Contractor or employee?

For 10 IT workers with a 5,000-euro invoice, there’s no problem—even a 1,000,000-euro penalty for the “Schwarz system.”

I think everyone would intuitively agree that this isn’t fair.

However, the law must primarily emphasize fairness in the process of its creation. After all, once Slovak law stipulates that the “tax” on capital gains is 45.4%, we must generally respect that.

Under the current rules governing the “Švarc system,” the following groups are particularly affected:

💡 the labor market, because the government offers fixed-term employment contracts (TPP) as practically the only secure solution, which account for approximately +50 to +80% of the costs;

💡 Predictability of the law, because an entrepreneur can never be 100% certain that his or her B2B relationship with a contractor is not a “Schwarz system.” As a result, the entrepreneur becomes more of an object of the law than a subject.

However, our job is to find solutions.

One of these is the legal argument regarding the question “When can a vendor at Eurovea be considered a contractor?” (which also applies to IT, marketing, etc.).

And I will be presenting it at our upcoming event, which we are organizing on June 15, 2026, at Nivy Tower, together with SLOVCA—the Slovak Venture Capital & Private Equity Association —and Lukas Baloga, CAIA.

The event will also feature a discussion with Juraj Hajš, director of the Trenčín Labor Inspectorate.

The broader the discussion about why and how this can work, the better it is for business in Slovakia.

I’d be happy if you came.

Sign up in the comments.