Salary and payslip
You pay employees a salary and give them a payslip with their gross wage, net wage, insurance premiums, holiday pay, and holiday entitlement. Your employees have the right to get a payslip with clear and complete information.
What is salary?
Salary covers everything your employee receives as payment for their work.
The salary can consist of:
- Money, cash or via the bank.
- Compensation or deduction from wages for the use of a laptop, telephone, or tablet.
- Compensation or deduction for housing. This may not be more than 25% of the minimum wage.
- Compensation or deduction for courses or training.
- Travel allowance.
A reward other than money is also considered salary. This is called “in kind” (in natura). For example:
- dinners
- discounts
- private use of a company car
You are not allowed to pay the minimum wage in kind. You must pay this with money. You must also pay compensation for all work-related costs. This compensation is in addition to the minimum wage.
Besides gross pay and holiday pay, you sometimes pay additional wage costs for:
- expense allowance
This depends on the extra terms of employment you have agreed with your employee. Or the collective labour agreement (CAO).
These are mandatory costs you pay on top of the salary. Such as:
- Employer's part of the pension premium
- WW premium (unemployment benefit)
- WIA/WAO premium (inability to work)
- Health Insurance Act contribution (ZVW)
Read more about the employee and national insurances.
You must tackle the pay gap between men and women
The government is planning a new law to tackle differences in pay between men and women, the pay gap. You must be open about salaries and pay gaps in your business. And you must make fair and clear rules on salaries. If you have more than 100 employees, you must show at set times how big the gender pay gap is. The effective date of the law is not yet final.
How do you comply with the rules for the statutory minimum wage?
- You must pay your employees at least the statutory minimum wage. This is the gross minimum wage per hour.
- Your employees are entitled to a minimum holiday allowance.
- The minimum wage applies to employees from 21 years of age.
- The youth minimum wage applies to employees of 15 to 20 years old.
- There is no minimum wage for employees of 13 to 14 years old.
- The minimum wage is adjusted every 6 months, on 1 January and 1 July.
Check the minimum wage amounts for 2026. You can also see the minimum wage for the years 2019 through 2025 (in Dutch).
Youth minimum wage to rise from 2027
Do you employ workers aged between 16 and 20? From 1 January 2027, the youth minimum wage for them will increase. This will bring the youth minimum wage closer to the standard minimum wage.
When do you pay salary?
You pay salary after the work has been done, after your employee has worked a certain period for you. This is usually 1 month, but you can also pay on a weekly or 4-weekly basis. You agree on that term with your employee in writing, for instance in the employment contract.
You may extend the period after which you pay salary. You must agree to this in the employment contract. There are limits to the extension. With weekly wages, you may never pay later than after 1 month. With a monthly wage, you may not extend beyond 1 quarter.
Your employee is entitled to a salary increase if you pay too late and you have not agreed on this.
The increase is:
- 5% per day for the 4th to the 8th working day after the day you were due to pay the wages
- after that, 1% for each subsequent working day that you are late with payment, up to a maximum of 50%
Your employee must go to court to claim this increase. The judge can limit the increase to a lower amount (for example, 10% or 15%). You do not have to pay the increase if you can prove that the delay is not your fault.
You must always pay the net minimum wage via the bank. Does your employee earn more than the minimum wage? Then you are allowed to pay the rest of the salary in cash or in kind.
Is a payslip mandatory?
You are not obliged to give your employee a payslip every month.
You must give your employee a payslip:
- when paying the first salary if you have a new employee
You are allowed to give the payslip digitally if your employee agrees to this. Your employee must be able to save the digital payslip as a document. Save the payslips in your wage administration.
The payslip of your employee contains the following information:
- the gross salary
- the amounts the gross salary is made up of, for example the base salary, minimum holiday allowance, and performance-related pay
- the amount your employee pays toward their pension, if you have a pension arrangement
- the legal minimum wage that applies to your employee
- your name and your employee's name
- the period over which you are paying, for example the month July
- the number of hours your employee works
- whether there is an employment contract (or a written addendum to the original agreement)
- whether the employment contract is for an indefinite period
- whether or not the contract is on an on-call basis.
Before your employee starts working for you, you can make a sample (also called proforma) payslip. It allows you and your employee to already see what the gross and net salary is.
When do you send the annual income statement?
You send the annual income statement (jaaropgave, in Dutch) to your employee at the beginning of the new year. Usually in January or February. You also provide the details on the annual statement to the Netherlands Tax Administration (Belastingdienst).
What does an annual income statement contain?
An annual income statement states what your employee has earned that year. This is your employee's annual income. The annual statement must state:
- The year for which your employee received wages.
- The wages earned in that year. This is also called wage for payroll taxes or taxable wages. It is the gross wage minus the pension contribution.
- The tax and employer social security contributions deducted from the wage.
- The employment tax credit (arbeidskorting) taken into account for payroll taxes.
- The untaxed allowances. For example, a travel allowance. It is not mandatory to include these on the annual income statement.
Read more about payroll administration on the KVK website.
FAQ
- The gross wage is the wage you have agreed on in the employment contract or in the CAO. The gross wage is at least the statutory minimum wage.
- The net wage is the wage that remains after you have deducted taxes and premiums. This is the amount the employee receives in their bank account.
The iminimum wage is the salary that everyone who works must at least receive. You are not allowed to pay less.
You must give the employee a raise and pay the difference in arrears. Your employee can claim pay in arrears from you for up to 5 years in the past. This also applies to holiday allowance.