Dutch Sick Pay 2026: Loondoorbetaling bij Ziekte and the Ziektewet

Two different systems answer the question of what happens to income during illness in the Netherlands, and everyday Dutch calls both of them the Ziektewet. Which one applies usually turns on one fact, whether there is still an employer under a contract of employment (arbeidsovereenkomst), but the Ziektewet names four situations in which both systems pay at once.

An employee whose contract is still running is paid by the employer under artikel 7:629 BW. That is sick pay (loondoorbetaling bij ziekte), it comes from the employer rather than from a benefits office, and it can run for two years.

Someone with no employer, because a fixed-term contract ended or an assignment stopped, falls back on the Ziektewet itself, which UWV administers as a safety net (vangnet). This page works through the employer route first, then sets out who lands in the UWV route instead, and then the four situations in which both routes pay at the same time.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Netherlands law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Which system pays, and the four cases where both do

Artikel 29 lid 1 ZW sets the boundary. No ziekengeld is paid where the insured person has a right to loon under artikel 7:629 BW out of the employment the work belongs to, and the exclusion bites just as hard where that right to loon is wholly or partly missing through the application of leden 3, 5, 6 or 9 of that article.

The second half of that rule is easy to miss and matters a great deal. Losing the loon under artikel 7:629 lid 3 BW, for refusing passende arbeid for instance, does not open the Ziektewet as a substitute.

The same sentence opens with four exceptions of its own. It applies behoudens, that is except for, artikel 29 lid 2 onderdeel e ZW and de artikelen 29a, 29b en 29d ZW, and in those four cases UWV pays ziekengeld even though a contract of employment is running and loon is still owed.

So the general rule is that the two systems are alternatives rather than layers, and the general rule has four express statutory exceptions. Two of them are particular situations, organ donation and incapacity caused by pregnancy or childbirth. The other two are the no-risk policy (no-riskpolis), which exists precisely so that ziekengeld and employer loon can run at the same time, and which has its own section below.

The first question is therefore not how much, but who pays. The table below sorts the common situations.

What artikel 7:629 BW actually pays

Artikel 7:629 lid 1 BW keeps a right to 70 percent of the loon fixed by time for a period of 104 weeks, where the agreed work was not performed because of incapacity through illness, pregnancy or childbirth. During the first 52 weeks the amount may not fall below the statutory minimum wage applying to that employee.

The same lid caps the calculation. The right runs only in so far as the loon does not exceed the amount in artikel 17 lid 1 Wfsv for a wage period of one day, which is the maximum daily wage (maximumdagloon). Artikel 17 lid 1 Wfsv sets the calendar year at 261 days for that purpose, and artikel 18 Wfsv revises the amount whenever the statutory minimum wage is revised, with the new figure announced in the Staatscourant.

Artikel 7:629 lid 2 BW shortens the whole period from 104 weeks to six weeks in two situations. One is work performed on fewer than four days a week, exclusively or almost exclusively for the household of the natural person employing the worker. The other is an employee who has reached the AOW age of artikel 7 onderdeel a AOW.

The final sentence of that lid bridges the two. Where the incapacity began before the employee reached the AOW age, the six-week term runs from the date the age is reached, so long as the total period does not exceed 104 weeks.

Artikel 7:629 lid 4 BW is a separate exclusion. The lid 1 right does not run for the period during which a female employee is on zwangerschaps- or bevallingsverlof as meant in artikel 3:1 leden 2 en 3 Wet arbeid en zorg.

Three short calculations

Take a gross monthly loon of EUR 3,000 that sits below the maximumdagloon ceiling. The statutory floor produces 70 percent of EUR 3,000, or EUR 2,100 gross per month, for as long as the 104 weeks run.

In the first 52 weeks that EUR 2,100 is compared against the statutory minimum wage for this employee, and the higher of the two applies. Artikel 14 lid 1 Wet minimumloon en minimumvakantiebijslag (WML) revises the statutory minimum wage with effect from 1 January, and artikel 14 lid 2 WML revises it again with effect from 1 July. The comparison therefore has to be made against the figure in force in the month concerned rather than against a remembered one.

Now take a cao that pays 100 percent in the first year and 70 percent in the second. The same employee sees EUR 3,000 for the first twelve months and EUR 2,100 after that, and the difference above the statutory floor comes entirely from the cao. Artikel 7:629 lid 9 BW restricts only deviation to the employee's disadvantage, so paying more is always open.

