Suspending or Stopping Wages During Sick Leave: Which One Applies (Loonopschorting and Loonstop)

Dutch law gives an employer two measures when a sick employee stops cooperating. They look similar on a payslip and they work differently. One is temporary and the other is not, and the choice between them turns on a question that the paperwork cannot answer.

Loonopschorting

Article 7:629 paragraph 6 of the Civil Code allows an employer to suspend wage payment while the employee is not following reasonable written instructions about providing information. The information in question is what the employer needs in order to establish whether there is a right to wages at all.

The right to wages stays intact. Once the employee complies, the suspended amount is paid in full.

Loonstop

Paragraph 3 of the same article lists grounds on which there is no entitlement to wages. They include obstructing or delaying one's own recovery, refusing suitable work, and ignoring instructions or the opinions of appointed experts.

Here the right to wages for that period is gone. Cooperating later does not bring it back.

The question that decides it

One distinction runs through both. Are you unable to verify the situation, or have you established that this person is able to act and is choosing not to?

Suspension belongs to the first. Stopping belongs to the second.

Why the wording matters more than it looks

Both measures require a written warning first. If that letter announces a wage stop when the situation was actually one of suspension, the error sits with the employer. Legal commentary on this point is consistent: you cannot say afterwards that you meant the other measure.

The employee keeps the entitlement, the backdated amount becomes payable, and the reintegration file carries a decision that will not hold up when it is reviewed.

Where this lands in practice

In a larger organisation this sits with a case manager and a legal team who have made the call before.

In a smaller entity it often lands on whoever handles HR alongside another job, at the point where an employee has stopped responding and something has to be done.

The part no procedure resolves

The second measure asks you to conclude that someone could cooperate and is choosing not to. That is a judgement about a person's state, and attendance records do not contain it.

Someone who has stopped answering the phone might be refusing. They might also be frightened of what the call will decide. They might be carrying more than they can sort through. They might have concluded that the person calling is not on their side.

Each of those produces the same gap in the file.

What helps before the letter goes out

Telling these apart takes a conversation the employee can be honest in, which is rarely a conversation with the person who will decide about their wages.

Sick-leave and reintegration support is usually discussed once a case has already hardened. The point where it changes the outcome is earlier, while the question is still why someone has gone quiet.

Kelly Kim is an NIP-registered psychologist and workplace mental health specialist supporting international and Korean organisations in the Netherlands.

Source: Article 7:629 of the Dutch Civil Code, paragraph 6 on suspension and paragraph 3 on the grounds excluding entitlement.