Ontslag op Staande Voet 2026: Summary Dismissal in the Netherlands

Summary dismissal (ontslag op staande voet) ends an employment contract on the spot. There is no notice period, no permission from UWV, no decision from a judge beforehand, and the wage stops the same day.

That is a very large amount of protection removed at once, which is why artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW attaches three requirements to it and why each of them is read strictly. It is also why a challenge to a summary dismissal turns first on those three requirements rather than on the underlying conduct.

This page sets out the three requirements, the statutory list of urgent causes, what a failed summary dismissal costs an employer, and the two consequences that hit an employee hardest: the two month deadline and the effect on the unemployment benefit.

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.

Three requirements, all of them cumulative

Artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW is one sentence: either party is entitled to end the employment contract without delay for an urgent cause, on immediate notification of that reason to the other party. Three separate requirements are packed into it.

The first is an urgent cause (dringende reden), defined in artikel 7:678 BW for the employer side and in artikel 7:679 BW for the employee side. The second is that the notice is given onverwijld, without delay. The third is the onverwijlde mededeling: the reason has to be communicated to the other party at the same time.

They are cumulative, and that is the single most consequential feature of this article. A serious, well-evidenced reason that was left to drift after the facts were known fails on the timing. A prompt dismissal with the reason left vague fails on the notification, even where the underlying conduct would easily have carried it.

The three requirements are tested on the dismissal as it was given. An employer that misjudges the timing or the notification is no longer arguing about the conduct but about what the failed dismissal costs, while the ordinary routes of artikel 7:671a and artikel 7:671b BW stay open for a fresh and properly grounded ending.

What counts as an urgent cause

Artikel 7:678 lid 1 BW defines the urgent cause on the employer side as acts, characteristics or conduct of the employee that have the consequence that the employer cannot reasonably be expected to let the employment contract continue. Lid 2 then adds twelve examples, and the wording is deliberately open: such reasons zullen onder andere aanwezig geacht kunnen worden.

The list is illustrative rather than automatic, and this is where a lot of summary dismissals come apart. An item on the list does not by itself decide the case: the conduct is weighed against the nature and seriousness of what happened, the length of service and the way the employee has performed, and the personal consequences of an immediate dismissal.

Those consequences are severe by design, which is why they count in the weighing. The employee loses the wage at once, normally loses the unemployment benefit as well, and carries a dismissal for cause into the next application.

Lid 3 closes an obvious loophole. Any clause leaving it to the employer to decide whether an urgent cause within the meaning of artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW exists is void, so an employer cannot define the test into its own hands through the contract or a company handbook.

Artikel 7:679 BW mirrors all of this for the employee, with its own list of ten examples, among them assault by the employer, not paying the wage at the agreed time, and a continuation of the contract that would involve serious dangers to life, health, morality or reputation that were not clear when the contract was made.

Onverwijld: the timing requirement

The statute fixes no number of days, and the requirement is not that an employer must act before it understands what happened. A short and purposeful investigation is compatible with acting onverwijld, as is an urgent internal consultation, or waiting long enough to hear the employee's side of the story.

What the requirement does not tolerate is drift once the facts are known. An employer that has completed its investigation, formed its view and then lets days pass has taken the urgency out of its own case, and the argument that continuation could not reasonably be required becomes hard to sustain.

Suspension on full pay (schorsing) while the facts are established is the ordinary way an employer keeps the employee off site during an investigation. It does not stop the clock. Nothing in artikel 7:677 BW suspends the onverwijldheid requirement while a suspension runs, so the investigation still has to be purposeful and the dismissal still has to follow promptly once the facts are known.

The onverwijlde mededeling is a separate requirement with its own failure mode. Artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW requires the reason to be communicated at the moment of the dismissal, and in terms the employee can understand, so a reason added or substituted afterwards does not repair a notification that was inadequate at the time.

The gefixeerde schadevergoeding

Artikel 7:677 lid 2 BW attaches a payment to fault rather than to the dismissal itself. The party that gave the other an urgent cause through intent or fault (opzet of schuld) owes the other party compensation, provided the other party actually used the power to dismiss without delay.

