Unemployment benefits Netherlands

If you are an employee and become partially or fully unemployed, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits or as the Dutch call it a ww-uitkering. For this, you must meet several conditions.

Conditions Dutch unemployment benefits

You are entitled to unemployment benefits if you:

• are insured for unemployment. This is usually the case if you are working as an employee and have not yet reached the state pension age;
• lose 5 hours or more of your working hours per week and are not entitled to wages for those hours;
• are immediately available for paid work
• worked at least 26 weeks in the 36 weeks before you became unemployed (weeks requirement). Weeks during which you were self-employed do not count. This also applies to weeks already counted for a previous benefit.
• do not fall under one of the grounds for exclusion (this is the case for example if you are in detention);
• have not become unemployed through no fault of your own. If you resign yourself, you are entitled to unemployment benefits only in exceptional situations.

Unemployment insurance

If you are employed, you are insured for unemployment. You are not insured if you:

• are on full-time unpaid leave;
• are staying in the Netherlands illegally;
• are entitled to AOW(old age benefits);
• work less than 4 days in the same private household.

New job, fewer hours

Unemployment benefits supplements your income if you start working for an income lower than your unemployment monthly wage. The amount of unemployment benefits is determined by offsetting your income. 70% of your income will be set off against the benefits, and you may keep 30% of the income in addition to your (reduced) unemployment benefits. Do you earn more than 87.5% of the unemployment monthly wage? Then the unemployment benefit will stop.

Work disability and unemployment

Do you have an occupational disability benefit (WAO, IVA or WGA)? If so, you are usually not entitled to any unemployment benefit. Have you been declared partially occupationally disabled following a reassessment, but have not yet found suitable work? Then you may be entitled to unemployment benefits. In that case, you do not have to meet the years requirement of the unemployment benefits.

Stopping the unemployment benefits yourself

In principle, you cannot stop your unemployment benefit and save it up to be used again later. However, you can stop your unemployment benefit if the following applies to you:

• you are working for (almost) the same number of hours as the number of hours for which you became unemployed. The difference is less than 5 hours.
• you earn less than 87.5% of the monthly unemployment wages.

Do you meet both conditions and do you want to stop your unemployment benefit? Then report this to the UWV. You can also contact them for further information.