Sick pay rules for a small Dutch salon

The question you ask on day three

An employee reports sick and your first few days go into the diary. Rebooking clients, asking someone to stay longer, filling the gaps yourself. That is solved within a week, and it is not the problem.

The problem starts when the sick note does not go away. Then the question becomes: how long do I keep paying this, what do I have to be seen to be doing meanwhile, and can my business survive it with three people. That is a different question from Friday's rota, and the answer sits in two places: in the law and in the hairdressing CAO.

How much that weighs depends on how your salon is built. In a hair salon with three staff, one drops out and the other two carry on, tight as it gets. In a sole proprietorship, think of a beautician who works alone in her own studio, it plays out differently: if she herself falls ill, there is no employee for article 7:629 of the Civil Code to give a right to wages, because that rule covers the people who work for you, not you as the business owner. This guide is about the first situation. If you work alone and want to know what happens when you yourself drop out, disability insurance for yourself is the tool to look at, not wage payment.

For the rota in that first week there is a separate guide on staff scheduling in a hair salon. This guide is about the two years that follow.

What the law requires: 104 weeks

The basis is article 7:629 paragraph 1 of the Dutch Civil Code. Your employee keeps the right to 70 percent of their contractual wage for a period of 104 weeks. In the first 52 weeks there is a floor on top of that: at least the statutory minimum wage that applies to that employee. That amount is 14.99 EUR gross per hour from 1 July 2026 for people aged 21 and over, against 14.71 EUR from 1 January 2026.

In the second year the floor disappears. If 70 percent falls below the minimum wage, you as the employer do not have to top it up; your employee can apply to UWV for a supplement. That is one of the few points on which the second year of illness works out cheaper than the first.

Two things that are often misunderstood. First, article 7:629 paragraph 9 lets you agree a maximum of two waiting days, and only if that is written into the contract or the CAO. Second, wage payment does not continue past the end of a fixed-term contract: the employment simply ends on the end date and your employee moves to the Sickness Benefits Act, with all the consequences for your premium.

There is political discussion about shortening the wage payment obligation for small employers, and a motion has been passed about collectively financing the second year. There is no bill with a commencement date. So plan on two years.

Source: article 7:629 of the Dutch Civil Code on wetten.overheid.nl, the 2026 minimum wage amounts on rijksoverheid.nl and the page Loon doorbetalen bij ziekte on ondernemersplein.overheid.nl. Checked September 2026.

What the hairdressing CAO adds on top

This is where most salon owners get it wrong, and in year one it is worth tens of percentage points.

The CAO for the hairdressing sector runs from 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2026 and was declared universally binding on 25 November 2025 (Staatscourant 2025, no. 36597). Universally binding means it applies to every hair salon within its scope, including salons that belong to no trade body. So you cannot escape it by not joining anything.

Article 8.2(a) reads back to front, so mind the order. Its first sentence says you pay the full income for at least 104 weeks from the first day of incapacity. The next sentence cuts that back: anyone who becomes incapacitated after 1 July 2024 gets the full income for 52 weeks and then at least 70 percent for another 52. Because 1 July 2024 falls well before this CAO's term, that second regime is the operative rule in practice and the 104-week sentence is expiring transitional wording for older cases. Annex 8, the Ziektereglement, writes it in that practical order: 52 weeks in full, and in the second year of illness 100 percent for anyone who fell ill before 1 July 2024 and 70 percent for anyone after.

There is one difference between those two texts worth knowing: the starting point. Article 8.2 counts from the first day of incapacity, annex 8 from the day your employee notifies you of the incapacity, that day included. On a late sick report those diverge. So record the sick report on the day itself.

Source: CAO Kappers 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2026, article 8.2 and annex 8 Ziektereglement, plus the universally binding declaration in Staatscourant 2025, no. 36597. Checked September 2026.

This whole section covers a hair salon within the scope of the hairdressing CAO. Run a beauty salon, a nail studio or a massage practice, and this CAO does not apply to you, not even by analogy. Check whether your own trade has a CAO that has been declared universally binding, and if it does not, article 7:629 of the Civil Code from the previous section remains your full obligation: 70 percent with a minimum wage floor in the first year, without the top-up to 100 percent that the hairdressing CAO gives.

