to transitional rules. A founder needs to know which rate and remaining term sit behind the net-pay expectation discussed during recruitment.
The software company now has a human problem as well as a payroll problem. The employee may have chosen a home, school or relocation budget around the expected monthly amount. A technically correct payroll correction can still damage trust when the hiring conversation promised more than the company can carry.
Ownership before paperwork
A move within a designated coherent group of withholding agents follows a separate Belastingdienst route. If the conditions are met, the existing decision can remain valid. This distinction is easy to miss during a restructuring, acquisition or payroll migration, because the employee may experience no visible change at all.
The legal employer can change while the desk, manager and work remain the same. That makes entity changes a payroll-control question, not merely an HR administration task. Someone needs to establish whether the move is external, within a group, or part of a wider transaction before payroll assumes continuity.
Annual salary testing creates another control point. Belastingdienst requires employers to check whether the income threshold continues to be met. If annual pay falls below the indexed amount, the arrangement ends from 1 January of that year. Earlier payroll tax returns then require correction.
Variable pay, unpaid leave and changes in hours can matter. So can a salary increase that arrives later than planned. The company needs the payroll calculation to match the offer, the contract and the actual wage paid.
The useful response is modest. One person in HR, payroll or finance should own the timeline before the first salary run. That person needs the former employment end date, contract evidence, first working day, application status, salary calculation and the terms promised during recruitment.
A deadline is not a labour-market opinion
CBS counted 375,000 open vacancies in the second quarter of 2026, equal to 95 vacancies for every 100 unemployed people. The market remains tight, particularly for firms hiring specialist staff. That pressure helps explain why employers build packages around talent they do not want to lose.
It does not remove the need for a clean payroll file. A busy recruitment team can negotiate quickly and document slowly. The founder may approve a package in one meeting while the contract, tax request and payroll instruction travel through three separate desks.
Three months sounds generous until several departments each use part of it. The calm response is to connect the hiring promise, contract dates and payroll treatment while the facts are fresh. Then the first payslip reflects a decision the company can explain, fund and stand behind.
Need clarity on contract dates, the payroll file, and the hiring promise before the first salary run?
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Paolo Maria Pavan before publication.
References
- Overschrijding driemaandstermijn blokkeert 30%-regeling · Salaris Vanmorgen
- Wettenbank - Statutory three-month boundary for continuation after a change of employer
- Belastingdienst - Belastingdienst process for employer changes and continuing eligibility
- Belastingdienst - Evidence required in the official continuation application
- Belastingdienst - 2026 expatregeling thresholds, cap and payroll value
- Rijksoverheid - 2026 changes to ETK reimbursements outside the expatregeling
- Rijksoverheid - Forward change to the expatregeling from 2027
- CBS - Labour-market context for the scarcity assumption behind the rule
