Nothing Was Declared
How a Dutch manufacturer rebuilt its Croatian workforce, legally, without losing a single worker
The message came in early 2026 and it was short. A Dutch manufacturer wanted to know two things: could we employ a group of Croatian workers at their factory in the Netherlands, and could we tell them what their current arrangement was actually worth.
They already suspected the answer to the second question. They just did not want to be the ones to say it out loud.
The setup that looked fine on paper
The company runs a production site in the Netherlands. For years, their Croatian workers had come through a Croatian provider that handled everything: recruitment, employment, payroll, and the transport from Croatia to the site. The workers came in rotations, several weeks on site, then home to rest.
From the Dutch side it was clean. An invoice arrived, workers arrived, the line ran. That is precisely why these arrangements survive as long as they do.
What triggered the doubt was small. The HR manager started to ask question to the Croatian partner. Once they started pulling on it, they did not have to pull hard.
What they found
Nothing was registered. The workers had never been entered into the Croatian pension and health insurance systems, which meant no declared salary, which meant no contributions had ever been paid on their behalf. There were no A1 certificates. There was no posting notification on the Dutch side. Some of the workers held documents that looked like employment contracts. Behind those documents there was nothing at all.
Not one worker had a single day of insured service to show.
Why this was the Dutch company’s problem, not just the provider’s
This is the part most companies get wrong, and it is why we tell this story.
When a foreign service provider sends workers to the Netherlands, the obligation to notify the assignment through the Dutch notification portal sits with that provider. But the Dutch client is not a spectator. The client has to check that notification, within five working days after the assignment starts. No notification means nothing to check, and the Netherlands Labour Authority can fine for failure to notify, for failure to keep the required documents available at the workplace, and for failure to provide information on request.
Then there is the money. Since 1 July 2015, under the Dutch Labour Market Fraud Act, an underpaid worker can hold every client in the chain liable for their wages, starting with the employer and the employer’s direct client, jointly or separately. A client escapes that liability only by proving it took real measures, both before and after the fact, to make sure the correct wages were paid.
Read that again from the manufacturer’s chair. Workers who were never declared, for a period of X months, on their site, under their supervision. If those workers had walked into a Dutch court, the invoices from the Croatian provider would not have saved them.
They stopped the same day
No negotiation, no notice period, no “let us give them a chance to fix it.” They shut the arrangement down immediately.
We say this to every client who finds themselves here: stopping is the only defensible position. The moment you know and keep going, every day of continued work is a day you cannot explain to an inspector, a judge, or the workers themselves. It is also the only decision that costs you money right away, which is exactly why most companies hesitate.
This one did not.
How they found us
Here is the part we find quietly instructive.
They did not know what an Employer of Record was. Very few manufacturers do. They searched for a Croatian HR partner, and worked their way, over several days, to the idea that there are companies whose entire job is to legally employ people on behalf of foreign firms with no entity in the country.
Google gave them the sponsored results first: the global EOR platforms, our respected competitors. They contacted some of them. Then they kept looking and found us.
Then, with a factory to run and no workers to run it, they took the time to meet every EOR on their list. Under that much pressure, most companies sign with whoever answers the phone first. They did not.
Why they chose Ambacia
Not the price. Not the platform.
They chose a Croatian EOR staffed by Croatians who know Croatian employment law, because in every other meeting they had asked a question about Croatia and watched a salesperson say they would check and come back. When you have just been burned by a Croatian provider, “I will check and come back” is not a reassuring sound.
We answered in the meeting. That was the whole differentiator.
What we actually had to do
The contract was signed. Then the real work started.
Reconstructing the past. Before we could build anything, we had to establish what actually existed. What each worker had signed, what they had been promised, what they had been paid and how, and whether any registration had ever been filed. We pulled each worker’s insurance record from HZMO, which is the document that settles the argument in about ninety seconds. We also checked the previous provider in the Sudski registar to see what the entity was, what it was registered to do, and whether it was even active.
Collecting documentation, worker by worker. OIB, identity documents, residence details, bank details, qualifications and certificates required for the role, medical fitness where the job demanded it, and the full employment history needed for the A1 file. 10 workers, each with a different set of gaps, most of them working a rotation at the time.
