As an employee, you are entitled to a certain number of days leave per year. This is regulated by law. In terms of hours, this amounts to four times the number of hours you work per week. For example, if you work 25 hours per week for the entire year, you are entitled to 100 leave hours per year. This means that you can take 4 weeks of holiday per year. You can also take your holiday allowance as individual hours. Your employer will continue to pay you your wages for your days of holiday.

In the Netherlands, statutory days of holiday cannot be traded in for extra wages. If you haven’t used your holiday entitlement in a calendar year, it will expire 6 months after the calendar month in which it was accrued. If you leave your employment, for instance, because you have a new job, then the remaining holiday entitlement will be paid out.
In certain cases, arrangements will have been made in respect of additional holiday entitlement over and above the statutory number of days. This will be set out in your collective labour agreement (CAO) or your employment contract. Please check your collective labour agreement to find out about the rules that are applicable to your sector.

In the Netherlands we have a number of official holidays. These are public holidays, such as New Year’s Day, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, Whit Monday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and King’s Day. There is no law in the Netherlands that stipulates that employees are entitled to a day off on these official public holidays. Whether or not you have to work on a public holiday is regulated and set out in the collective labour agreement. If this public holiday falls on a weekday on which you usually work, your employer will pay your wages for this day. It is possible to deviate from this if arrangements for this are in place. Please check your sector’s collective labour agreement. This will tell you which Dutch public holidays you are entitled to as a day off.

If you fall ill during your holiday, you must report this immediately to your employer. You must also inform your employer of your holiday address and you must remain contactable. In this case, you will not lose your holiday entitlement for those days on which you are ill, as this becomes sick leave. You and your employer will reach agreement on when you can take your holiday hours at another time.

If you recover while on holiday, you must also report this to your employer. These days will then be converted back to holiday entitlement.  

If you are off sick and unable to work (partially or fully), you still continue to build up holiday entitlement. Sometimes you can even build up non-statutory holiday hours. These are the extra hours that are given on top of the minimum number of holiday hours. The agreements about this are set out in your employment contract or in your sector’s collective labour agreement.

If you wish to convert your holiday hours into a day off or a holiday, you will need to submit a request to your employer. In principle, your employer must agree to your request for holiday leave. Your employer can only object if granting a request for holiday leave would cause major problems for the business operations. We call these ‘compelling business reasons’. If there are compelling business reasons, your employer must then submit a written objection. They must do this within 2 weeks after receiving your request. However, your employer must agree to you taking your holiday at a different time.

Some jobs have fixed holiday periods, such as jobs in the construction industry or in education. We call this a collective holiday period. In principle, you must take your holiday during this period. If you don’t want to do this, you must discuss this in advance and in good time with your employer to see if you can come to an agreement. 

Any unused holiday entitlement will lapse or expire after a certain period. This is established in Dutch law. This law states that your holiday entitlements expire on 1 July of the following year. Certain collective labour agreements have agreed on a later date, so check carefully which rule applies to you.

You are entitled to 16 weeks pregnancy/maternity leave. This leave is covered by the company you work for. Your leave starts 4-6 weeks before your due date. If your child is born later than the due date, your leave will be extended. If your child is in hospital for longer than 1 week, your leave will also be extended. You will continue to receive your wages for 16 weeks during this leave.

If you want extended maternity leave, this is possible in the Netherlands. You can extend this period by using your holiday entitlement or by taking parental leave. Please check your collective labour agreement to see whether you are entitled to continued partial payment of your wages during parental leave.

As a partner, your entitlement to leave starts from the day your child is born. This means that if your wife or partner has given birth, you are entitled to 6 working weeks of paternity/partner's leave (geboorteverlof). The first week of leave must be taken within 4 weeks of the birth and during this time, your wages will continue to be paid in full. The remaining 5 weeks must be taken within 6 months of the birth. This is called additional paternity/partner's leave. During this additional paternity/partner's leave, you will not receive any wages, but you will receive a benefit payment of 70% of your wages, up to a maximum amount per day. This is not dependent on whether you work full-time or part-time.

If you want to take additional paternity/partner's leave, you must notify your employer and submit your request at least 4 weeks in advance. If you are unable to request the additional paternity/partner's leave in time, for instance, because your child is born prematurely, please notify your employer or submit your request for additional paternity/partner leave as soon as possible.

Your employer can make changes to the additional leave up to 2 weeks before the due date/birth. However, they can only do so if there are compelling business reasons. They may, for example, propose other days or different weeks for you to take your leave. Your employer can only do it in consultation with you.