The ceiling changes the third case. Take a gross monthly loon of EUR 12,000, and assume for this example that it sits above the maximumdagloon for the year concerned, exactly as the EUR 3,000 case assumed the opposite. On that assumption the 70 percent is applied to the capped amount rather than to EUR 12,000.

This page does not carry a 2026 maximumdagloon figure, because artikel 18 Wfsv puts the revised amount in the Staatscourant and it moves with the statutory minimum wage. The structural point holds whatever the figure turns out to be: higher earners lose proportionally more than the headline percentage suggests, unless the contract or the cao makes up the difference.

When the loon can stop, and when it is only suspended

Artikel 7:629 lid 3 BW lists six situations in which the right to the payment is missing, and only the first of them is categorical. Onderdeel a has two limbs: illness caused deliberately by the employee, and illness that is the consequence of a gebrek about which the employee gave false information at a pre-employment medical (aanstellingskeuring), so that the test against the job's belastbaarheidseisen could not be carried out properly.

The other five are time-limited rather than absolute. Each of onderdelen b to f is written voor de tijd, gedurende welke, that is, only for the period during which the situation lasts, so the right revives when the situation ends.

Those five are recovery hindered or delayed by the employee's own doing, and a refusal without proper reason to perform suitable work (passende arbeid) as meant in artikel 7:658a lid 4 BW that the employer or a third party designated by the employer makes available. They continue into the re-integratie process, with a refusal without proper reason to cooperate with reasonable instructions or measures aimed at enabling that work, and a refusal to cooperate in drawing up, evaluating and adjusting the plan van aanpak. A late application for a WIA benefit under artikel 64 lid 1 WIA closes the list, for the period of the delay.

Suspension is a different power. Artikel 7:629 lid 6 BW allows the employer to suspend payment for as long as the employee does not follow reasonable written instructions about supplying the information the employer needs to establish the right to loon. Suspension is about the checking process, while lid 3 is about the right itself.

Both are subject to a notice rule that employers regularly fail. Artikel 7:629 lid 7 BW blocks reliance on any ground for withholding or suspending payment where the employer did not tell the employee immediately after the suspicion of that ground arose or reasonably should have arisen.

Artikel 7:629 lid 5 BW separately reduces the loon by benefits under any statutory insurance covering the same work, and by income earned in or outside employment for work performed during the time the agreed work could otherwise have been done.

Counting the 104 weeks

Artikel 7:629 lid 10 BW adds separate periods of incapacity together where they follow each other with an interruption of less than four weeks, unless the incapacity cannot reasonably be regarded as flowing from the same cause. Periods running directly before and after pregnancy or maternity leave are added in the same way.

A gap of four weeks or more therefore restarts the clock, and a shorter gap does not. That single rule decides whether a second absence sits inside the original two years or opens a fresh period.

Artikel 7:629 lid 11 BW extends the 104 weeks in four cases, among them a delayed WIA application and an extension fixed by UWV under artikel 25 lid 9 WIA. That extension is the loonsanctie, set out below.

Re-integratie duties run on both sides

The Wet verbetering poortwachter is the reform that turned illness into a managed process with deadlines. Its substance now sits in artikel 7:658a BW, artikel 7:660a BW, artikel 25 WIA and the Regeling procesgang eerste en tweede ziektejaar.

On the employer side, artikel 7:658a lid 1 BW requires the employer to promote the return to work inside its own business, and, once it is established that the original work cannot be done and no other suitable work is available there, to promote placement with another employer. Artikel 7:658a lid 3 BW requires a plan van aanpak drawn up in agreement with the employee, evaluated regularly and adjusted where needed.

On the employee side, artikel 7:660a lid 1 BW requires cooperation with reasonable instructions and measures, cooperation in drawing up, evaluating and adjusting the plan van aanpak, and performance of suitable work the employer makes available. Artikel 7:658a lid 4 BW defines suitable work as all work suited to the employee's strength and abilities, unless acceptance cannot be required for physical, mental or social reasons.

Three of those duties fall away at the AOW age, on both sides of the relationship. The second-track obligation in artikel 7:658a lid 1 BW and the plan van aanpak obligation in artikel 7:658a lid 3 BW do not apply to an employee who has reached the age of artikel 7 onderdeel a AOW, and artikel 7:660a lid 2 BW disapplies the matching plan van aanpak duty on the employee side.

