Amendment of the VBAR Act in response to Uber case

01/04/25

On 27 March 2025, the Deputy Minister of Finance sent a letter to Parliament on the progress of working with and as self-employed persons. In it, he announces that the VBAR Act (Clarification of Assessment of Employment Relationships and Legal Presumption) will be amended as a result of the recent Uber case (21 February 2025).

Background

The DBA Act succeeded the old VAR in 2016 and was supposed to make it clear when someone really works as a self-employed person and when there is a (fictitious) employment relationship. In practice, there was a lot of uncertainty, partly because the Tax authorities were unable to enforce for years due to the enforcement moratorium. This has changed since 1 January 2025: the Tax authorities enforce again and can impose additional assessments retroactively to 1 January 2025.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court has rendered several judgments that further clarify and tighten the existing regulations on this subject. The holistic approach was explained in the Deliveroo Judgment (2023). In the Uber judgment (21 February 2025), it subsequently turned out that 'external entrepreneurship' (the extent to which someone is also active as an entrepreneur outside the assignment) weighs just as much as the other 'holistic' criteria, and that there is no fixed ranking.

Amendment of VBAR act

In the current legislative proposal for the VBAR Act, external entrepreneurship is only included in the assessment of the employment relationship if there is no clear consideration to be made between the characteristics of an employment relationship on the one hand and the characteristics of independence on the other. Entrepreneurship then works as a kind of tiebreaker to provide a definitive answer to the employment relationship.

In the Uber case, the Supreme Court clarified the role of external entrepreneurship in qualifying an employment relationship. The Supreme Court indicated that there is no order of precedence in weighing the circumstances and confirmed the holistic approach of the Deliveroo case. This ruling therefore deviates from the current VBAR bill and the role of external entrepreneurship in it. The government has now indicated that it will amend the bill accordingly.

With the amendments to the VBAR Act, the government codifies case law, which leads to a more unambiguous assessment. With the amendment, they also respond to signals from politics and society that the role of external entrepreneurship has been included too limited in the earlier bill. However, the government does indicate that the assessment of an employment relationship is becoming more complex, because the client often does not have information about the contractor outside the assignment. At the moment it is not yet known which data of external entrepreneurship will be important. The enforcement and implementing authorities will also have to assess what this adjustment means for practicability.

The VBAR Act has a milestone of 1 January 2026 for entry into force and publication. This change means that 1 January 2026 remains possible, although it is indicated that the timeline is very tight. The amended bill for the VBAR Act is expected to be submitted to the House of Representatives before the summer.

What does this mean for your organisation?

Despite the fact that the amendments to the VBAR Act bill have not yet been published, it is now becoming clear that this regime is – largely – in line with current case law. This allows you to analyse the employment relationships of your contractors (self-employed persons) even better in a future-proof way. Because data from external entrepreneurship must be taken into account in this process, the assessment of the employment relationship may turn out differently in each case. With the lifting of the enforcement moratorium since 1 January 2025, and the direction now indicated by the legislator, you can get started.