Dismissed in Your Probation Period in Delft? Check Whether the Clause Was Even Valid

Why this comes up in Delft

Delft's employment market is unusually weighted towards young technical staff on first contracts - TU Delft spin-offs, engineering consultancies, and the startup layer around the campus. These are small employers who write contracts from templates, frequently issue six or twelve month terms, and are the least likely to have checked whether the probation clause they copied is lawful for the contract length they used. That combination - inexperienced employee, template contract, short term - is where void probation clauses turn up most often.

The limits, and the one people miss

Article 7:652 BW sets maximum probation periods by contract type. The provision most often broken is the first one: a contract of six months or less can have no probation period at all. Not a shorter one - none.

The clause must also be in writing and must be the same length for both parties. A clause giving the employer two months and the employee two weeks does not comply.

• Contract of six months or less - no probation period is permitted.
• Fixed-term contract longer than six months but shorter than two years - maximum one month.
• Fixed-term contract of two years or more - maximum two months.
• Indefinite contract - maximum two months.
• Fixed-term contract with no calendar end date - maximum one month.

Void means void, not shortened

This is the part that changes outcomes. A probation clause that breaches the statutory limits is void in its entirety. A two-month probation in a one-year contract does not quietly become a lawful one-month probation - there is no probation period at all.

So the dismissal was not a probation dismissal. It had to meet the ordinary requirements: a recognised ground, the correct procedure, and the applicable notice period. And if the contract was fixed-term without an interim-notice clause, the employer may not have been able to end it early at all.

A second contract usually cannot have a new probation

Where a follow-on contract is agreed with the same employer, or with a successor employer, a fresh probation clause is generally void - unless the new role clearly demands different skills or responsibilities.

That exception is narrower than employers assume. A promotion within the same discipline, or the same work under a new job title after a transfer between group entities, will not usually qualify. If you were dismissed in the probation period of a second or third contract, this is the first thing to check.

What a collective agreement can and cannot change

Only a collective labour agreement can depart from the one-month maximum to your disadvantage, and even then two months is the absolute ceiling. If your employer relies on a longer period, ask which CAO applies and which provision it is relying on.

Nothing permits a probation period in a contract of six months or less.

If the clause was void, what follows

The claim is that the employment did not lawfully end when the employer said it did. Depending on the contract that can mean wages for the notice period that should have been given, or for the remainder of a fixed term that could not lawfully be cut short, and the statutory transition payment may be in play since it is owed from the first day of employment.

These matters move on short deadlines, so establish the contract length and the clause wording quickly rather than after the dust settles.

What this page is based on

• Article 7:652 BW - probation period (proeftijd)

Checked against wetten.overheid.nl and rechtspraak.nl in August 2026. Dutch employment law changes, and several reforms described here have passed parliament without yet being in force - where that is the case the page says so.

Common questions

Other employment situations

• LeidenRetaliation after raising a concernReporting suspected wrongdoing is protected. Retaliation for it - including quiet non-renewal - is not lawful.
• GroningenRedundancy for economic reasonsYour employer needs permission before it can make you redundant, and the selection rule is prescribed by law.
• WageningenLosing your job on the 30% rulingThe expat tax ruling is attached to the job, not to you. That makes termination timing a financial question.