Freelancing in Germany, Netherlands and France: What Changed in 2026

Netherlands - DBA Act enforcement is live

The Netherlands began actively enforcing its Wet DBA (Deregulering Beoordeling Arbeidsrelaties) from January 2025, ending a years-long enforcement moratorium that had made the country a relatively permissive environment for contractors. The DBA Act takes a similar approach to the EU Platform Work Directive - it presumes employment where indicators of control exist and requires platforms and clients to prove genuine independence. Dutch labour inspectors are conducting active audits, particularly in IT and technology sectors where contractor use is high. The financial consequences of misclassification under the DBA Act include retroactive employment tax, social security contributions and significant fines.

For IT contractors working through Dutch clients or platforms, the most important immediate action is to ensure that working arrangements genuinely reflect independence: multiple clients, genuine control over working methods, no integration into the client's permanent organisational structure, and written agreements that describe deliverables rather than employment conditions.

Germany - the Scheinselbstandigkeit risk

Germany's Scheinselbstandigkeit (bogus self-employment) rules have long been one of Europe's strictest approaches to contractor classification. The German Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung) can assess whether a working relationship constitutes genuine self-employment and retroactively demand social security contributions if it concludes it does not. The assessment looks at whether the contractor is economically dependent on a single client, whether they work primarily on the client's premises, whether they use client-provided tools, and whether they are integrated into the client's business operations.

Germany's Freelancer Visa (Freiberufler) offers a legitimate residency route for IT contractors who qualify as liberal professionals - a category that includes some but not all IT roles. Software developers are the most borderline case: Germany's tax courts have inconsistently ruled on whether software development constitutes a liberal profession. Specialist legal advice before establishing a freelance operation in Germany is strongly recommended.

France - the auto-entrepreneur threshold changes

France's auto-entrepreneur (micro-entrepreneur) regime provides a simplified operating structure for freelancers but comes with revenue ceilings above which you must operate through a more complex legal structure. For services actuals (service activities), the threshold was adjusted in recent years and is subject to annual inflation indexing. IT contractors billing significant day rates will frequently exceed the micro-entrepreneur ceiling within a year, requiring transition to a SARL or SAS structure with associated accounting and compliance obligations.

France also operates strict rules around the portage salarial (professional employer organisation) model that some IT contractors use as an alternative to self-employment. Portage salarial provides the contractor with employee status and social protections while maintaining working flexibility, but the fees charged by portage companies (typically 8 to 12% of turnover) are significant and the tax efficiency is materially below an optimised self-employment structure.

What all three markets share

The common thread across Germany, Netherlands and France is increasing regulatory sophistication around the genuine independence question. In all three countries, the enforcement question is not what your contract says but what your working reality is. Contractors who work for a single client on a full-time basis, use client premises and equipment, and are functionally integrated into the client's team are in a vulnerable classification position regardless of which country they are operating in. Building and maintaining genuine independence - multiple clients, clear deliverable-based agreements, use of your own tools and methods - is the most reliable risk management approach across all three jurisdictions.

+ Find EU and European contract roles at FindContractJobs.com.

Sources & further reading

1. Freelancermap - IT freelancing trends 2026 (European focus)

2. Xtroverso - New EU freelancer rules: what businesses need to know

3. Fisher Phillips - EU Platform Work Directive and national implementation

4. activpayroll - EU directive: payroll and worker classification implications