When an employee says they need time off to care for a sick child or parent, your mind does not go to legislation. It goes to open projects, client expectations and whether this month’s invoices will still go out on time. In a micro or small business, every absence is immediately practical. That is precisely why understanding care leave is not administrative detail. It is part of running a stable company.
Under Dutch law, employees are entitled to care leave (zorgverlof) based on the Work and Care Act (Wet arbeid en zorg). There is short-term care leave for urgent, necessary care of a sick child, partner or parent when no reasonable alternative is available. An employee may take up to twice their weekly working hours per year. Someone working 24 hours per week is therefore entitled to 48 hours annually. During this leave, you must continue paying at least 70% of the salary. This 70% is a statutory rule, not something that only applies if a collective labour agreement (cao) says so. If that amount would fall below minimum wage, you must supplement it. A cao may offer more generous terms, such as 100% payment, but never less.
For long-term care leave, which applies when a close family member is seriously ill for a longer period, the employee may take up to six times their weekly working hours over a twelve-month period. In principle, this leave is unpaid unless a cao or employment contract provides otherwise.
Care leave can also apply when a child or parent is in hospital, but only under specific conditions. The key question is not where the family member is, but whether the employee must provide necessary care and whether there is no reasonable alternative.
If a child or parent is hospitalised and the employee’s presence is genuinely necessary, for example, to make medical decisions, provide essential support, or because the patient cannot reasonably manage alone, then short-term care leave can apply. The law does not exclude hospital situations. What matters is the need for care, not the location.
However, care leave does not apply simply because someone wants to visit a hospitalised family member. Visiting hours, emotional support alone, or situations where professional care is fully arranged are generally not sufficient grounds. The care must be necessary in a practical sense, and the employee must be the logical person to provide it.
Care leave is separate from regular holiday entitlement. It is not deducted from statutory vacation days (wettelijke vakantiedagen) or additional contractual leave. An employee taking short-term care leave continues to accrue holiday rights as normal. For you as employer, that means the impact is on capacity and partially on payroll costs, but not on the employee’s holiday balance.
You may refuse short-term care leave only if granting it would cause serious operational harm, what the law calls a “zwaarwegend bedrijfsbelang.” In practice, that is a high threshold. For most small businesses, the more realistic question is not whether you can refuse, but how well you are organised to absorb temporary absence.
The real vulnerability often lies elsewhere. If one person’s short absence disrupts client communication or internal processes completely, the issue is structural dependency. Clear documentation, shared access to systems and realistic workload planning are not luxuries. They are safeguards.
Care leave will always feel inconvenient in the moment. Illness rarely arrives at a quiet time. But when you know the rules, including the 70% salary obligation and the fact that it does not reduce holiday days, you can respond calmly. For small business owners, clarity and preparation turn a legal right into a manageable adjustment, rather than an unexpected shock.
