If your employee becomes ill

The percentage of the salary you are obliged to pay is stated in your company’s collective labour agreement (‘CAO’), or in your employee’s employment contract. This percentage must be at least 70%, but is usually 100% of your employee’s salary.

You are also responsible for continuing to pay your employee’s pension premium and holiday pay.

Please note: If the percentage you pay your employee falls below the national minimum wage (in Dutch), you are required to top up their salary in proportion to the number of hours they work. You only need to do this during their first year of illness.

In certain situations your employee might qualify for a sickness benefit (‘Ziektewet-uitkering’) from UWV. If so, you need to arrange this with us. Qualifying circumstances might involve illness caused by pregnancy, childbirth or organ donation.

Find out more about which situations apply, and how you can arrange a sickness benefit for your employee.

From around 4 weeks of illness, you are obligated to start a return-to-work plan (‘re-integratietraject’) with your employee. This will help prevent longer than necessary absences. You must work together on your employee’s return-to-work plan for as long as they are employed with you.

Refer to our step-by-step guide to employee sickness to know what to do, and when.

After your employee has been ill for 2 years, they might be entitled to a WIA benefit (an occupational disability benefit). Your employee must apply for a WIA benefit themselves.

Sometimes it is clear that your employee can no longer work, either now or in the future. This might be due to a long-term illness, occupational disability, or an accident for example.

In this situation, your employee might be eligible for a WIA benefit sooner than 2 years. Although you must continue to pay your employee's long-term sick pay for those 2 years, you can deduct the benefit from their salary.

Please note: If your employee applies for an early WIA benefit you are no longer obligated to help your employee return to work, or to send in a return-to-work plan. Nevertheless, it is important that your employee provides you with a letter from the occupational health physician confirming that they can no longer work.

If your employee's contract ends while they are ill, report the employee’s illness to UWV and we will take over the return-to-work process.

If their employment ends in less than 6 weeks, you will not need to create a return-to-work report (‘re-integratieverslag’). However, in other cases you might still need to create one:

• If their employment ends within 6 to 10 weeks, or the employee is expected to be fully recovered within 3 month, you must submit a short version of the return-to-work report.
• If their employment ends after 10 weeks or longer, you must submit a complete return-to-work report.
• If their employment ends but their return-to-work plan is not yet complete, we consider it very important that they return to work. In such cases, you can request return-to-work support from us.

Please note: If your employee leaves employment due to an illness, make sure they receive copies of all the documents from the return-to-work report. This includes forms from you, and those from the occupational health and safety service.

Employees at the state pension age (‘AOW’) can continue working for you. However, if they get sick or were already sick, the following rules apply:

• You are obliged to pay your employee for the first 6 weeks of their sickness.
• You are expected to help your employee return to suitable work within your own company, as soon as possible.
• You are not obliged to search for alternative work at another employer, neither do you need to create a return-to-work plan or report for your employee.
• You can choose to dismiss your employee if they are still ill after 6 weeks.
• You can decide to keep them in service and continue paying their salary voluntarily.

Please contact us by phone or log into the employer's portal (‘UWV Werkgeversportaal’) for any questions you might have.