Blog
Is everyone on the project allowed to work here today? And who can prove it?
What ready to work actually means, for the client and for the parties carrying out the work
A Dutch main contractor has forty people on site this month. They come from six countries, through three subcontractors and a temporary work agency in Poland. The contractor has never seen most of their documents. They normally do not do this, until an inspector asks.
At the same time, in Poland, someone at that labor supplier is going through spreadsheets to find out whose residence permit expires when. They did the same last week. They'll do it again next week.
Both are working on the same question: is this person allowed to work here, today? Neither has a good way to answer it.
For the client, the risk starts when people start
For a Dutch client, compliance risk doesn't end with a contractual clause. It begins the moment people are working for you, it grows with every country they come from, and it continues until after the work is finished. Each nationality and each subcontractor abroad brings its own set of rules.
If something is missing, the consequences land on the project. Work can be stopped. A fine can follow. If a company further down the chain doesn't pay its wage taxes, you can be held liable for them. And when it becomes known that people on your site weren't allowed to work there, the damage to your name lasts longer than the fine.
Most clients deal with this by asking their subcontractors to confirm that everything is in order. That moves the question down the chain. It doesn't answer it and it also does not indemnify the client.
For the supplier, the work never stops
On the other side, the supplier carries the paperwork. For every worker, it has to work out what the route requires, collect the documents, arrange the A1, file the posting notification and get the employment terms right for the Dutch work period. Then it has to keep all of it valid: tracking expiry dates, starting permit renewals on time, following up while an application is pending, and updating the file every time an assignment changes.
Done by hand, across many workers and many countries, that becomes a permanent job. And every client asks for proof in its own way, so the supplier answers the same question again and again.
Ready to work starts with the way of co-operating, not the folder
Whichever side you're on, the first question is what this worker actually needs. The answer is rarely short.
Take a welder from India. Every possibility starts with the same basics: an ID and an employment contract. What comes on top depends on who employs him and how.
Hired directly by a Dutch company, he typically needs a Dutch work permit and a Dutch residence permit.
Employed by a Polish company and posted here for more than 90 days, the list grows: an A1, a Dutch residence permit, his Polish work and residence permits, a posting notification, and the Dutch employment terms for the period he works here.
Same Polish employer, but the stay is proven to be 90 days or less: the Dutch residence permit drops off.
Employed by a company outside the EU: a Dutch work permit is back on the list.
Now change his passport. A German welder posted by a German employer needs an A1 and a posting notification, unless his social security is paid in the Netherlands. If he lives across the border and comes home every day, much of the posting paperwork falls away.
And even then the list isn't fixed. Some clients ask for more than the law does. A note on a residence permit can mean no work permit is needed at all. And until someone has actually checked the passport, you don't know which route you're on.
Nationality, the employer's country, posted or cross-border, the length of stay, the client's requirements: change one, and the requirements changes. Two people on the same site, doing the same job, can need completely different documents. If the route is wrong, a complete folder can still mean that the requirements are not met.
And it starts with the company, not only the worker
Before you get to the worker, there's the company that employs them. Is it hiring out people who work under your supervision and direction, or doing a job under its own responsibility? Is it based in the Netherlands, the EU or outside of the EU? The answer decides which company documents apply.
That can mean an extract from the trade register, a recent statement from the Dutch tax authorities that the company is up to date on its payments, a blocked account for wage taxes, a certificate in the SNA register, and for a foreign employer, a valid VAT number. A foreign agency that lends out people in the Netherlands may have to withhold Dutch wage tax itself. And agencies will soon need an admission under the new WTTA law before they can lend out anyone at all.
These documents exist because the tax risk travels up the chain. When they're missing or out of date, it lands with the client.
Then the documents have to agree
Once you know what's required, the documents have to tell one consistent story.
For the worker: does the name on the contract match the passport? Does the permit cover this kind of work? Does the posting notification cover the dates the person is actually on site? Does anything expire before the assignment ends?
For the company: is the employer on the A1 the same company that signed the contract with you? Does its name and number match the trade register? If it lends out people, is it registered as an agency? Is the tax statement clean, and recent enough to count?
Each check is easy on its own. Nobody does all of them, for every worker, every week.
Ready on day one. Still ready in week twelve?
Most checks happen once, before someone starts. Then the project runs for months. A permit reaches its expiry date. A renewal is still pending. The tax statement that was fresh at the start is now months old. The assignment is extended past the dates in the posting notification. A new subcontractor joins halfway through.
The rules move too. The minimum wage goes up twice a year. Laws change, and so do the requirements for permits, notifications and pay.
A worker who was ready in week one can be a problem in week twelve, and nobody notices because the check was done at the start. Ready to work has to hold until the last day of the project.
Sometimes the honest answer is "not sure yet": the nationality isn't confirmed, the length of stay isn't known, a document is hard to read. Calling that green lets risk through. Calling it red stops work that may be fine. The useful answer says what's known, what's missing, and who needs to act.
How this looks with Admitta
Go back to the contractor and the supplier from the start.
The supplier uploads each worker's documents once. Admitta then does the work that usually falls between companies. It works out the requirements for each worker, so the requirements fit this person and this assignment instead of a generic list. It does the same for every company in the chain: which type it is, which company documents apply, and whether they match the public registers. It checks whether the documents agree: the name on the contract against the passport, the A1 against the employer and the assignment, the permits against the dates of the assignment. And it gives every worker a status. Where something is unclear, a person reviews it. Admitta doesn't guess.
The client sees those statuses for the people on its project, without access to their files. The contractors show every client the same picture, instead of answering the same question client by client.
Then the project keeps moving, and so do the checks. Every status is checked again every day. If an assignment is extended past the dates the documents cover, if a permit is about to expire, or if a new subcontractor brings in people halfway through, the status changes for the supplier and the contractor at the same time. So when the inspector asks in week twelve, the answer is the same as in week one: here is who is covered, and here is what's still open. This way everybody in the chain is on the same page, from client, to contractor, to employee.
Admitta doesn't hand out legal verdicts, and it doesn't pretend to. The rules behind the checks are drawn up with legal experts, and every status shows what it's based on: which documents, which checks, and what's still open. That's an answer an inspector, a client and your own team can actually work with.
Want to see who in your chain is ready to work today?