What is false self-employment?

False self-employment arises where someone works as a self-employed contractor on paper, but the actual situation points to a contract of employment. You invoice as a freelancer, but in practice you are working as an employee. The tax authorities, and the courts, look not at what the contract says but at what the working relationship actually looks like. If the criteria for a contract of employment are met (work, pay and authority) there is employment, even where neither party wanted that. For the film industry this question is particularly relevant. Many crew and cast members move from production to production, often for short periods. That flexible character looks like self-employment, but the question is always: do you decide for yourself how you do the work? Or do you follow the producer’s instructions?

When do you get a fine for false self-employment?

The Dutch tax authorities have been actively enforcing against false self-employment since 1 January 2025. In 2025 there was a “soft landing”: additional assessments, but no fines. That transitional period has been extended for default fines up to and including 2026. In concrete terms that means the tax authorities will not impose default fines for false self-employment in 2026 either. But note: from 2026 penalties can be imposed where there is intent or gross negligence. Think of situations in which you deliberately ignore warnings from the tax authorities, or where there is plainly an arrangement designed to avoid payroll taxes. Additional assessments for payroll tax remain possible in all cases, with retroactive effect to 1 January 2025. The tax authorities can therefore correct retroactively over a maximum of five years, but no further back than that date.

What are the ten points of view of the Dutch Supreme Court?

In the Deliveroo judgment of 2023 the Supreme Court formulated ten factors for assessing whether there is a contract of employment. In February 2025 the Supreme Court confirmed in the Uber case that there is no order of precedence between them: they all carry equal weight. The factors are: The nature and duration of the work. The way in which the work and working hours are determined. The embedding of the work and of the worker in the organisation. The obligation to perform the work personally. The way in which the contractual arrangement came about (negotiation, or signing on the dotted line?). How the remuneration is determined and paid. The level of the remuneration. The commercial risk the worker runs. Whether the worker behaves as an entrepreneur in economic life. All other circumstances of the case. Importantly, the Supreme Court emphasised that the worker’s entrepreneurship (point 9) is a criterion in its own right. Two people can do the same work for the same client and still qualify differently: one as self-employed, the other as an employee. It depends on the overall picture.

Is a DoP (director of photography) self-employed or an employee?

That depends on the actual circumstances, but in the film industry there are strong indications of self-employment for a DoP. A director of photography is a specialist who brings his own creative vision, uses his own working methods and often his own equipment. The producer does give directions about the end result, but the DoP decides how that result is achieved. Characteristic of the film industry: once shooting is finished, the collaboration ends. There is no long-term embedding in an organisation. A DoP builds a reputation, works for different producers, negotiates rates and bears entrepreneurial risk. All of these factors point towards self-employment. It can be different for roles that are a structural part of an ongoing organisation, such as production assistants at a large television production company that produces continuously. There the embedding is stronger and the situation looks more like employment.

When is a self-employed worker in film actually an employee?

The line is not always sharp, but a number of factors point towards employment. You work for an hourly or monthly wage rather than a day rate or a total price. The client determines when, where and how you work. You cannot freely have yourself replaced by someone else. You form part of the regular business operations and are treated in the same way as permanent staff: invitations to the Christmas party, access to internal courses, a fixed workplace. There is no negotiation about your rate; you sign on the dotted line. You run no financial risk if the production overruns or if you fall ill. In the film industry these situations point rather towards an employment relationship: a production assistant who works for one producer over a long period, follows instructions and carries out the same tasks as employees. Or a set builder engaged on an hourly basis with no entrepreneurial activities of his own outside that. The test is always what happens in practice, not what is on paper.

What are the consequences of false self-employment for clients?

