What is it all about? - Based on the main rule within EU/EEA regulations, employees who work at least 25% in their country of residence are insured under the social security system of their country of residence. Since the social security systems of the country of residence and the country of work can be quite different, this causes major financial and administrative complications for both employees and employers.

Relaxation of regulations during the Corona pandemic

During the corona pandemic, many employees (by necessity) started working from home. If the employee's country of residence is different from the country where the employer is located, based on the main rule, the employee would be socially insured in his country of residence since the employee would work more than 25% of the working time from the country of residence. Switching of the social security position was therefore recognized as an undesirable consequence within the European Union. Therefore, it had been agreed at the European level that, during the corona pandemic, the change of workplace could be temporarily ignored for social security purposes. The employee thus remained socially secured in the country where it would have been before the corona pandemic began. Incidentally, this temporary measure has also been stretched by some authorities - including the Netherlands - for new situations.

Extension to July 1, 2023

In principle, this ruling was supposed to expire on July 1, 2022. However, it had been extended to January 1, 2023, and has now been extended again by six months to July 1, 2023. Specifically, the extension means that changes in the work pattern in accordance with the main rule, i.e. more work from the country of residence instead of the country of work, will not affect the employee's applicable social security. In this regard, the State Secretary indicated that the extension buys time to look at a more structural solution for frontier workers who work from home. Among other things, we are looking at whether agreements can be made with the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany as to whether the limit can be stretched to 40% working from home instead of the 25% mentioned. We would welcome such a solution.