Lid 3 fixes the amount, which is why it is known as the gefixeerde schadevergoeding. On an open-ended contract, and on a fixed term contract that can be ended by interim notice, it equals the wage over the period the contract should have continued had regular notice been given. On a fixed term contract that cannot be ended by interim notice, it equals the wage over the period the contract would have run to its natural end.

So an employee dismissed on the spot for a cause that person actually gave can owe the employer roughly a notice period of wage. In practice the amount is often set against the final settlement, and it runs in the employee's favour where the employer gave the cause.

Lid 5 lets the kantonrechter adjust it. The sum may be moderated where that seems fair in the circumstances, and it may be set higher where the employee was the one who gave notice. The floor is narrower than it looks: it protects only the lid 3 onderdeel a figure, which cannot be moderated below the wage over the artikel 7:672 BW notice period, so an award under onderdeel b for a non-interruptible fixed term has no statutory floor.

Lid 4 handles a related case: a party that ends a non-interruptible fixed term contract in breach of lid 1 owes the wage over the remaining term, which the kantonrechter may moderate to no less than three months of wage. The employee may also ask the kantonrechter to annul that notice.

What happens when the dismissal fails

A summary dismissal that does not meet artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW is not simply a bad dismissal, it is a notice given without the written consent or the permission that artikel 7:671 BW requires. Onderdeel c of that lid only exempts the employer where artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW is genuinely satisfied.

That puts the case into artikel 7:681 lid 1 onderdeel a BW. The kantonrechter can set the notice aside (vernietiging), and the contract is then treated as never having validly ended, so the wage claim runs on from the date of the purported dismissal. The alternative, at the employee's own election, is a fair compensation (billijke vergoeding) at the employer's expense, which has no formula and no statutory maximum.

The choice between them is a real one. Annulment restores the contract and the wage but returns the employee to an employer that tried to dismiss them, while the billijke vergoeding accepts the ending and prices it.

One further consequence is worth naming. Because the dismissal can fail on procedure rather than on the underlying facts, an employer can be right about the conduct and still owe wages, and it then has to run the ordinary route through the kantonrechter or UWV afterwards.

The deadline is two months, not three

This is the most reader-critical fact on the page. Artikel 7:686a lid 4 sub a BW provides that the power to file a verzoekschrift with the kantonrechter lapses TWO months after the day the employment contract ended, where the request is based on artikel 7:672 lid 11, artikel 7:677, artikel 7:681 lid 1 onderdelen a, b en c, or artikel 7:682 leden 1, 2 en 3 BW.

The three month period that appears in most summaries is sub b of the same lid, and it applies to something else: a request concerning the transitievergoeding under artikel 7:673, artikel 7:673b and artikel 7:673c BW. Reading the three month figure as though it covered the challenge to the dismissal is how a claim is lost while the reader believes it is still in time.

A vervaltermijn is not an ordinary limitation period. It expires by itself, a letter of demand does not interrupt it, an ongoing negotiation does not suspend it, and once it has passed the route is closed regardless of the merits.

The forum is the kantonrechter, whatever the amount at stake, because artikel 93 sub c Rv assigns cases about an employment contract to it telkens ongeacht het beloop of de waarde van de vordering. The case is started by verzoekschrift under artikel 7:686a lid 2 BW.

The consequence for the WW-uitkering

An ontslag op staande voet that stands normally costs the unemployment benefit as well as the job, and that is often the larger financial loss. Artikel 24 lid 1 sub a WW obliges an employee to avoid becoming culpably unemployed (verwijtbaar werkloos).

Lid 2 sub a of the same article defines the first limb of that in terms borrowed straight from the summary dismissal test: an employee is verwijtbaar werkloos where an urgent cause within the meaning of artikel 7:678 BW underlies the unemployment and the employee can be blamed for it. The two provisions are deliberately locked together.

Artikel 27 lid 1 WW supplies the consequence. UWV deducts the amount from the benefit permanently, unless the failure cannot be blamed on the employee to a predominant degree, in which case it deducts half the amount over a period of at most 26 weeks.

