In this guide, we explain what you need to do if your employees have exceeded their quota, which can happen with both students and extras. We will also discuss the employer quota that applies to extras, also known as occasional workers.

Every student may work 650 hours per year with reduced social security contributions. Those 650 hours are called the quota. It does not matter for which employer(s) they work those hours; the 650 hours are the total number of hours the student can work at reduced solidarity contributions.

For an extra, two different quotas apply: the employee quota and the employer quota.

An occasional worker, or extra, in the hospitality sector may work a maximum of 50 days per calendar year. This is the employee quota.

A company that works with occasional workers, or extras, in the hospitality sector may employ one or more occasional workers for a maximum of 200 calendar days. This means that one day with one occasional worker and one day with ten occasional workers both count as one day for this purpose.

The student can check their hours themselves and provide a certificate from Student@Work showing how many hours they still have left. Of course, this is only a snapshot, but it gives you a good idea of where you stand. The certificate also contains a code that gives you online access to the most up-to-date status of the counter.

This Social Security documentation explains how to consult this information, both for an individual employee and for the employer quota.

If you have a student who has worked more than 650 hours, they have exceeded their quota. In principle, it is their own responsibility to keep track of this, but we do of course recommend informing your student.

Fortunately, this does not mean that they are no longer allowed to come to work. It does mean, however, that they can no longer work with reduced solidarity contributions.

In practice, there are three possible options. We advise you to discuss this with your social secretariat to determine which solution applies to your situation and fits within the expected process.

In principle, you do not need to do anything in Strobbo for this.

You can continue sending Dimona declarations for the student of the type “STU - Hour”, and if you manage the contracts through Strobbo, you must of course continue having them signed. This is 100% legal, but it is not the most advantageous solution.

You should always discuss this option with your social secretariat, as these declarations may produce an error in the social secretariat’s software. In practice, this could mean that this option is not workable.

This option is more advantageous than the first one because your social security contributions are calculated on a lower flat-rate amount. You can find more information about this on the Social Security website.

You still have your student sign a student employment agreement, so you do not need a framework agreement!
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In this way, your student can work another 50 hospitality days at the reduced flat rate.

It is important, however, that you follow the same rules as for any other occasional worker: you may not schedule these people for more than two consecutive days!

For this, you will need to change the Dimona type on the employee’s profile to EXT-Hour. At the start of the new year, you would then need to change this back to STU-Hour.

You can also register this employee with OTH declarations. These declarations cannot be processed through Strobbo, so you would need to contact your social secretariat for this.

If your employer quota, or the employee quota of your extra, also known as an occasional worker in the hospitality sector, has been exceeded, it is best to contact your social secretariat to determine how these declarations should be handled.