The consequences can be considerable. Where false self-employment is established, the client, in this case the film producer, is left with the payroll taxes that should have been paid. The tax authorities can impose additional assessments with retroactive effect to 1 January 2025. An illustration: a crew member works 40 weeks at €50 an hour, 25 hours a week. The additional payroll tax assessment can then run to some €25,000, around 50% of the amount invoiced. From 2026 a penalty of up to 100% of the additional assessment can be added to that where there is intent or gross negligence. There are civil law risks as well. Does someone turn out to have been an employee after all? Then that person can claim retroactively everything that goes with employment: pay during illness, protection against dismissal, holiday entitlement, pension and collective agreement rights. Note that those claims can also relate to the period before 1 January 2025. The tax authorities may not go back further than that date, but employment law knows no such limit. These additional assessments and claims can therefore pose a serious threat to the continuity of a business.

How does payrolling work in the film industry?

With payrolling an external party, the payroll company, becomes the formal employer of the crew member. The producer continues to give day-to-day direction, but the payroll company takes over all the employer’s obligations: payment of wages, payroll taxes, pension, insurance and administration. For the film industry this can be a practical solution for avoiding false self-employment, particularly in roles where the factors tend towards employment. The crew member gets the security of a contract of employment, while the producer runs no risk of additional assessments. A few points to watch. Since the Labour Market in Balance Act (2020) the payroll worker is entitled to the same employment conditions as the hirer’s own staff. The statutory chain rule applies: a maximum of three temporary contracts in three years, with intervals of at least six months. Notice periods apply just as they do for regular employees, although that is less relevant with project-based work. There are drawbacks for the crew member too. You lose the tax advantages of entrepreneurship, such as the self-employed person’s allowance and the SME profit exemption. You are left with less in your pocket, but you are insured against sickness and incapacity.

Do model agreements remain valid after 2026?

Yes. Do you have a model agreement that was approved before September 2024? It remains valid until 31 December 2029. Since September 2024 the tax authorities no longer approve new model agreements, but what has already been approved simply continues to apply. There is an important qualification here. A model agreement only helps you if you actually work in the way it describes. The tax authorities look at what happens in practice, not at what is on paper. Does the reality differ from the contract? Then that approval will not do much for you. There is something else as well. If the law or the case law changes, the tax authorities can still withdraw a model agreement. The Supreme Court has recently said that all ten factors carry equal weight. Older model agreements that assumed a narrower test therefore offer less certainty than they once did. In short: a model agreement can help, but it is not a free pass. What actually happens on set remains decisive.

False self-employment and the film industry: how it works

12 min reading time Published: 08-12-2025 | Updated: 10-02-2026

The Dutch tax authorities have announced that they will enforce more strictly against false self-employment from 2026. For self-employed workers in the film industry that raises questions: are you caught by the Dutch DBA Act, or can you simply carry on working as a freelancer?

The Dutch tax authorities have announced that from 2026 they will also impose fines.[1] In practice it turns out that many film productions do in fact meet the criteria for self-employment. The project-based nature of film work, the specialist expertise of crew and the absence of organisational embedding all play an important part in that. At the same time there are roles where false self-employment is a real risk. In this article I work through the ten criteria from the Deliveroo judgment as a film law lawyer and show how producers can avoid the risks.

Enforcement of the DBA Act: what does it mean for film producers?

The relevant criteria have not changed. To determine whether someone is employed, the law has traditionally given four elements: work, pay, authority, and a certain period of time. The work must be performed over a period of time, for pay, under the authority of the employer. In practice the self-employed worker also performs work for pay over a period of time. The question of authority is what it always turns on. The self-employed worker is independent and decides for himself whether he works, how he works, when he works and (often) where he works.

One qualification here: where someone gives another person an assignment to do particular work, he may perfectly well give instructions, about the end result for instance. But those instructions do not by themselves mean that the person carries out the work “under authority” and is employed. Where a gardener comes to maintain a large garden, the owner may perfectly well give instructions about how short he wants the grass, how the edges should be cut and where the gardener should pay more or less attention. That does not make the gardener an employee.

Producers: what should you watch out for?

