From how many employees is a reporting channel mandatory?

From fifty employees, with sectoral exceptions

The threshold for a mandatory internal reporting channel is fifty employees in the Netherlands and Germany. Below that threshold, the obligation does not apply in most sectors, and above that threshold, there must be a reporting channel with procedures and timeframes within which a reporter receives a response.

There are exceptions to this main rule that set aside the threshold. In the Netherlands, the obligation also applies below fifty employees for employers in financial services, products and markets, in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, in civil aviation, in maritime labour and port state control, and in offshore oil and gas activities. Germany has the same requirement for securities services and investment firms, and for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing. An organisation active in one of these sectors should therefore check its own situation, even with fewer than fifty employees.

The basis: directive, Wbk and HinSchG

The obligation itself comes from Article 8 of Directive (EU) 2019/1937, which requires Member States to establish mandatory internal reporting channels. The Netherlands has implemented this in Article 2 of the Whistleblower Protection Act, with the threshold of fifty employees and the sectoral exceptions in Articles 2, 2a and 2b of the same act. Germany has implemented this in the Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz, with the same threshold of fifty employees and the sectoral exceptions in § 12 para. 3 HinSchG. The House for Whistleblowers provides an explanation of the Dutch rules on its page for employers; for the precise delineation of the sectoral exceptions and for the question of whether a specific organisation falls within them, the statutory text itself remains the place to refer to.