Drafting contracts that had to satisfy two countries at once. Croatian employment contracts under the Zakon o radu, with the additional mandatory particulars that apply when an employee is sent to work abroad for more than one month: the place of work, the duration, the currency of payment, the benefits attached to the posting, and the terms of return. On top of that, the Dutch hard core of employment terms applies regardless of what the contract says, so minimum wage including overtime supplements, holiday allowance, minimum leave, working time and rest, health and safety, and the terms of any generally binding collective agreement covering the sector. Whichever regime is more favourable to the worker wins. The rotation pattern, several weeks on, then rest at home, had to be checked against working time and rest rules on both sides.
Legal review on both ends. Croatian counsel on the contract, the posting structure, the hard-core terms and the rotation. We do not publish a contract for a client in this position without a second signature on it. And then checked by a lawyer specialised in international labour laws.
Registrations before day one. Every worker entered into the Croatian pension and health insurance systems before the first hour of work, not after.
The A1 files. Applications go to the HZMO office competent for the employer’s seat, one application per worker plus the employer questionnaire. The file has to show that the employer genuinely carries out its activity in Croatia, that the direct employment link with the worker is maintained throughout, and that the worker is not being sent in to replace someone else who was posted. Cover runs up to twenty-four months.
The Dutch notification chain. The assignment and each worker on it notified through the Dutch portal before anyone travelled, with every change, a new worker joining a rotation or an extension, reported in the portal as it happened. A contact person appointed in the Netherlands for the Labour Authority, and the required file kept available at the workplace: contracts, payslips, working hours summaries, A1 forms and proof of payment.
Payroll built to survive an inspection. Gross to net under Croatian rules, JOPPD filings, contributions, and the treatment of posting allowances, all documented so that any Dutch or Croatian inspector asking “show me” gets an answer the same day.
Rotation logistics. The old provider had also organised the transport from Croatia. That had to be rebuilt too, alongside van rentals and the travel pattern.
The part that is not on any compliance checklist
The hardest thing we did on this project had nothing to do with law.
These workers had been lied to for too long. They had worked, been paid something, and been told they were covered. They were not. No pension record, no health insurance entitlement, no proof they had ever held a job. Some of them had families making decisions on the assumption that all of this existed.
Then a company they had never heard of turned up and asked them for their OIB, their bank details, their documents, and their trust.
There is no clever process for that. There were phone calls, in Croatian, at odd hours, over weeks. There were the same questions asked five times by people who had every reason to ask them again. We explained what an A1 certificate is, what appears on a payslip and why, what they would be able to see in their own HZMO record, and what would happen if they walked away. We put it in writing when they asked for it in writing.
Rebuilding a compliance file takes expertise. Rebuilding somebody’s confidence after they have been robbed takes time, and there is no way to buy your way past it.
The outcome
Every worker registered, on time, fully compliant, under Croatian employment contracts drafted for posting and reviewed on both sides of the border. A1 certificates in hand. The Dutch notification filed and verified before anyone travelled. The first rotation departed on schedule.
The client kept the team they had spent months building. The workers kept their jobs, and for the first time they have a service record to show for them.
Six things to check if you use a Croatian partner for posted workers
If any of these is a shrug, you have a problem.
- Ask a worker for their HZMO insurance record. Not the provider, the worker. It is theirs to request and it shows every insured day. This settles the question faster than any audit.
- Ask to see an A1 certificate. A real one, with a worker’s name on it. “It is being processed” for weeks is an answer.
- Check the posting notification in the Dutch portal. As the client you are required to verify it within five working days of the assignment starting, so you should have seen it already.
- Look the provider up in the Sudski registar. Registered activity, status, and whether the entity is what they say it is. It takes two minutes and it is free.
- Do the maths on the price. If the invoice is well below what Croatian employer contributions plus Dutch minimum terms would cost, someone is not paying something. Under Dutch chain-liability rules, an unrealistically low price is evidence against you, not a defence.
- Ask who is legally the employer, in one sentence. If the answer takes a paragraph, it is the wrong answer.
If this sounds familiar
We are a Croatian employing entity, not a platform reselling somebody else’s. We employ people in Croatia under Croatian law, and we post them where our clients need them, with the paperwork to prove it.
If you are looking at an arrangement you no longer trust, the first conversation costs nothing and usually takes twenty minutes.
Feel free to reach out at [email protected].