When is a self-employed worker genuinely independent, and when is there false self-employment? In a judgment on the (false) self-employment of Deliveroo riders, the Dutch Supreme Court formulated a number of factors that matter in assessing whether there is employment or self-employment.

Those factors have no fixed order of precedence. The assessment remains an overall weighing of all the circumstances of the case, in order to establish whether the four statutory elements of article 7:610 of the Dutch Civil Code are met: work, pay, authority, and a certain period of time.

Here are the ten factors the Supreme Court formulated.

1. The nature and duration of the work.

(The tax authorities also draw a distinction between an obligation of best efforts and an obligation to achieve a result. Where the obligation is one of best efforts, employment is more likely than where the person concerned has to deliver a result and can be held to it.)

In the film industry the nature and duration of the work are usually project-related. Where there is a project (an employer does not always have a project), there is work and there is demand for that particular labour. Applied to the film industry, this factor will therefore tend to be an argument for self-employment.

2. The way in which the work and the working hours are determined.

If the employer or client can say what you have to do and when you have to do it (Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm), that is an indication of employment.

In the film industry you are approached, the heads of department at any rate, because of your skills; you decide for yourself how you carry out your work and in part when. The director of photography (DoP), for instance, will test cameras and lenses, but he decides when and where he will do that. His or her further preparation is entirely up to the DoP.

Of course he has to be at a particular location on a particular day at a particular time. But those are not determined by the employer or client; they are determined by the production schedule (the availability of locations and actors) and by the script (studio or location, and whether it is a day or night shoot).

In the film industry this factor too will tend to indicate self-employment.

3. The embedding of the work and of the worker in the organisation and business operations of the person for whom the work is performed.

This factor has two important aspects: (a) the embedding of the work and (b) the embedding of the worker in the organisation.

(a) Where a furniture maker hires a carpenter to make furniture, that self-employed person does the work that is characteristic of the furniture maker’s business. It then looks rather as though the furniture maker needed another carpenter but did not want to take anyone on: an indication of employment.

(b) There is embedding of the worker in the organisation where, for instance, the employer or client also offers and pays for courses for the self-employed worker, or where the self-employed worker is invited to the Sinterklaas or Christmas party.

In the film industry embedding will not readily arise. The work of the average film producer is indeed producing films, but that work, the production, is fundamentally different from the work of the specialists needed to make a film (such as the DoP, the production designer and the editor).

It will be different for a production manager or production assistant who is hired in. And it can also be different for a large television production company that produces continuously.

Embedding in the organisation will not readily occur either: as soon as filming is finished most people go their separate ways, and you only meet again at the film’s premiere, or on a new film if the collaboration went well (and the self-employed worker in question does not happen to have other work).

4. Whether or not there is an obligation to perform the work personally.

If you have to carry out the work yourself and cannot have someone else do it, that is in principle an indication of a contract of employment.

But a person can also be chosen to do a particular piece of work because of their special qualities or reputation. If you want a particular portrait painter to paint your portrait, you do not want him to have the actual work done by someone else.

In the film industry in particular, people are asked because of their expertise, experience and reputation, but also because of their affinity with a genre of film, for instance. One DoP is better for an action scene and another is better for an art-house film; one production designer is more lavish where another is more minimalist. It is on qualities of that kind that someone is asked to fill a role in the film industry. So here too, the fact that someone has to do the work personally is not readily an indication of an employment relationship.

The above applies above all to heads of department; for assistants and hands-on crew (scenic painters, set builders) it will be different.

5. The way in which the contractual arrangement came about.

Is there negotiation, or is it a matter of signing on the dotted line?

6. The way in which the remuneration is determined and paid (fixed fee, rate, VAT, and so on).

An hourly or monthly wage indicates a contract of employment. A total price (excluding VAT) or a day rate (excluding VAT) points towards self-employment. Certainly where a day rate goes together with an agreement that the assignment as a whole will take no more than x days and that any additional days will be at the expense of the self-employed contractor.

