If you take on your first employed painter, the collective agreement for the painting, finishing, property maintenance and glazing sector (SAVG agreement) applies. It has been declared generally binding, so it also applies if you are not a member of the trade association OnderhoudNL. You pay at least the agreement wage, 8% holiday pay, pension contributions to BPF Schilders and a contribution to the USAG foundation. In the worked example in this piece, an all-round painter costs €33.91 for each hour he actually spends on the job. On top of that come the employer contributions for employee insurance and health insurance.
In short
- The SAVG agreement is generally binding from 18 August 2026 up to and including 17 August 2028. An all-round painter is in pay group 5, middle step: €24.05 per hour in 2026.
- On top of the wage come 8% holiday pay, a BPF Schilders pension (the employer pays half), 2.32% USAG and the employer insurance contributions. Of the 1,950 paid hours, your painter spends at most 1,657.5 on the job in 2026.
- In the worked example an hour on the job costs €33.91, before employer insurance contributions. With the rule of thumb of 1.3 times cost, you sell that hour for at least €44.09 excluding VAT.
About the amounts: wages and percentages are the 2026 figures from the agreement and its related schemes. The worked example is simplified and is not a payroll calculation. Have the real costs worked out by a payroll administrator who knows the painters' agreement.
In this article
- Which collective agreement applies to your first painter?
- What wage do you pay a painter?
- Does your painter have to build up a pension with BPF Schilders?
- What does an hour of your painter really cost?
- How many hours does your painter really spend on the job?
- What does the agreement say about winter and bad weather?
- What do you arrange before your painter starts?
- When does a first employee make money?
Which collective agreement applies to your first painter?
The SAVG agreement. It applies to businesses where painting, finishing and glazing is the main business, or an essential part of the work. The minister has declared the agreement generally binding. This means the rules apply to every employer in the sector, even if you are not a member of OnderhoudNL (Government Gazette 2026, 27574).
The agreement runs from 1 November 2025 up to and including 31 December 2028. The decision to make it generally binding was published on 17 August 2026, took effect the next day and lapses after two years. So it applies from 18 August 2026 up to and including 17 August 2028 (OnderhoudNL). According to OnderhoudNL, wages rise by 3.7% on 1 January 2027. That new pay table had not yet been declared generally binding on 24 October 2026.
If your employee mainly works as a plasterer, check with OnderhoudNL which agreement applies. The scope of the SAVG agreement covers paint, wallpaper, glass and scaffolding, among other things, but not plastering.
What wage do you pay a painter?
At least the hourly wage that goes with his job. The agreement places each job in a job group, and the wage must be at least equal to an amount from the pay table. An all-round painter is in job group 5. In 2026 the hourly wage in pay group 5, middle step, is €24.05.
The agreement has three jobs for the ordinary painter. Painter 1 always works alongside an experienced painter and is under permanent supervision. Painter 2 works from clear instructions and is supervised once or a few times a day. The all-round painter decides the approach on the job himself, with supervision at a distance. Above that is the specialist or restoration painter in group 6 (Government Gazette 2026, 27574, annexes 2, 3 and 5).
The agreement names job groups and pay groups, but does not literally say that job group 5 equals pay group 5. That follows from the way the tables are built. If you are unsure about the grading, check with OnderhoudNL or your payroll administrator. Each pay group also has lower and higher steps. Up to the middle step your painter moves up one step in week 25: automatically in odd years, after an assessment in even years. Above that, only after an assessment.
Does your painter have to build up a pension with BPF Schilders?
Yes. The agreement names the industry pension fund for the painting, finishing and glazing sector, in which employers and employees take part (Government Gazette 2026, 27574, article 69). You register as an employer with BPF Schilders and then register your employee within four weeks of his first working day (BPF Schilders).
To register as an employer, you fill in a contact form. You need the company name, the KVK number, the branch number and your employee's start date. An adviser then calls you to enrol your first employee (BPF Schilders).
