Dutch Supreme Court: Helpling Cleaners were Temporary Agency Workers

On 11 April 2025 the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that cleaners who worked through the online platform Helpling had a temporary agency contract (a specific type of employment contract) with Helpling. This confirms the earlier ruling by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal.

Helpling, now bankrupt, acted as an intermediary between (private) households and cleaners. The platform managed payments, set general terms and conditions, and charged commissions per booking. According to Helpling, no (temporary) employment contract existed between de cleaners and the platform, but rather with the households, based on the “Regeling dienstverlening aan huis” (a simplified employment regime). The Court of Appeal ruled earlier that a temporary agency relationship existed between Helpling and the cleaners. Although the Advocate General advised the Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeal’s judgment, the Supreme Court found no grounds to do so. Helpling's argument that the existence of a temporary agency relationship requires that the temporary worker must be made available within the context of the hirer's (i.e. the household’s) profession or business and that this is obviously not the case with a (private) household, was rejected by the Supreme Court. According to the Supreme Court, neither the (system of the) law nor the legislative history indicates that a hirer must exclusively be understood to mean a professional or commercial hirer.

This ruling means that Helpling cleaners are retroactively entitled to employment rights, including but not limited to continued payment during illness, holiday allowance and other entitlements under Dutch employment law, the collective labour agreement for temporary workers, and the StiPP sectoral wide pension fund. Cleaners may claim these rights from Helpling’s bankruptcy trustee and the pension fund.