7. The level of the remuneration.

Is the level of the remuneration the result of negotiation, taking into account factors such as whether the person is established or just starting out, demand in the market and so on, or does the client set the remuneration unilaterally?

In the film industry you see that the level of remuneration takes many factors into account and is in principle the result of negotiation (only the budget available for the film is often a ceiling).

The fee for a self-employed worker will as a rule also be higher than for someone in employment. The self-employed worker has to arrange his own incapacity insurance, is not paid during illness and accrues no pension.

8. The commercial risk the worker runs (entrepreneurial risk).

Where someone is employed and there is no work, that is the employer’s risk. He will have to keep paying the wage. If the employee falls ill, the employer will have to keep paying the wage.

But where the self-employed worker can be let go when there is no work, and has no right to payment when he is ill or does not work for other reasons, that is an indication of self-employment.

9. Whether the worker behaves, or can behave, as an entrepreneur.

Where the person carrying out the work also behaves as an entrepreneur in economic and social life, that too is an indication of self-employment.

That behaviour can lie in, among other things, building a reputation, pitching for new work, having a LinkedIn profile, how the contractor positions himself for tax purposes (does he file VAT returns, is he or she entitled to the self-employed person’s allowance), registration in the trade register of the Chamber of Commerce, the number of clients a person has, and the duration of assignments.

The duration of assignments will not be a problem in the feature film industry. Someone is hired for the shooting period, and that is generally relatively short. It can be different where a large television series is being made. But where that is a one-off, it need not detract from self-employment.

10. The practical significance of contractual provisions, such as a substitution clause: a clause only counts where it genuinely has significance for the worker.

You can dress a contract up with all the fine provisions you like in order to make it look as though it is not a contract of employment, but in the end what matters is the practical significance of the provisions and their value to the person carrying out the work.

You often hear it said that if you can have yourself replaced, there is no contract of employment. The Supreme Court has held that a contractual possibility of substitution does not rule out the existence of a contract of employment.

What matters is the practical significance of the clause. Does substitution actually happen in practice? Is the work straightforward? Can you build a business model on the possibility of substitution?

Payrolling as an alternative for film producers under the DBA Act

Where someone does not qualify as self-employed for particular work, he or she is an employee. Many film producers do not want to run a payroll administration themselves, and are not in a position to bear the risks of being an employer (continued payment during illness, for instance).

The solution will have to be sought in paying through a payroll company or hiring through an employment agency (through a company such as Tentoo, for instance).

What is payrolling and how does it work legally?

Payrolling has had a legal status since 2020. A payroll worker differs from an agency worker in that you, as the client, choose who you want to hire; moreover a payroll worker may be made available exclusively to your company (an agency worker can be swapped at any moment).

A payroll worker has the same pay and benefits as the hirer’s own permanent staff. Employment law risks, such as continued payment during illness, are taken over by the payroll company, which becomes the legal employer.

Through the payroll company, the payroll worker or freelancer accrues rights to unemployment, sickness and incapacity benefits.

Nor may a client simply end the payroll arrangement from one day to the next. In principle the same notice period applies as for a member of staff on the client’s own payroll. The precise notice period also depends on the arrangements between the client and the payroll company.

In the film industry you will take someone on for a production: a clearly defined piece of work and therefore for a fixed term. Notice periods then do not come into play.

Because a payroll worker is entitled to the same legal position and employment conditions as staff employed by the hirer, this also means that the statutory chain rule applies, so that a fixed-term contract can in certain circumstances turn into a contract for an indefinite period. In concrete terms this means that a maximum of three temporary contracts may be given in three years, with intervals between the contracts of at least six months.

Payrolling: consequences for the budget

Payrolling changed with the entry into force of the Dutch Labour Market in Balance Act (WAB) on 1 January 2020. Since then payroll workers may also be entitled to a transition payment on termination of the contract, and to holiday entitlement and holiday allowance. All social insurance contributions are paid for payroll workers, and the unemployment insurance contributions are even higher than those for staff in permanent employment. You will have to take that into account when budgeting the costs of the film. But those additional costs are still lower than an additional assessment plus a fine from the tax authorities.