Article 8.3 holds one more detail worth knowing before you assess a holiday request, and it is often misread. An employee who does not report sick once in a whole calendar year gains 1 extra holiday day, and it can never be more than that one. A first sick report costs one holiday day, a second costs another, and there it stops: the maximum of 2 applies to the days that lapse, per calendar year. A third sick report costs no further day. The arrangement applies pro rata to part-timers and to contracts that do not run the full year, and it touches only holiday days above the statutory minimum: statutory days accrue in full during illness (article 7.7(c)).

The Poortwachter calendar, and where it goes wrong

Wage payment is the amount. The Gatekeeper Improvement Act (Wet verbetering poortwachter) is the risk. Do too little on re-integration, or do it too late, and UWV can impose a wage sanction: up to 52 weeks of extra wage payment. That is a third year of illness at your own cost, and it does not hit salons because they were unwilling but because a form was never completed in week 8.

Two rows in this table are not statutory deadlines, and that is worth knowing. Notifying your occupational health service within a week is market standard from health service contracts and insurance policies; article 2 of the Regeling procesgang eerste en tweede ziektejaar only asks that you notify promptly and that a company doctor's opinion is in place within six weeks where long-term absence is expected. And week 91 is a derived working date: the Werkwijzer Poortwachter ties the final evaluation and the current opinion to the moment of the WIA application in week 93, not to a week number of its own. The other week numbers do appear as such in the Werkwijzer and the Regeling.

Source: Werkwijzer Poortwachter on uwv.nl, the Regeling procesgang eerste en tweede ziektejaar on wetten.overheid.nl and the page Een zieke werknemer begeleiden on ondernemersplein.overheid.nl. Checked September 2026.

What goes wrong at small employers is almost always the same: the action plan is agreed verbally and never written down, or it is made in week 8 and never revised. UWV reviews the entire file in week 93. What is not in it did not happen. Record every conversation the same day, even when nothing has changed, because it is exactly those empty lines that show you followed the process.

A wage sanction can be shortened, incidentally. Repair the shortcoming, file a shortening request, and the extra period comes out shorter than 52 weeks.

What absence really costs a salon with staff

The hairdressing sector has an official costing. Sira Consulting produced the report MKB-indicatorbedrijf: De kapsalon for the Dutch government together with trade body ANKO. It models a fictional but realistic salon: seven staff plus one apprentice, 4.9 FTE together, revenue of 360,032 EUR and a profit of 56,328 EUR.

In that business, wage payment during long-term absence, covered by absence insurance, tops the list of structural obligations at 5,919 EUR a year. The other absence items from the same report: short-term absence 4,128 EUR incidental, re-integrating a sick employee 1,787 EUR incidental, joining an occupational health service or company doctor 1,428 EUR structural and keeping absence records 924 EUR structural. Total regulatory burden in that business comes to 38,784 EUR a year.

The report notes itself that short-term absence costs more than the law requires, precisely because the CAO demands that wages are paid in full during the first year.

Run it for your own salon with your own hourly rate. Here is a worked example with the steps written out.

Say an employee works 32 hours a week at 16 EUR gross an hour. That is 16 times 32, so 512 EUR a week. Over a year, 512 times 52 is 26,624 EUR. Per month, 26,624 divided by 12 is roughly 2,219 EUR gross.

Year one, paid in full under the CAO: 26,624 EUR of wages plus 8 percent holiday allowance, so 2,130 EUR. Together roughly 28,750 EUR.

Year two at 70 percent: 0.70 times 26,624 is 18,637 EUR, plus 8 percent holiday allowance on that, so 1,491 EUR. Together roughly 20,130 EUR.

The 8 percent holiday allowance in this example is not an assumption: article 5.1 of the CAO voor het Kappersbedrijf sets holiday pay at 8 percent of annual income including allowances, and article 5.1 sub c requires you to keep paying it in full for the first 104 weeks of incapacity. It runs on during illness.

Two years of illness therefore come to about 48,900 EUR in wages for someone who is not working. Replace those hours as well and you pay that amount twice. This is exactly why a salon with two to four staff buys insurance for it.

Absence insurance and what it does not do

Absence insurance reimburses the wage you keep paying a sick employee. There is always an excess period in front of it, though, expressed in working days per illness case. On an MKB verzuim-ontzorgverzekering you pick that yourself. The product covenant fixes no set of options, so the offer differs per insurer: 10 working days is the usual floor, and from there it runs through 20, 30, 65, 90 and 130 up to 260 working days. You get nothing over those days. After that the reimbursement runs for up to 104 weeks.

Mind what per illness case means. If the same employee reports sick again within 28 days, your excess does not restart and it counts on towards the same case. If they report sick again after 28 days, the excess does restart, and so does the 104-week clock.

