Anyone planning a renovation soon comes across three labels that are used interchangeably: aannemer (contractor), bouwbedrijf (building company) and klusbedrijf (handyman firm). In practice a one-person business with a van sometimes calls itself a building company, and a firm with twenty staff calls itself a contractor. Yet the distinction matters, because it determines who coordinates the work, who is liable if something goes wrong and how much you pay for organisation and overheads. This article explains the terms, gives a decision rule for each type of job and shows when it is smarter to hire individual tradespeople directly.
Three terms and what they mean legally
Legally it is simple: anyone who undertakes, for payment, to produce a work of a physical nature is a contractor within the meaning of the Burgerlijk Wetboek (Dutch Civil Code). The rules on construction contracts, from the duty to warn to the handover, therefore apply to the large builder and to the handyman who puts up your fence alike. The difference lies in practice, scale and organisation.
The contractor
In everyday language "contractor" means the main contractor: the company that takes on the whole renovation, draws up the schedule, deploys the various trades and acts as your single point of contact. They employ their own carpenters and bricklayers or work with regular subcontractors for installation work, plastering, tiling and painting. You have one agreement, one quote, one schedule and one party that is liable for the whole, including for mistakes by the subcontractors they have brought in.
The building company
A building company is essentially the same as a contractor, but the term is more often used for firms that also carry out structural shell work: foundations, load-bearing walls, extensions, roof structures, new builds. A building company usually has a work planner or project manager, works with drawings and structural calculations and knows its way around permits and building regulations. Many building companies act as main contractor on a renovation; some do only the shell work and leave the finishing to you or to others.
The handyman firm
A handyman firm or handyman is usually a self-employed person or a small business that does smaller jobs, mostly finishing work: putting up a partition wall, laying laminate, fitting a kitchen, painting, small tiling and carpentry jobs. The strength of a good handyman firm is flexibility, a low hourly rate and a willingness to take on jobs that are too small for a contractor. The limit lies at structural work, renovations that require a permit and work on gas and complex electrics: for those they usually lack the specialisation, the certification and the insurance cover.
Coordination and liability: the real difference
The difference you notice in your wallet and in your sleep comes down to two things: who aligns the various tradespeople with each other, and who is liable if it goes wrong.
With a main contractor you pay for coordination: they make sure the plumber has finished before the tiler arrives, sort it out if a subcontractor drops out and are responsible for the end result. That mark-up for organisation and risk is part of their price. In return, one party is liable for the whole: if the shower leaks because the installer fitted a coupling incorrectly, you hold the main contractor to account and they sort it out with their subcontractor.
If you hire individual tradespeople, you are the coordinator yourself. You draw up the schedule, you keep an eye on the order of work and you are the one who has to work out who is responsible when the plaster cracks at the spot where the electrician later cut another channel. Each tradesperson is liable only for their own work, and the interface between the trades is your risk. That is manageable with two or three parties who do not get in each other's way; with six trades in a bathroom it becomes a full-time job.
In every case, check the insurance: a contractor has business liability insurance and usually an ongoing CAR (contractor's all risks) policy for damage to the work; an individual self-employed tradesperson (ZZP'er) has at most liability insurance and often no CAR cover. On a project with several individual tradespeople there is therefore nobody whose policy covers the whole, unless you arrange something yourself.
The Wkb on larger work
Since 1 January 2024, the Wet kwaliteitsborging voor het bouwen (Wkb, Dutch Quality Assurance for Building Act) has imposed extra rules on new builds in consequence class 1, such as ground-level houses. For renovations, the introduction of that system has been postponed and no start date has yet been set; check the current position on rijksoverheid.nl. For work that falls under it, an independent quality assurer must oversee the construction and the contractor must hand over a file on completion. A building company that regularly does work requiring a permit knows this system and has regular quality assurers; a handyman firm usually does not. In addition, the Wkb has increased the liability of every contractor, large or small, for hidden defects after handover and has tightened the duty to warn. You can read exactly what that involves in Quality Assurance for Building Act: what the Wkb means for your renovation.
Decision rule: who to hire for which job
In most cases three questions decide the choice: is the work structural or subject to a permit, how many trades need to dovetail, and how much time and knowledge do you have yourself to coordinate?
| Type of job | Examples | Logical choice |
|---|---|---|
| One trade, small | Painting, laminate, fence, fitting a kitchen, putting up a small wall | Handyman firm or the relevant tradesperson directly |
| One trade, specialist | New roof, central heating boiler or heat pump, consumer unit, pointing, plastering | Specialist tradesperson: roofer, installer, electrician, bricklayer, plasterer |
| Two or three trades, you coordinate | Renovating a toilet, finishing an attic, new floor with skirting boards and painting | Individual tradespeople, provided you keep track of the order yourself |
| Four or more trades | Complete bathroom, kitchen with relocated pipework, renovating a home | Main contractor, or a tradesperson who takes it on as main contractor |
| Structural or subject to a permit | Extension, dormer with structural changes, removing a load-bearing wall, adding a storey on the roof | Building company or contractor with a structural engineer, familiar with permits and the Wkb |
Two additional points. Many tradespeople active on VerbouwPro, such as a carpenter or a bricklayer, also take on smaller projects as main contractor and then bring in an installer themselves. That is often a good middle way between a large building company and arranging everything yourself. And a contractor who does their job well saves you money by preventing overruns and mistakes; the mark-up for coordination is therefore not by definition more expensive than doing it yourself.
When individual tradespeople are smarter
Coordinating yourself pays off if the work can be split into clear phases that barely affect each other, if you have the time to be available for questions and checks, and if you understand the order and the dependencies. You save the main contractor's mark-up and you choose the best tradesperson for each trade instead of the contractor's regular subcontractor. Do record in writing, for each tradesperson, what they deliver, when they come and how their work connects with that of others, and agree who handles the shared items: who drills the holes for the pipes, who repairs the plaster after the electrician, who clears up.
Choose a main contractor if you have little time, if the work is structural or subject to a permit, if many trades come together in a small area, or if you need a firm completion date for which one party can be held to account. How to select that party is covered in 5 tips for choosing the right contractor; how to compare quotes from different types of companies fairly is covered in Comparing quotes: how to read a building quote. Bear in mind that a handyman firm's quote is often on a time-and-materials basis and a contractor's on a fixed price; without a clear description of the work, those figures are not comparable.
What to always check, whatever the name on the van
- KvK (Chamber of Commerce) registration and VAT number, and whether the activity you are commissioning matches the registration.
- Insurance: business liability and, for larger work, a CAR policy that also covers your existing home.
- Quality marks and industry terms: a contractor who belongs to a trade association with consumer terms and a disputes procedure offers more certainty than home-made general terms and conditions; a guarantee scheme covers completion of the work if the company goes bankrupt.
- References for comparable work, preferably ones you can go and see.
- A written agreement describing the work, price, schedule, payment terms and arrangements for additional work.
On VerbouwPro you post your job free of charge, and both contractors and specialist tradespeople from your region respond, with a verified profile and reviews. In your request, describe which trades you expect and whether you want a single point of contact; that way a company knows straight away whether your job suits their organisation.