Definition and classification
False self-employment exists where a person formally appears as self-employed but is in fact integrated into an operation like a dependent employee and bound by its instructions. What counts is the actual picture of the work, not the label in the contract.
A freelancer works fixed shifts in a team for months, uses the client's equipment and is bound by instructions. Despite a „freelancer contract" this is in fact dependent employment – with the risk of high back payments of contributions for the client.
How do you recognize false self-employment?
The indicators are the absence of entrepreneurial risk of one's own, being bound by instructions, being firmly embedded in processes and teams, and working for only one client. Where there is false self-employment, back payments of social security contributions follow and – where contributions were withheld deliberately – criminal consequences. Clarity comes from the status determination procedure under § 7a SGB IV. A related concept is concealed staff leasing.
How do you prevent it?
Preventing it means above all shaping how the work is actually carried out: self-employed people should use their own equipment, work free of instructions and for several clients and carry entrepreneurial risk – not be built into fixed shifts and teams. Where there is uncertainty, the status determination procedure provides legal certainty in advance.