Yes, you can still take paternity/partner's leave. However, your contract or employment contract must be governed by Dutch legislation. You will only receive benefits if you also pay social insurance contributions in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, there are a number of rules that determine whether or not you are entitled to parental leave.

The main eligibility criteria for parental leave are:

• you are the parent or carer of a biological child, adopted child, foster child or stepchild;
• your child is not more 8 years of age;
• you are the carer of a child who is registered at your address.

If you meet the requirements, you are entitled to parental leave. This is a maximum of 26 times the number of hours you work per week. For instance, if you work 36 hours per week, you are entitled to a total of 936 hours (26 x 36) of parental leave. You can decide how and when you take your leave in consultation with your employer.

Yes, you are. In order to take parental leave, you must have an employment contract that is governed by Dutch legislation.

No, your employer may not refuse it.  Your employer is not allowed to refuse parental leave just like that. It is only possible if the work at your company gets into problems as a result. Your employer may enter discussions such as making arrangements as to when you can actually work. Where the paid part of the parental leave is concerned, the rule is that you must always be able to take up the leave within the designated period (one year). In the event of compelling interests of the company or the service, your employer may ask you to alter the way of arranging the leave.

The first nine weeks (nine times the number of hours you work on a weekly basis) of the parental leave are paid provided that the leave is taken up one year following the birth. Where adoption or foster care is concerned, the rule is one year after a child, younger than eight-years-old, has been taken into the family. During those weeks, your wages will not be paid but you receive a benefit of 70% of your wages, up to a minimum amount per day. The other 17 weeks of parental leave are not paid. The collective labour agreement (cao) applicable to your work may contain additional arrangements about the payment of the leave and its duration.

If an immediate family member has fallen ill, for example your partner, father or mother, you are allowed to take short-term care leave. You are entitled to take a maximum of 2 weeks care leave within a 12-month period. During short-term care leave, you will continue to receive 70% of your wages; this payment may not be less than the statutory minimum wage for your age.

One of the conditions for short-term care leave is that this person who is ill needs care and you are the obvious person to provide that care. If the person who is ill has been admitted to the hospital, then you cannot usually take short-term care leave because the person who is ill is already receiving appropriate care.

If your child suddenly falls ill at school and you have to collect your child, you can take time off for this. This is called emergency leave and other short-term absenteeism. This type of leave can be taken in emergency situations that need to be resolved immediately.

If you wish to take care of someone close to you who is critically ill, you are entitled to long-term care leave. You can also apply for long-term care leave when someone close to you is ill or in serious need of care for a lengthy period of time. You can only apply for this leave if this person is in need of care and you are the only person able to provide this care.

Applications for long-term care leave are made to your employer. You must do this at least 2 weeks before you wish to take this leave. Your employer can ask you for information to check whether you are entitled to this leave. This could be a letter from a doctor; the GP or hospital doctor, for example.

You can take care leave to care for a family member abroad. However, you will have to prove that it is necessary for you to provide this care.

Your employer can only refuse your request if granting it would cause serious problems for business operations. This applies to both short-term and long-term care leave.

Short-term care leave starts as soon as you submit the request to your employer. If you are unable to report this leave in advance, please make sure you let your employer know as soon as possible. If this causes problems for your company, your employer can stop or cancel your leave even after you have reported it. If your employer does not do this, then your employer will not be able to stop your leave at a later time. Even if your long-term care leave has already started, your employer is not entitled to stop it.

If you have an urgent and unforeseen personal situation on your hands, for example, a burst water pipe or car accident, you can take emergency leave or short-term absenteeism leave. The circumstances must be highly exceptional personal or unforeseen circumstances in order for you to take this leave. You must report your absence to your employer. Your wages will continue to be paid during this leave. Your collective labour agreement may state different arrangements.

If you are faced with a personal emergency, you can take emergency leave or short-term absenteeism leave. You must report this to your employer, who is not allowed to refuse a reasonable request for emergency leave or short-term absenteeism leave. Your employer must also continue to pay your wages.

However, your employer can ask you afterwards to prove that there were circumstances for which you needed to take special leave. If this was not the case, you must then use one of your days of holiday leave or make up the day in some other way, to compensate for your missed day at work.

It is possible that a special leave arrangement exists for this in your sector. These arrangements will then be included in your collective labour agreement, employment contract or company regulations. These will tell you whether you will get leave, how long it will be and whether your leave is paid or unpaid. Please ask your employer or the HR department of the company where you work for more information.