A1 notification for posted workers
If you have staff from another EU country working in the Netherlands, you must notify this before the work begins, and the Dutch client must check that notification. In addition, a valid A1 certificate must be available for each worker. Appfront builds the register that tracks who has been notified, which certificate belongs to them and when it expires.
What the notification duty and the A1 certificate require of you
The Dutch Act on Posted Workers in the European Union requires a foreign employer that temporarily deploys staff in the Netherlands to notify this in advance via the online notification portal. The notification includes, among other things, the activities, the location, the period and the workers involved. The Dutch client receives the notification and has a duty of its own: to check that the details are correct and to report any inaccuracies.
The A1 certificate is a separate matter. It shows which country's social security system applies to that worker, so that contributions are not payable in two countries at once. The certificate is issued by the competent authority of the sending country and has a period of validity. If it is missing or has expired, that is a risk for the client as well as for the foreign employer.
In practice these two tracks get mixed up, and administration turns into a folder of PDFs per project. That works while it concerns a handful of people. Once you work with multiple subcontractors, with rotating crews and with extensions, you lose track of things at exactly the moment the deployment is at its busiest. That is what we build a register for.
If you are the Dutch client, alongside the notification duty you also carry a verification duty, with its own deadline. See WagwEU software, and for on-site checks the app at the gate.
How we build your register
We start with the chain: who notifies, who verifies and who bears the risk. Software that does not make that distinction merely moves the folder of PDFs onto a screen.
We map which foreign service providers you work with, how deep the subcontracting chain runs and who on your side carries out the verification. This includes the question of what information you are already contractually entitled to request, because the register is only as good as what comes in.
For each worker, each project and each period, we define which documents must be present: the notification, the A1 certificate, identity details, employment contract and payslips. The model has to handle extensions, because in practice an end date shifts more often than it holds.
We work in sprints and start with the area of greatest risk, usually monitoring validity dates. Your own people take part and test each sprint against an ongoing project, because edge cases such as a worker assigned to two projects at once only surface that way.
We set up warnings well before a certificate expires and hand them over to the people who carry out the checks. This includes a short instruction on what to do when something is missing, so the register not only flags issues but also leads to action.
What the register concretely does
Six components that make the difference between an archive and a system that warns you before someone without valid papers is standing on the worksite.
File per posted worker
One place where the notification, the A1 certificate, the period and the project come together, with the employer and any subcontractor included. If someone works on several projects, they are linked to both without you duplicating the file.
Monitoring of validity dates
The A1 certificate and the reported period each have an end date, and those rarely coincide. The system gives early warning to the right person and keeps warning until something has been done about it. Letting something lapse unnoticed is exactly the scenario you want to rule out.
Client verification
As the client, you must check the notification. We build that step in as an action with an outcome: checked, approved, or returned to the service provider, along with who did it and when. Without that record, you cannot demonstrate afterwards that you have met your obligation.
Subcontractor portal
Your subcontractors submit their own documents instead of sending them by email. That saves your team from chasing them and ensures the details land straight away in the right format and against the right project.
Documents available on site
During an inspection, certain papers need to be available on the worksite. A register that also works on a phone means a site manager can show them without first calling the office.
Overview by project and by chain
Who is at which location this week, through which employer, and which file is incomplete. That overview is useful for the site manager on the building site and for whoever manages the chain contractually.
Who we build for
Four situations in which this register pays for itself. The focus differs: sometimes the risk lies with the notification, sometimes with the chain beneath it.
Construction and civil engineering
Deep subcontracting chains, rotating crews and many foreign service providers. Here the client's duty of verification weighs heaviest, and a site app is often part of the same solution.
Temporary staffing agencies and secondment providers
You are the service provider yourself and notify on behalf of your workers. Your interest is that the notification is accurate and aligns with your own planning and placements, so an extension does not have to be entered manually in two places.
Manufacturing and installation
Foreign fitters who come in temporarily to install or maintain equipment. Often short periods, but many of them, so the administration per person is small and in total considerable.