Model agreements for the self-employed: what you need to know

Following the abolition of the Declaration of Independent Contractor Status (the VAR), the tax authorities adopted model agreements. Note that these model agreements offer no certainty: what matters is how the work is actually carried out in practice, and that is assessed against the criteria set out above.

No new model agreements are being adopted, and the existing approved model agreements remain valid until 31 December 2029 (even where the model agreement itself says otherwise).

Read more about model agreements at Werken met modelovereenkomsten.

For actors (and other performers) it remains the case that there is in principle a deemed employment relationship, unless, in accordance with article 4(2) of the Decree designating cases in which an employment relationship is regarded as employment, a written agreement has been concluded before payment of the fee begins, from which it appears that both parties intend to disapply article 4(1) of that Decree. The wording currently used in the model agreements on this point can therefore continue to be used.

Contact

Do you work as a producer or crew member in the film and television industry and do you have questions about false self-employment? Or would you like your contracts reviewed? Please get in touch. We are glad to help you find a workable solution that fits the way the sector actually works.

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zzper-de-filmindustrie-producent-let-op-roland-wigman-ayvpe/

[1] See De Volkskrant of 8 December 2025, “Voor het eerst fors minder zzp’ers”, and NU.nl: https://www.nu.nl/economie/6377557/zzpers-blijven-massaal-opdrachten-uitvoeren-ondanks-strengere-controles.html

Roland Wigman

Lawyer

Roland knows everything about film law and film copyright. After a brief career as a film producer, he has been assisting film producers, film financiers, film distributors and creators for more than 35 years. Both nationally and internationally.

Frequently asked questions

False self-employment arises where someone works as a self-employed contractor on paper, but the actual situation points to a contract of employment. You invoice as a freelancer, but in practice you are working as an employee. The tax authorities, and the courts, look not at what the contract says but at what the working relationship actually looks like. If the criteria for a contract of employment are met (work, pay and authority) there is employment, even where neither party wanted that.

For the film industry this question is particularly relevant. Many crew and cast members move from production to production, often for short periods. That flexible character looks like self-employment, but the question is always: do you decide for yourself how you do the work? Or do you follow the producer’s instructions?
The Dutch tax authorities have been actively enforcing against false self-employment since 1 January 2025. In 2025 there was a “soft landing”: additional assessments, but no fines. That transitional period has been extended for default fines up to and including 2026. In concrete terms that means the tax authorities will not impose default fines for false self-employment in 2026 either.

But note: from 2026 penalties can be imposed where there is intent or gross negligence. Think of situations in which you deliberately ignore warnings from the tax authorities, or where there is plainly an arrangement designed to avoid payroll taxes. Additional assessments for payroll tax remain possible in all cases, with retroactive effect to 1 January 2025. The tax authorities can therefore correct retroactively over a maximum of five years, but no further back than that date.
In the Deliveroo judgment of 2023 the Supreme Court formulated ten factors for assessing whether there is a contract of employment. In February 2025 the Supreme Court confirmed in the Uber case that there is no order of precedence between them: they all carry equal weight.

The factors are:
1. The nature and duration of the work.
2. The way in which the work and working hours are determined.
3. The embedding of the work and of the worker in the organisation.
4. The obligation to perform the work personally.
5. The way in which the contractual arrangement came about (negotiation, or signing on the dotted line?).
6. How the remuneration is determined and paid.
7. The level of the remuneration.
8. The commercial risk the worker runs.
9. Whether the worker behaves as an entrepreneur in economic life.
10. All other circumstances of the case.
Importantly, the Supreme Court emphasised that the worker’s entrepreneurship (point 9) is a criterion in its own right. Two people can do the same work for the same client and still qualify differently: one as self-employed, the other as an employee. It depends on the overall picture.
That depends on the actual circumstances, but in the film industry there are strong indications of self-employment for a DoP. A director of photography is a specialist who brings his own creative vision, uses his own working methods and often his own equipment. The producer does give directions about the end result, but the DoP decides how that result is achieved.

