Continued salary payment: when to stop it completely?

Stelt u zich eens voor: u werkt al jaren met dezelfde zelfstandige. Hij stuurt facturen, factureert btw en heeft een eigen kvk-nummer. Toch krijgt u in 2026 ineens vragen van de Belastingdienst over de aard van uw samenwerking. Hoe heeft het zo ver kunnen komen?

Continued salary payment

There is finally clarity on the question of whether an employer may stop the continued payment of salary during illness by 100% if the employee does not start performing a few hours of suitable work per week. The redeeming word came on 15 January 2014 from the Midden-Nederland subdistrict court.

The employee in this case worked for a cleaning company doing general cleaning maintenance and fell ill after three years of employment. After a period of illness of three months, the company doctor judged it suitable for the employee to be deployed again for half days in his own position. The employee refused to do this because of his incapacity for work. The employer in this case stopped the continued salary payment during illness by 100% because of the failure to perform the half-day work. The employee claimed the wages because he believed that the wage could only be withheld for the duration that he did not perform the suitable work, here 4 hours a day. From the court’s ruling it appears that the employee had not complied with the effort obligation, because he had refused to work those half days without a medical counter-opinion (second opinion).

The purpose of the Gatekeeper Improvement Act is to encourage the employee to return to the workplace 100% as quickly as possible (and to prevent long-term illness and inflow into the WIA). If you were only allowed to partially reduce the wages, the employee could act calculatedly when starting and building up a reintegration process. A reintegration process usually starts with a few hours per week. If, by refusing those few hours, he would still receive the largest part of his wages, then, according to the court, there is insufficient incentive to start the reintegration. A full wage stop is therefore the only response to refusing suitable work. Only if the employee has a valid reason to refuse is that different. That could be the case if it turns out that he still has a medical impediment, but it is then up to him to demonstrate this (via a UWV second opinion).

Practical tip

If an employee refuses to perform suitable work without a medical counter-opinion, it is important to immediately send the employee an official warning. In doing so, you warn the employee and set an ultimatum on pain of a 100% stop of the continued salary payment. Be consistent if the employee continues to refuse and has not yet submitted a second opinion showing that he cannot perform that suitable work. So withhold 100% of that wage until the employee starts with those few hours. If you are not strict enough, this can also result in the UWV later imposing a wage sanction on the employer when the employee enters the third year of illness. Then you must also continue paying the wage in the third year of illness and continue with reintegration (with all the associated costs).

Should the situation described above occur and you are unsure whether stopping payment is contrary to reasonableness and fairness, you can always personally contact us.

De afgelopen jaren stonden in het teken van de Wet VBAR, het wetsvoorstel dat een einde moest maken aan onduidelijkheid over de zzp’er. Het kabinet heeft delen van dat voorstel inmiddels geschrapt. Op het eerste gezicht is dat goed nieuws: minder regels, minder administratieve last. Maar in de praktijk blijven dezelfde toetsen overeind.

“De inhoud van de samenwerking is leidend, niet wat er op papier staat.”

De Belastingdienst handhaaft sinds 1 januari 2025 weer actief op schijnzelfstandigheid. En recente uitspraken van de Hoge Raad bevestigen dat rechters strikt toetsen of er sprake is van ondergeschiktheid en gezagsverhouding.

Voor uw praktijk betekent dit drie dingen. Een: leg de samenwerking duidelijk vast, met aandacht voor de inhoud. Twee: voorkom dat een zzp’er feitelijk werkt als werknemer. Drie: wees voorbereid op een controle, en weet hoe u de relatie kunt herzien als dat moet.

Heeft u vragen over uw concrete situatie? Wij sparren dagelijks met opdrachtgevers over hun zzp-relaties. Vraag een offerte op of bekijk onze Legal Safe abonnementen.