Work that excess out before you pick a policy. In the example above, an excess of 20 working days, so four weeks, costs you 4 times 512, which is 2,048 EUR in wages plus 8 percent holiday allowance, roughly 2,212 EUR per illness case. At 130 waiting days you are carrying half a year of wages yourself, in return for a lower premium.

The MKB verzuim-ontzorgverzekering was set up for that purpose by the government together with insurers and employer organisations, and on top of the reimbursement it supplies a case manager or absence coach who guards the Poortwachter process. The covenant's condition is that occupational health services are placed with a certified provider or company doctor. The policy adds that you insure all your staff and register new staff on time: anyone you fail to register, or register late, is not insured. Reporting deadlines vary per insurer, from risk changes within 30 days to a sick report within two working days through the absence portal. Read yours in your own terms, not in a summary.

Absence insurance is not the same as disability cover for yourself, and not the same as your liability cover. Which policies otherwise sit under a salon and what they do and do not do is worked out in the guide on insurance for a new salon.

What absence insurance never covers: the work left undone, the clients who drift to the salon round the corner, and the wage sanction you get because the file was not in order. For that last one, the calendar above is your only insurance.

What happens after 104 weeks

If your employee is still incapacitated after two years and there is no suitable work inside your salon, you can ask UWV for permission to end the employment. You then owe a transition payment: under article 7:673 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code, one third of a month's salary for each year the contract lasted, and a proportionate part for a shorter period.

There is a compensation scheme at UWV for that payment today, and this is the point in this guide to watch hardest, because that scheme is going away.

The original bill wanted to limit the compensation to small employers with an average of no more than 25 staff. A nota van wijziging of 2 June 2026 (Kamerstuk 36869, no. 9) turned that into something far broader: article 7:673e of the Civil Code is repealed. The compensation therefore disappears for all employers, large and small, and the same amendment scraps the compensation on business closure through retirement or death as well. The intended start date is 1 January 2027, a year earlier than the coalition agreement indicated.

It is a bill and not yet law. In September 2026 it is still before the House of Representatives, plenary debate has been deferred and is on the agenda for October 2026. UWV states that nothing changes until then and that you can still apply for the compensation as before.

There will be transitional law, and its trigger is not your employee's first day of illness. The proposed article 213 of the Overgangswet nieuw BW keeps the old rules alive where the day after the two-year dismissal-ban period ends falls before entry into force. If those two years end on or after the start date, there is no compensation. Someone who fell ill in your salon in early 2025 sits right on that line.

In practice: apply for the compensation as soon as you are entitled to it and do not put it off. If an illness case starts now, budget for a transition payment you carry in full yourself. Source: Kamerstuk 36869 no. 9 and uwv.nl, checked September 2026.

Do not keep the employment dormant and leave it there. If your employee asks you to end it with a transition payment, you are in principle expected to do so, precisely because that compensation scheme exists.

What to sort out this month

This section is the cheapest part of the guide, because everything below costs you an afternoon and keeps the most expensive scenario away.

This week: write down which occupational health service or company doctor you hold a contract with, and where the sick report goes within one week. If that is not arranged, you start week 6 already behind. While you are at it, check whether your risk assessment and other health and safety duties are in order, because the labour inspectorate often asks for both in the same breath when there is an absence file.

Next week: pull out your absence policy and look up the number of waiting days. Work out what that excess costs you in euros at the hourly rate of your most expensive employee. That figure tells you whether your policy fits your business.

This month: prepare a blank action plan and a review form, so that in week 8 you have nothing left to invent. Put the fixed moments from the calendar above into your diary as reminders on the day someone reports sick, not later.

And continuously: keep your coverage visible. When someone drops out long term, you want to see within the hour which hours disappear, which clients hang off them and who can take them over. That is a diary question rather than an absence question, but it lands on the same day. The same applies when someone does not fall ill but leaves and takes clients with them.

You do not need a subscription that does not match your volume for that. CelerBook charges per appointment: the first 5 appointments each month are free, after that you pay 0.25 EUR excluding VAT per completed appointment, with a maximum of 30 EUR per month for a solo business and 5 EUR per additional active staff member. No contract, and no usage means no cost. You see the diary per staff member, you set prices and treatment durations per staff member, and the client page shows the history per client including who served her last time. When someone drops out, you know within a few minutes which appointments to move and to whom. Try CelerBook for free.