Agriculture and logistics seasonal work
Large numbers at once, with a peak during which the administration falls behind fastest. A portal in which the service provider submits the documents directly makes the difference here between getting it right from the start and fixing it afterwards.
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The reporting portal does not offer an open integration to businesses, so the registration does not take over the submission. Instead, it keeps track of the fact that a report was made and what it contained. What else we use depends on the systems you already run.
For the accommodation of the same workers, we have a separate page on accommodation administration for migrant workers.
Why Appfront
We build around the date, not the document
Almost all of the problems in this file arise from a date that passed without anyone looking. We therefore design the register around validity rather than storage.
The duty of verification is an action
Checking is something a person does, and its outcome has to be on record. Software that only displays a document lets that duty slip unnoticed by whoever had the screen open.
Connecting to what is already running
Your planning, your project administration and your time registration already know who is where. We pull that data across rather than having it entered again.
Honest about what software cannot solve
We do not report on your behalf, and we do not assess declarations on their substance. What we build is the system that keeps track, flags issues and makes things demonstrable. We say that boundary up front.
Security and privacy
This file consists almost entirely of personal data, some of it sensitive: identity details, nationality, payslips and residence information. That calls for a restrained setup. For each document type we record why you need it and for how long, and we keep access as tight as possible: a site supervisor needs to see whether someone is allowed to be on site, not what they earn.
In practice, that means fields hidden by role, no full copies of identity documents where they are not strictly required, and a retention period that expires automatically. The subcontractor portal gets its own limited role so that contractors see only their own people. All access and changes are logged, because in an inspection or a complaint it must be possible to reconstruct who viewed what and when. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside go through our responsible disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about A1 and the notification obligation
The notification concerns the work: who is coming, where, when and what they will do. The foreign employer submits it before work begins, via the online notification portal, and the Dutch client checks it. The A1 certificate concerns social security: it shows which country's contribution obligations apply, so that contributions are not paid twice. The two are often confused, but they are separate obligations, each with its own consequences if missing.
The foreign service provider notifies, meaning the employer that has its staff working here. The Dutch client must check the notification for accuracy and omissions and pass on any gaps. That is an independent duty: you cannot simply assume the other party has done it correctly. It is precisely this checking step that we record in the software as an action with an outcome and a name attached.
Then it cannot be demonstrated under which system the employee falls, with the risk that Dutch contributions turn out to be due. In an inspection by the Netherlands Labour Authority, missing required documents lead to enforcement. In practice the biggest problem is that expiry goes unnoticed: the certificate was valid at the start and the job ran on. That is why we build the monitoring around the end date rather than the moment of submission.
Your responsibility does not stop at your direct contracting party. In chains with several layers, the practical approach is to set out contractually, for each layer, who supplies what, and to see in the registration which layer is missing something. For that we build a portal in which each link supplies its own people, so you do not have to request everything through your main contractor.
No. The reporting portal has no open integration through which business software can submit on your behalf, and we do not promise that. What the registration does do is keep track of the fact that a report was made, what it contained and when, and flag when a report needs to be renewed. In practice, that is where the mistakes happen, not in filling in the form.
A check will usually ask for documents that evidence the employment relationship and terms of employment, such as the employment contract, payslips, a record of hours worked and the A1 certificate. The exact set depends on the situation, so please have your lawyer confirm it for each arrangement. We make sure what you need can be shown on a phone on the spot.
Yes, though the focus shifts. What matters to you is that every notification is accurate and matches your own postings, and that extensions automatically lead to a new notification. You may also want to show your Dutch clients that your file is complete; that has become a factor in tenders.
It sits alongside your HR system and draws from it. Your HR system knows the employees and contracts, and your planning knows the projects. The registration adds the layer that neither holds: notification, certificate, validity and control. We build it as a separate layer so you are not tied to one supplier for both.
Building an A1 and notification registration?
Tell us how your chain works and where the administration currently sits, and we will think along with you on the document model, the alerts and the portal for subcontractors. We build this as a standalone registration or as part of a broader custom software or web application project.