The European Union has adopted the long-awaited Directive 2024/2831 on the improvement of working conditions when working across a platform (the “Directive”). According to the Directive, a “digital labour platform” means a natural or legal person providing a service that simultaneously meets the following criteria:

1) the service is provided online or via mobile app;

2) the service is provided at the request of a recipient of the service;

3) in order for the service to be provided, individuals are hired against consideration, irrespective of whether the work is performed online or at a specific location;

4) the service involves the use of automated monitoring systems or automated decision-making systems;

As the digital labour platform implies the need for work organization (including the employment of persons on a labour or civil contract), the Directive aims to introduce measures to improve working conditions in the Member States and to protect employees more effectively.

The new rules, first and foremost, introduce a new rebuttable legal presumption of the existence of an employment relationship between the persons working through the platform and the very platform. This effectively means that individuals providing services via digital platforms are categorized as employees rather than self-employed/independent contractors, unless proven otherwise by the digital labour platform itself.

Regardless of how the relationship is defined in a contract or settlement, the determination of the existence of an employment relationship is primarily governed by the facts relating to the actual performance of the work, i.e. the actual factual situation. The decisive factor in this assessment is whether or not guidance and control by the digital platforms is established in respect of the work performed by the persons engaged.

It is also foreseen that Member States should adopt rules for protection against dismissal of persons performing work via a platform.

Service providers whose main purpose is to exploit or share assets, such as short-term rental accommodation, or platforms through which non-professionals can resell goods, are explicitly excluded from the scope of the obligations under the Directive.

Also excluded are platforms that only perform intermediary services to connect service providers and the end user, for example by advertising service offers or requests or by aggregating and displaying available service providers in a specific area.

Member States have two years, until December 2026, to implement the new rules in their national legislation, whereby the regulation is particularly important given the trend towards more and more services being provided entirely online.

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