The deadlines sit in the Regeling procesgang eerste en tweede ziektejaar. Artikel 2 lid 2 of that regeling requires the employer to obtain an opinion from the bedrijfsarts or the arbodienst within six weeks of the first day of incapacity, where in the view of the bedrijfsarts or the arbodienst the absence threatens to be long-term. Artikel 2 lid 3 adds that where that only becomes apparent after the six weeks have passed, the employer must obtain the opinion without delay.

Artikel 4 lid 1 of the regeling carries a condition of its own that summaries routinely drop. The plan van aanpak is due within two weeks of that opinion only where the opinion shows that there are still possibilities of promoting the employee's return to work. Where the opinion shows none, the two-week clock is not started at all.

Artikel 4 lid 2 fixes what the plan contains: the activities of both sides and the targets, the moments at which those activities are evaluated, an evaluation at least at the end of the first sick year, and a person who supervises the activities and handles contact between employee, employer and bedrijfsarts.

Artikel 4 lid 3 requires the plan to be recorded in writing, with a copy sent to the employee without delay, and artikel 4 lid 5 requires it to be adjusted where an evaluation or the advice of the bedrijfsarts gives cause.

Neither deadline is fixed in the way summaries suggest. Artikel 5 of the regeling provides that the terms in artikel 2 and artikel 4 may be departed from by the employer and the employee with reasons given (gemotiveerd). They are therefore a default that a reasoned joint decision can move, not a statutory date that binds both sides whatever the file looks like.

Artikel 25 lid 3 WIA closes the two years with a re-integratieverslag, drawn up by the employer in consultation with the employee no later than thirteen weeks before the waiting period expires. Artikel 23 lid 1 WIA sets that waiting period at 104 weeks.

The loonsanctie and the third year

Artikel 25 lid 9 WIA is the provision behind the phrase third year of loondoorbetaling. Where it appears, on handling the WIA application, that the employer without proper reason did not meet its duties or made insufficient re-integratie efforts, UWV extends the period during which the employee has a right to loon under artikel 7:629 BW so that the employer can repair the shortcoming.

The extension is capped at 52 weeks. Artikel 25 lid 10 WIA requires UWV to give the decision at the latest six weeks before the waiting period ends, and artikel 25 lid 11 WIA blocks the extension altogether where UWV misses that point.

Repair is possible while the sanction runs. Artikel 25 lid 12 WIA lets the employer report that the shortcoming has been repaired and show that it has, artikel 25 lid 13 WIA gives UWV three weeks to decide, and artikel 25 lid 14 WIA ends the extended period six weeks after UWV establishes the repair, and in any event after 52 weeks.

A loonsanctie is a sanction on the employer rather than on the employee. Its practical effect on the employee side is that the employment relationship and the loondoorbetaling both continue while it lasts.

The link to the dismissal bar runs through artikel 7:670 lid 11 onderdeel c BW, not through lid 1. That onderdeel extends the two-year term in lid 1 onderdeel a by the length of the period UWV has fixed under artikel 24 lid 1 WIA or artikel 25 lid 9 WIA, so a wage sanction and the notice bar move together by the same number of weeks.

Dismissal during and after the two years

Artikel 7:670 lid 1 BW provides that the employer cannot give notice while the employee is unfit for work through illness. Two exceptions sit in that lid itself. The first is where the incapacity has lasted at least two years, or six weeks for an employee who has reached the AOW age. The second is where the incapacity began after a request for permission under artikel 7:671a BW had already been received by UWV or by the commissie of artikel 7:671a lid 2 BW.

Two further sentences in the same lid change the arithmetic. Where the incapacity started before the employee reached the AOW age, the six-week term runs from that date, so long as the total period during which the employer cannot give notice is not more than two years. And periods of incapacity due to pregnancy before the zwangerschapsverlof, together with incapacity during the zwangerschaps- or bevallingsverlof of artikel 3:1 leden 2 en 3 Wet arbeid en zorg, are left out of the two-year count altogether.

Artikel 7:670 lid 11 BW extends that two-year term in three cases. They are the length of a delay where the WIA application under artikel 64 lid 1 WIA is made late, the length of an extended wachttijd under artikel 19 lid 7 WAO, and the length of the period UWV has fixed under artikel 24 lid 1 WIA or artikel 25 lid 9 WIA.

