Cross-Border Work
Are you employed by Maastricht University and do you (continue to) live in Belgium or Germany* during your employment in the Netherlands? In this case, you are a ‘cross-border worker’. Your situation may significantly change in terms of taxation and social security.
Residence permit
If you do not have an EU nationality and you do not (want) live in the Netherlands, you are responsible for having a residence permit for Belgium or Germany throughout your employment.* We cannot assist with applying for residence permits for third countries.
In case that you, as a non-EU national, live abroad and work in a non-academic job, you also need a work permit to work in the Netherlands.
Social security
The country where your social security is covered depends on several factors. Changes to these can consequently switch your coverage from one country to the other. This is influenced by e.g. the balance between your work time on-campus and at home, your ancillary activities, other employments or whether you have a civil servant position in another country.
Changing social security from one country to the other affects in which country you need to take out your health insurance, your (state) pension, unemployment benefit, sickness benefit and special types of leave. It also affects the salary you receive from Maastricht University.
During the onboarding process for new cross-border employees, we will ask you to fill out a questionnaire to determine your social security position. During your employment, cross-border employees need to be attentive to changing circumstances and if necessary request to re-assess their social security status.
Maastricht University cannot provide tailored advice to (new) employees about which social security system is better because of the personal nature of this question.
For more information about on cross-border work, please visit our cross-border work information page on Umployee.
Taxation
Because Maastricht University is an organization subject to public law, employees living in Belgium and Germany pay wage tax in the Netherlands according to the respective bilateral tax treaty.
There is one important exception: teaching staff living in Belgium. If you live in Belgium and teach in the Netherlands, you are liable to pay wage tax in Belgium for the first two years of your employment contract. This does not apply to PhD candidates with no teaching duties.
* Long distance working from other countries than BE or DE is only permitted after positive advice from all relevant parties (your line-manager, faculty, HR, legal affairs and finance) and that only in exceptional cases.