That is why a challenge is worth bringing even where the employee accepts that the job is gone. A settlement or a decision that removes the urgent cause from the ending also removes the ground UWV relies on under artikel 24 lid 2 sub a WW.

Severance after a summary dismissal

The statutory severance is not switched off automatically either, because it runs on a different test. Artikel 7:673 lid 7 sub c BW withholds the transitievergoeding where the ending results from the employee's own seriously culpable conduct (ernstig verwijtbaar handelen of nalaten), which is a higher and separate bar from the dringende reden that the dismissal itself requires.

Artikel 7:673 lid 8 BW adds a safety valve on top: the kantonrechter may award the payment anyway where withholding it would be unacceptable by standards of reasonableness and fairness. The formula, the ceiling and the worked examples are on the severance pay (transitievergoeding) page, and the deadline for claiming it is the three month one in artikel 7:686a lid 4 sub b BW.

The ordinary dismissal routes, the nine grounds and the dismissal bans that a summary dismissal bypasses are set out on the page about dismissal. The wider structure sits on the Netherlands employment law section page, and the courts and codes on the Netherlands law overview.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ontslag op staande voet?

It is summary dismissal: an immediate termination of the employment contract for an urgent cause, without a notice period, without UWV permission and without a court decision. Artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW allows either party to do it, and artikel 7:678 BW defines what an urgent cause means on the employer side, while artikel 7:679 BW does the same on the employee side.

What counts as a dringende reden for summary dismissal?

Artikel 7:678 lid 1 BW defines it as acts, characteristics or conduct of the employee such that the employer cannot reasonably be expected to let the contract continue, and lid 2 gives twelve examples lettered a to l, among them theft or fraud, assault or serious threats, gross neglect of contractual duties, and a persistent refusal to follow reasonable instructions. The examples are illustrative, so the circumstances of the individual case still decide.

How quickly must an employer give an ontslag op staande voet?

Onverwijld, that is without delay, under artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW, and the reason has to be communicated at the same time. The statute fixes no number of days, and a short, purposeful investigation or an urgent internal consultation is compatible with the requirement, but drift after the facts are known is not.

Is an ontslag op staande voet valid if the employee was off sick?

Illness does not block it. Artikel 7:670a lid 2 onderdeel c BW switches off the dismissal bans of artikel 7:670 leden 1 tot en met 4 en 10 BW where notice is given on the ground of artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW, so the illness ban does not apply. The three requirements of artikel 7:677 lid 1 BW still have to be met in full.

What happens if an ontslag op staande voet is overturned?

The notice was then given in breach of artikel 7:671 BW, because none of its exceptions applied. Artikel 7:681 lid 1 onderdeel a BW lets the kantonrechter set the notice aside, in which case the contract is treated as never having validly ended and the wage claim runs on, or award a billijke vergoeding instead at the employee's election.

How long is there to challenge an ontslag op staande voet?

Two months from the day the employment contract ended, under artikel 7:686a lid 4 sub a BW, which covers requests under artikel 7:677 and artikel 7:681 lid 1 onderdelen a, b en c BW. The three month period many summaries quote is sub b, which applies to the transitievergoeding under artikel 7:673, 7:673b en 7:673c BW, and it is a different deadline. Both are lapse periods (vervaltermijnen), so they expire by themselves.

Is there a WW-uitkering after an ontslag op staande voet?

Normally not, where the dismissal stands. Artikel 24 lid 2 sub a WW treats an employee as verwijtbaar werkloos where an urgent cause within the meaning of artikel 7:678 BW underlies the unemployment and the employee can be blamed for it, and artikel 27 lid 1 WW then has UWV deduct the amount permanently, or half of it for at most 26 weeks where the employee is not predominantly to blame.

Is a transitievergoeding owed after an ontslag op staande voet?

That turns on whether the dismissal holds up, and on a separate test. Artikel 7:673 lid 7 sub c BW removes the payment only where the ending results from the employee's own seriously culpable conduct (ernstig verwijtbaar handelen of nalaten), which the statute does not equate with the dringende reden the dismissal itself needs, and artikel 7:673 lid 8 BW lets the kantonrechter award it anyway where withholding it would be unacceptable by standards of reasonableness and fairness.