The Mistake That Can Cost a Third Year of Wages (loonsanctie)
Most Dutch employers know they continue paying a sick employee's wages for up to two years. Fewer plan for the fact that handling the reintegration poorly can add a third. That extension is called the loonsanctie, and UWV imposes it when it judges that an employer did too little to get the employee back to work. This piece looks at what the two-year obligation actually requires, how the third-year wage sanction is triggered, and why the cost is mostly decided in the first six weeks rather than the last.
The two-year obligation, in brief
When an employee falls ill, a Dutch employer continues paying wages for up to 104 weeks and carries responsibility for reintegration throughout. The framework is the Wet verbetering poortwachter, and it front-loads the work: a problem analysis from the bedrijfsarts within six weeks, a plan of action agreed with the employee shortly after, and regular evaluation of both. These are not formalities. They are the file UWV will later read.
The third year nobody budgets for
At the end of the two years, when the employee applies for a WIA benefit, UWV assesses what the employer actually did. If it concludes that the reintegration effort was insufficient without good reason, it can extend the wage obligation by up to 52 more weeks. A third sick year, on the employer's account. During that year the employee cannot be dismissed and the reintegration duty continues. The sanction can be shortened if the employer repairs the gaps, but only once UWV has named them.
Why the cost is decided in the first six weeks
The uncomfortable part is the timing. The decision is made at the two-year mark, but it judges choices made much earlier, often in the first weeks, when the problem analysis and plan of action set the direction. By the time a case looks serious enough to worry about, the cheaper and faster routes back to work have frequently closed. A loonsanctie is rarely a surprise in hindsight. It is usually an early file that was thin.
What actually prevents it
Avoiding a wage sanction is less about legal defence than about doing the reintegration properly and on time, and documenting it as you go. That means engaging the bedrijfsarts early, acting on the advice rather than filing it, considering adapted or alternative work seriously instead of waiting, and keeping a record that shows genuine effort. Structured sick-leave and reintegration support can sit alongside the manager and the bedrijfsarts to keep that file real rather than retrospective.
The part you can actually control
The biggest cost in a long sick-leave case is the two years of wages itself, and most of that is unavoidable once someone is genuinely ill. What is avoidable is the rest: a poorly run reintegration that drags recovery out to the full two years when an earlier return was possible, and the third year a loonsanctie can add on top. Both are decided not at the end, but in the first weeks, by how the file was built.
Kelly Kim is an NIP-registered psychologist and workplace mental health specialist supporting international and Korean organisations in the Netherlands. About Kelly.
Source: UWV on the assessment of reintegration and the extended wage obligation (loonsanctie), under which an employer judged to have done too little can be required to continue paying wages into a third year of illness, alongside the Wet verbetering poortwachter timeline.
