How CloudCart secured compliant Dutch employment for their Amsterdam hire

About the client

CloudCart is a Germany-based SaaS company that builds eCommerce infrastructure for small and medium-sized businesses. Their platform lets merchants create and launch an online store without technical setup, covering the full operational stack out of the box – from cloud hosting and shopping cart to payments, marketing tools, and logistics integrations.

The company's model is market-by-market localisation: for each country it enters, CloudCart builds a native support team, localises the platform, and establishes local third-party partnerships across logistics, payments, and fulfilment. The team brings 15 years of combined eCommerce experience to the platform.

The challenge

CloudCart needed to bring a remote employee working in Amsterdam into a legally sound employment arrangement under Dutch law. The situation had become a layered problem – legal questions, tax obligations, and contractual gaps that had accumulated without resolution – and their German tax accountant, despite trying, was unable to untangle the cross-border requirements. A German-licensed adviser does not carry the Dutch employment law expertise or the local entity presence to employ someone under Dutch law, and without both, the arrangement could not be put on solid ground.

The situation came to a head when the employee needed an employer's declaration to support a housing application in Amsterdam. Without a recognised employment contract in place, that documentation could not be issued and the application could not move forward. CloudCart needed the employment arrangement resolved quickly.

What was at stake

For a company paying a Netherlands-based worker without a compliant Dutch employment contract in place, the exposure is significant. Dutch employment law is determined by the substance of the working relationship, not simply by how the arrangement is labelled or structured. Payroll tax obligations, social security contributions, and statutory employee rights, including notice periods and holiday allowance, can apply from the start of the working relationship.

The longer the arrangement continues without the correct employment setup, the greater the potential retrospective exposure. For the employee, the immediate consequence was a blocked housing application. For CloudCart, the risk extended across the full period the worker had been engaged without a compliant contract and continued for as long as the situation remained unresolved.

Resolving the issue required Dutch-specific employment expertise and a local entity able to act as the formal employer, capabilities that a German tax accountant could not provide.

Why they chose Rivermate

CloudCart came to Rivermate after their German tax accountant was unable to resolve the Netherlands employment situation. Two things stood out immediately: Rivermate's depth of Dutch employment law knowledge, which gave CloudCart a clear path forward where their existing advisers had found none, and Rivermate's ability to structure a backdated employment contract that accurately reflected the employee's actual work history – resolving payment continuity and closing the gap in the employment record.

The third factor was responsiveness. When the housing application deadline arrived and the employer's declaration was needed at short notice, Rivermate delivered – even when key personnel were temporarily unavailable. That ability to step in under deadline pressure, without the situation falling through the cracks, was what confirmed the decision.

What Rivermate did

Martijn Voogt, Head of Sales at Rivermate, led the CloudCart engagement, handling three interconnected tasks: drafting a compliant Dutch employment contract that covered the prior period of work, managing all the legal and administrative filings required to bring the arrangement into compliance with Dutch law, and coordinating the cross-border requirements between CloudCart's German operations and the Netherlands-based employment obligations. The work the German tax accountant had been unable to complete was completed.

The defining moment came when the employee needed an employer's declaration to support a housing application in Amsterdam – a hard deadline, with key Rivermate personnel temporarily unavailable. Someone stepped in, produced the documentation in time, and the housing application went through.

What this means for similar companies

If your company is headquartered outside the Netherlands and has a team member working in Amsterdam or elsewhere in the country, you may be closer to CloudCart's situation than you think. A working arrangement that functions day-to-day can still carry significant legal and tax exposure if it is not structured as a compliant Dutch employment contract – and without one, an employee cannot get the documentation they need for something as routine as a housing application.

Rivermate's Netherlands team handles this pattern regularly: establishing compliant employment, resolving gaps in existing arrangements, and delivering documentation under deadline pressure, without requiring a company to open a Dutch entity.