The exceptions are not only the two in lid 1

Artikel 7:670a BW carries the rest of them, and a summary that stops at lid 1 leaves out the exception most likely to reach an ill employee. Artikel 7:670a lid 1 BW disapplies artikel 7:670 lid 1 onderdeel a BW where the employee without proper reason refuses to meet the duties in artikel 7:660a BW, and the employer has either warned the employee in writing to meet them or, observing artikel 7:629 lid 7 BW, has stopped paying loon for that reason.

Artikel 7:670a lid 2 BW then switches off artikel 7:670 leden 1 tot en met 4 en lid 10 BW, together with comparable statutory notice bans elsewhere, in five situations:

• the employee has consented to the notice in writing;
• the notice is given during the proeftijd;
• the notice is given on the ground of artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW, which is summary dismissal;
• the notice is given because the activities of the business are ending, except against a woman on zwangerschaps- or bevallingsverlof;
• the notice is given on the ground of artikel 7:669 lid 4 BW, that is on reaching the agreed end age or the AOW age, so far as it is unconnected with the circumstances those bans protect.

Written consent is not final on the day it is given. Artikel 7:670a lid 5 BW lets the employee revoke it within fourteen days of its date, in writing and without giving reasons, and artikel 7:670a lid 8 BW makes any clause excluding or limiting that right void (nietig).

The bar reaches notice only

Artikel 7:670 lid 1 BW is written as a restriction on the employer giving notice (opzegging). It says nothing about the other ways a contract of employment comes to an end.

A settlement agreement (vaststellingsovereenkomst) ends the contract by agreement rather than by notice, so the illness bar is not in its way. A fixed-term contract that reaches its agreed end date lapses of its own accord during illness in the same way. That is why an ill employee who is offered a vaststellingsovereenkomst is not protected by artikel 7:670 BW at all, and why the two questions have to be kept apart.

After the two years, the incapacity ground

Once the two years have run, the incapacity ground becomes available. Artikel 7:669 lid 3 onderdeel b BW requires the period of artikel 7:670 leden 1 en 11 BW to have expired, that recovery within 26 weeks is not likely, and that the agreed work cannot be performed in adapted form within that period.

The 26 weeks shorten for an older employee. For an employee who has reached the age of artikel 7 onderdeel a AOW, artikel 7:669 lid 3 onderdeel b BW puts the recovery window at six weeks rather than 26.

An ending on that ground goes through UWV rather than through the kantonrechter, because artikel 7:671a lid 1 BW routes the incapacity ground to the preventive permission test. Where the contract then ends on the employer's initiative, the transitievergoeding is calculated in the ordinary way, and the formula with worked examples sits on the severance pay (transitievergoeding) page.

Disagreeing with the bedrijfsarts, or with the employer

The bedrijfsarts is the company doctor engaged on the employer side, and assessing fitness for work belongs to that role rather than to the treating physician. An employee who doubts the advice has a statutory route.

Artikel 14 lid 2 onderdeel g Arbeidsomstandighedenwet obliges the bedrijfsarts to honour a request from the employee to consult another bedrijfsarts as soon as possible, unless compelling arguments oppose it. The right attaches to advice given on the tasks in artikel 14 lid 1 onderdelen b en c Arbowet, which is a wider set than absence guidance alone.

Onderdeel b is the guidance of employees who cannot work through illness, including advice on the duties under artikel 25 WIA. Onderdeel c adds the arbeidsgezondheidskundig onderzoek of artikel 18 Arbowet, the aanstellingskeuring where the employer has one carried out, and consultation on health questions connected with the work.

A dispute between employer and employee runs on a separate track. Artikel 7:629a lid 1 BW requires a claim for payment of loon under artikel 7:629 BW to be accompanied by a statement from an expert appointed by UWV, about the incapacity or about compliance with the duties in artikel 7:660a BW, and the court rejects the claim where that statement is missing. Artikel 7:629a lid 2 BW drops the requirement where the point is not disputed or the statement cannot reasonably be required.

Artikel 7:658b BW mirrors this on the other side, for a claim compelling the employer to meet its duty under artikel 7:658a lid 2 BW. Artikel 7:629a lid 6 BW also limits the costs risk, since the employee is ordered to pay the employer's costs only in the case of manifestly unreasonable use of procedural law.

The no-riskpolis, where both systems run at once

The clearest of the four exceptions is the no-risk policy (no-riskpolis), and it is the one most often missing from summaries of Dutch sick pay. It lives in artikel 29b ZW and artikel 29d ZW, both named in the opening words of artikel 29 lid 1 ZW.