The contribution for the pension capital in 2026 is 27.64% of the pensionable wage minus a franchise. The franchise is the part of the wage on which no pension is built up: €19,184 a year. On top of that comes 1.23% of the pensionable wage for partner and orphan's pensions. The employee pays half, you pay the other half (BPF Schilders, 2026).
What does an hour of your painter really cost?
More than the hourly wage, and you also pay for hours in which he is not on the job. In the worked example an all-round painter in pay group 5 costs €56,209 a year in 2026 in wages and agreement costs. He spends 1,657.5 hours on the job. That is €33.91 per hour, before the employer contributions for employee insurance and health insurance.
This is how the example is built up. A working week is 37.5 hours, so you pay for 1,950 hours a year. That is €46,897.50 in wages. Holiday pay is 8%, in the agreement 156 times the hourly wage: €3,751.80. The employer's share of the pension contribution is €4,118.43. Your share of the USAG contribution is €1,088.02. The agreement also gives €1.60 per day worked for work clothing, €353.60 over 221 days.
The example is simplified. Pension and USAG are calculated on the hourly wage for 1,950 hours, without holiday pay. What exactly counts towards the pensionable wage is set out in the BPF Schilders manual. Some costs are also missing: the employer contributions, absence insurance, travel costs, training, tools and the van. There is no fixed figure for total labour costs as a multiple of the gross wage. Have a payroll administrator who knows the painters' agreement work out the real costs before you offer a contract.
| Item (worked example 2026) | Basis | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Gross wage, pay group 5 | 1,950 hours x €24.05 | €46,897.50 |
| Holiday pay 8% | 156 x €24.05 | €3,751.80 |
| BPF Schilders pension, employer's share | 13.82% above the franchise plus 0.615% | €4,118.43 |
| USAG, employer's share | 2.32% of wages | €1,088.02 |
| Equipment allowance | 221 days x €1.60 | €353.60 |
| Total | Divided by 1,657.5 hours on the job | €56,209.35, which is €33.91 per hour |
How many hours does your painter really spend on the job?
In 2026 at most 1,657.5 of the 1,950 paid hours. An employee aged 18 or over has 25 days of holiday. In addition, seven public holidays fall on a working day in 2026, and he has 7 ATV days during the winter shutdown. ATV stands for reduced working hours: days off with pay.
The real hours on the job are lower. If he is sick, under the agreement you continue to pay 95% of the wage in the first half year, then 90%, 85% and 70% in the last period of 26 weeks (Government Gazette 2026, 27574, article 34). Travel time, collecting materials and waiting for dry weather also cost hours. If you count on 1,500 hours, an hour in the example costs €37.47. At 1,400 hours it is €40.15.
What does the agreement say about winter and bad weather?
In winter you may close the business for up to two weeks, plus one more week after consulting your employee. For those days he takes extra hours, ATV days or holiday days (Government Gazette 2026, 27574, article 38). So his wages simply continue.
If work is impossible because of the weather, you in principle also continue to pay wages. The agreement sets fixed limits for unworkable weather, such as frost between 1 November and 31 March, black ice, at least 300 minutes of rain between 7.00 and 19.00, or 40 degrees or more. You first pay waiting days: 2 for frost, ice or snow, 19 for rain and 2 for heat (Government Gazette 2026, 27574, article 36).
After the waiting days you can apply to UWV for an unemployment benefit for unworkable weather. This is only possible because the agreement provides for it. You report the weather every day before 10.00 in the employer portal (UWV). As a self-employed person you had no such scheme for yourself, but you do for your employee.
What do you arrange before your painter starts?
- Register as an employer with the Belastingdienst no later than the day your first employee starts. Within about a week you receive your payroll tax number (Belastingdienst).
- Register with BPF Schilders and register your employee within four weeks.
- Put the probation period in writing. For a contract of six months or less there is no probation period. For a contract longer than six months and shorter than a year it is at most one month, for a year or longer at most two months (Government Gazette 2026, 27574, article 10).