Characteristic of the film industry: once shooting is finished, the collaboration ends. There is no long-term embedding in an organisation. A DoP builds a reputation, works for different producers, negotiates rates and bears entrepreneurial risk. All of these factors point towards self-employment.

It can be different for roles that are a structural part of an ongoing organisation, such as production assistants at a large television production company that produces continuously. There the embedding is stronger and the situation looks more like employment.
The line is not always sharp, but a number of factors point towards employment.

You work for an hourly or monthly wage rather than a day rate or a total price. The client determines when, where and how you work. You cannot freely have yourself replaced by someone else. You form part of the regular business operations and are treated in the same way as permanent staff: invitations to the Christmas party, access to internal courses, a fixed workplace. There is no negotiation about your rate; you sign on the dotted line. You run no financial risk if the production overruns or if you fall ill.

In the film industry these situations point rather towards an employment relationship: a production assistant who works for one producer over a long period, follows instructions and carries out the same tasks as employees. Or a set builder engaged on an hourly basis with no entrepreneurial activities of his own outside that.

The test is always what happens in practice, not what is on paper.
The consequences can be considerable. Where false self-employment is established, the client, in this case the film producer, is left with the payroll taxes that should have been paid. The tax authorities can impose additional assessments with retroactive effect to 1 January 2025.

An illustration: a crew member works 40 weeks at €50 an hour, 25 hours a week. The additional payroll tax assessment can then run to some €25,000, around 50% of the amount invoiced. From 2026 a penalty of up to 100% of the additional assessment can be added to that where there is intent or gross negligence.

There are civil law risks as well. Does someone turn out to have been an employee after all? Then that person can claim retroactively everything that goes with employment: pay during illness, protection against dismissal, holiday entitlement, pension and collective agreement rights. Note that those claims can also relate to the period before 1 January 2025. The tax authorities may not go back further than that date, but employment law knows no such limit.

These additional assessments and claims can therefore pose a serious threat to the continuity of a business.
With payrolling an external party, the payroll company, becomes the formal employer of the crew member. The producer continues to give day-to-day direction, but the payroll company takes over all the employer’s obligations: payment of wages, payroll taxes, pension, insurance and administration.

For the film industry this can be a practical solution for avoiding false self-employment, particularly in roles where the factors tend towards employment. The crew member gets the security of a contract of employment, while the producer runs no risk of additional assessments.

A few points to watch. Since the Labour Market in Balance Act (2020) the payroll worker is entitled to the same employment conditions as the hirer’s own staff. The statutory chain rule applies: a maximum of three temporary contracts in three years, with intervals of at least six months. Notice periods apply just as they do for regular employees, although that is less relevant with project-based work.

There are drawbacks for the crew member too. You lose the tax advantages of entrepreneurship, such as the self-employed person’s allowance and the SME profit exemption. You are left with less in your pocket, but you are insured against sickness and incapacity.
Yes. Do you have a model agreement that was approved before September 2024? It remains valid until 31 December 2029. Since September 2024 the tax authorities no longer approve new model agreements, but what has already been approved simply continues to apply.

There is an important qualification here. A model agreement only helps you if you actually work in the way it describes. The tax authorities look at what happens in practice, not at what is on paper. Does the reality differ from the contract? Then that approval will not do much for you.

There is something else as well. If the law or the case law changes, the tax authorities can still withdraw a model agreement. The Supreme Court has recently said that all ten factors carry equal weight. Older model agreements that assumed a narrower test therefore offer less certainty than they once did.

In short: a model agreement can help, but it is not a free pass. What actually happens on set remains decisive.