Artikel 29b lid 1 ZW gives ziekengeld from the first day of incapacity to employees with a defined disability history. The groups include someone who had a WIA entitlement immediately before the job began, someone assessed at less than 35 percent arbeidsongeschikt at the end of the wachttijd who meets the further conditions in that onderdeel, and someone whose education was hindered by illness or a gebrek and who starts work within five years of finishing it.

Artikel 29b lid 2 ZW adds the Wajong and Participatiewet groups, and artikel 29b lid 4 ZW covers an employee whose existing job continues after a WIA entitlement has been established. The cover runs for periods of incapacity beginning in the five years after the job starts, and artikel 29c ZW allows that five-year term to be extended where a significantly raised risk of serious health problems is established before it expires.

Artikel 29d ZW does the same for an older group. It reaches an employee born before 8 July 1954 who had at least 52 weeks of a WW-uitkering immediately before a job that started before pension age, and artikel 29d lid 6 ZW adds employees born before 1 January 1962 whose job started between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2019.

The rate is 70 percent of the dagloon under artikel 29b lid 5 ZW and artikel 29d lid 2 ZW. Artikel 29b lid 6 ZW and artikel 29d lid 3 ZW let the employer ask for the full dagloon during the first 52 weeks, capped at the loon the employer would otherwise owe.

The arrangement sits on the employer's side of the ledger rather than the employee's. The employee is still paid loon under artikel 7:629 BW, and artikel 7:629 lid 5 BW reduces that loon by benefits under a statutory insurance covering the same work, so the effect is to shift the cost to UWV rather than to pay the employee twice.

UWV states that the no-riskpolis is awarded automatically where the conditions are met, so it does not have to be applied for, and that it normally runs for the first five years of the job. UWV also states that a job applicant does not have to raise it during an application, but does have to answer if the employer asks after two months or more of employment.

Artikel 29 lid 6 ZW keeps the two systems consistent on the exclusion side. Where a person in one of these four cases has no right to loon through the application of artikel 7:629 lid 3 BW, no ziekengeld is paid to that extent either.

The Ziektewet route in more detail

Outside those four cases the Ziektewet route reaches the people the employer route cannot. Artikel 29 lid 2 ZW names the groups and the day the sickness benefit starts. Artikel 29 lid 5 ZW caps that benefit at the same 104 weeks, or at six weeks where the first day of incapacity falls on or after the day the insured person reaches the age of artikel 7 onderdeel a AOW.

Someone whose contract ends inside the running period is paid from the first day of incapacity after the ending, and no earlier than the third day of incapacity, under artikel 29 lid 2 sub c ZW. Someone receiving a WW-uitkering counts as an employee under artikel 7 sub a ZW and is paid from the first day of the fourteenth week of incapacity under artikel 29 lid 2 sub d onder 1 ZW, or earlier where the WW-uitkering itself ends under artikel 20 lid 1 onderdeel a of b WW.

No ziekengeld is therefore paid for the first thirteen weeks in that case. What income runs during those weeks is a question of the Werkloosheidswet and is decided by UWV under that act, which is outside the scope of this page.

Artikel 46 lid 1 ZW adds the after-cover. A person who becomes unfit for work within four weeks of the insurance ending has a claim to ziekengeld as though the insurance had continued, and artikel 46 lid 3 ZW excludes that claim in three cases, among them people who have reached the pension age and people with a sickness entitlement under the law of another state.

Artikel 29 lid 7 ZW sets the ordinary rate at 70 percent of the dagloon for the groups in lid 2 sub a to c and for the WW-related case in lid 2 sub d onder 2. It does not cover lid 2 sub d onder 1, the case of someone who falls ill while on a WW-uitkering, which artikel 29 lid 7 ZW instead sends to artikel 47 lid 1 onderdeel b en artikel 47a WW.

Two of the carve-outs are paid at more than 70 percent. The organ donation case in lid 2 sub e is paid at the full dagloon under artikel 29 lid 8 ZW, and incapacity caused by pregnancy or childbirth is paid at the full dagloon under artikel 29a ZW.

How UWV applies its own operational rules to an individual file is decided by UWV rather than by the statute, and is outside the scope of this page. What is set out above is what the legislation itself provides.

The wider framework of dismissal grounds, notice and routes is on the Netherlands employment law section page, and the codes and forums behind all of it on the Netherlands law overview. The restriction on post-employment work that often surfaces alongside a long absence is covered on the non-compete clause (concurrentiebeding) page.