- Draw up an RI&E, a risk inventory and evaluation, with an action plan. This is required even with few employees. With fewer than 26 employees you may use a sector RI&E, which then does not need to be reviewed (Netherlands Labour Authority).
- Ask a payroll administrator who knows the painters' agreement to handle the payslip, the payments to BPF and USAG, and the employer contributions.
The USAG contribution in 2026 is 2.39% of wages in total. Of that, 0.07 percentage point is deducted from the employee's wage, and you pay the rest. The money goes towards the early retirement scheme and the generation pact, among other things (Government Gazette 2026, 30241). Without staff you pay no USAG contribution.
When does a first employee make money?
Only if you sell his hours for clearly more than they cost, and if there is enough work to fill them. An editorial rule of thumb, not an official standard: sell an hour for at least 1.3 times the cost. In the example that is 1.3 times €33.91, so at least €44.09 excluding VAT. The employer contributions are not yet included, so work out your own figure.
The step to becoming an employer is big, and few self-employed people take it. Research using American data on start-ups without staff shows that only a few of them ever hire a first employee. When they do, it usually happens in the first few years after starting (Fairlie & Miranda, 2017). Business assets were associated with the chance of hiring a first employee. That research is not about painters in the Netherlands, and it shows an association, not a cause.
If you would rather hire a colleague as a self-employed contractor, watch out for the legal presumption of employment. From 31 December 2026, someone who works for a business at an hourly rate up to a threshold can be presumed to be an employee (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2026, 158). That amount is €38 (as at 1 January 2026), and the amount as at 31 December 2026 is still to follow (KVK, 2026). The rule does not apply if the client is a private individual.
A self-employed colleague often costs more per hour than an employee, but you only pay for the hours he works. No wages during the winter shutdown, no holiday days and no sick pay. An employee is cheaper per hour as long as you can give him work all year round, including in winter.
Sources
- Decision of the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment of 12 August 2026 declaring provisions of the collective agreement for the painting, finishing, property maintenance and glazing sector 2026/2028 generally binding, Government Gazette 2026, 27574, articles 1, 10, 12, 26, 34, 36, 37, 38, 44, 47, 48, 55 and 69 and annexes 2, 3 and 5. officielebekendmakingen.nl
- Decision of 21 September 2026 declaring the collective agreement on implementing schemes for the painting, finishing, property maintenance and glazing sector generally binding, Government Gazette 2026, 30241. officielebekendmakingen.nl
- OnderhoudNL, De cao (the collective agreement), accessed 24 October 2026. onderhoudnl.nl
- BPF Schilders, Premiepercentages en variabelen BPF Schilders PRIS-jaar 2026 (contribution rates and variables 2026), 15 December 2025. bpfschilders.nl
- BPF Schilders, Nieuwe werknemer (new employee), accessed 24 October 2026. bpfschilders.nl
- BPF Schilders, Aan- of afmelden als werkgever (registering or deregistering as an employer), accessed 24 October 2026. bpfschilders.nl
- Belastingdienst, Aanmelden als werkgever (registering as an employer), accessed 24 October 2026. belastingdienst.nl
- UWV, WW-uitkering wegens onwerkbaar weer (unemployment benefit for unworkable weather), accessed 24 October 2026. uwv.nl
- Netherlands Labour Authority, Risico-inventarisatie en -evaluatie en plan van aanpak (risk inventory and evaluation and action plan), accessed 24 October 2026. nlarbeidsinspectie.nl
- Act of 18 June 2026 on the legal presumption of an employment contract based on an hourly rate, Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2026, 158, article 7:610aa of the Civil Code. officielebekendmakingen.nl
- KVK, Ben je wel zelfstandig met een uurtarief lager dan 38 euro? (Are you self-employed with an hourly rate below 38 euros?), updated 7 October 2026. kvk.nl
- Fairlie, R.W. & Miranda, J. (2017). Taking the leap: the determinants of entrepreneurs hiring their first employee. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 26(1), 3-34. doi.org