Kennis · 19 July 2026
On-call contracts are going: how to prepare your practice.
The Dutch senate has approved the act on greater security for flexible workers. For practices with on-call staff, fixed-term contracts or agency workers, a great deal changes in the coming years.
It comes in stages: the first part takes effect on 31 December 2026, the bulk on 1 January 2028. This is what is coming your way, and what you can do now.
What changes
On-call contracts are disappearing. Zero-hours contracts and other on-call arrangements will no longer be allowed, with an exception for students, school pupils and people of state pension age. In their place comes the bandwidth contract: you agree a minimum number of hours and may call your employee in up to 130 per cent of that minimum. With a minimum of 10 hours the maximum is therefore 13. Your employee may refuse calls above that bandwidth, and the bandwidth applies for at most one quarter at a time. So anyone currently leaning on an assistant with a zero-hours contract for the busy weeks will have to work out in advance how many hours are on the rota as a minimum.
Extending fixed-term contracts gets harder. The chain rule determines when a fixed-term contract becomes permanent employment: after 3 years or after 3 consecutive fixed-term contracts. At the moment you can break that chain with a 6-month gap. That period goes to 3 years. Letting a contract lapse and starting again after an interval is then no longer a route; the choice becomes: permanent contract or parting ways. An exception applies for students.
Agency workers gain equal footing, and so become more expensive. Agency workers get at least the same employment terms as staff employed by the practice. The period during which an agency contract can be terminated at any moment is also shortened. This part takes effect first, on 31 December 2026.
The timeline
- 31 December 2026Equal employment terms for agency workers. The act creating a legal presumption of employment based on hourly rate also takes effect then — a separate law from the same package of labour market reforms.
- 1 January 2028The larger part: the end of on-call contracts and the new chain rule. In the same year the government also wants to introduce the self-employment act, which determines when a contractor is genuinely self-employed.
How these strands hang together is set out on our topic page Self-employment and flexible work rules in dental care.
What you can do now
- Map your flexible workforce. Who works for you on call, on a fixed-term contract or through an agency, and for how many hours?
- Work through the bandwidth contract. What minimum number of hours fits your rota, and what does 130 per cent of that mean for your busy weeks?
- Check which fixed-term contracts are approaching the limit. Have the permanent-or-not conversation well before the chain is full, not afterwards.
- Recalculate your agency costs as of the end of 2026. Equal employment terms mean a higher rate in most cases. Compare that with what an employee costs.
- Use the updated model agreements when they come. The KNMT is revising its model agreements before the new rules take effect.
Offering fixed hours is not only an obligation under this law, it is also an opportunity: in a tight market, security is a benefit that keeps people. How we help practices with that is set out under for practices.
Source: KNMT, “Stricter rules for fixed-term contracts and on-call and agency workers on the way” (15 July 2026) — knmt.nl. Accessed 19 July 2026.
Questions about your own situation?
This article is general; your practice or your career is not. Put your question to us — you get an honest answer, including when that is “don’t do it”.