So far, companies that are not listed in the Dutch Trade Register have not been able to apply for eRecognition, and in many cases (such as submitting a payroll tax form when they employ own Dutch personnel) they are forced to use commercial software or a service provider in the Netherlands. For example, Interfisc uses its payroll administration software to submit the payroll tax forms to the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration for all its customers established abroad with personnel in the Netherlands.

For many other things that we take care of for our foreign customers, such as submitting sickness reports to the Employee Insurance Agency UWV, managing registrations with the pension fund or applying for certificates of coverage, we can make use of an old-fashioned paper procedure in some cases. Only when our customers are listed in the Dutch Trade Register, they can authorise us through a so-called “chain authorisation” to follow the procedure using our own eRecognition. The latter is now also possible for companies that do have a tax registration number in the Netherlands, but are not registered in the Dutch Trade Register. Unfortunately, for the time being only for logging in with the Dutch Tax Authorities. Perhaps more organisations will accept this solution in the future.

Dutch employers with staff in Belgium are faced with the same problem: as the directors of these companies generally do not have a Belgian identity card, they cannot apply for an eID in Belgium. In these cases, we also follow an old-fashioned “paper” procedure, for example to apply for a certificate of coverage for their employee in Belgium.

Sometimes this is possible, for example to make reports to the Reporting Desk of the Inspectorate for Social Affairs and Employment (SZW), for foreign employees who are seconded to the Netherlands:  https://meldloket.postedworkers.nl/runtime/

Though as a result of the eIDAS regulation, the government is obliged to accept the login tools recognised at the European level for their digital services, in practice this is by no means always possible. Until that time, a paper procedure will have to be applied for the bodies concerned.

If you are listed in the Dutch Trade Register, you can choose from the following options:

1. You request an eRecognition tool of your own from one of the recognised providers (read more on https://www.eherkenning.nl/)
   
   
2. You outsource the relevant application or report to Interfisc and authorise us to submit it through our own eRecognition
   In this situation, you will receive a “chain authorisation registration form” from our eRecognition provider. This form has to be signed by a duly authorised person within your organisation and returned to the provider, together with a copy of a valid identity document. After acceptance by the provider, we can communicate on your behalf with the bodies for which the authorisation was issued.

As long as your company is listed in the Dutch Trade Register, it is not a problem when the authorised person lives abroad. It is important, though, to ascertain in advance whether the person signing the form has the authorisation, in accordance with the Trade Register, to do so. If the director has independent authority, he will be permitted to sign the form himself as well. However, we often see that directors have joint authorisation; in that case, they will all have to sign the form.

In some cases, an authorised person who has independent authority may be listed in the Trade Register in addition to the director(s). This person can lawfully sign the application as well. If in doubt, please contact us to prevent the application from being rejected.

Apart from the authorised person who has to sign the application, we also have dealings with the user of the eRecognition tool. This is the person who, on behalf of your company, with the help of eRcognition, will perform certain acts in respect of the Dutch government.

An example of this user is the Belgian HR manager who wants to view the registration of the Dutch branch with a Pension fund in the Netherlands. An officer who does not live in the Netherlands can also use eRecognition through an own account. However, practice shows that logging in from abroad does not always go smoothly, as the person who wants to log in has to complete two steps:

1. entering a user name/password
   
   
2. entering a code that is received by the user on a mobile phone or a so-called “OTP device”. OTP stands for “One-Time Password”. Technically it is possible to receive such a code at a foreign telephone number, but receipt may fail because of a delay in the connection. In this situation, it is advisable to use an OTP device (for which additional costs apply, though).