Fixed-term employment: period beyond which the contract is treated as open-ended
Usually stated as an automatic conversion, and the exceptions are what make it wrong for exactly the population this site writes for — foreign professionals are frequently engaged under the professional knowledge and skills exception, so the two-year clock does not work the way a general article implies.
- Applies to
- Fixed-term employees, including foreign nationals on work statuses
- Review cadence
- Checked once a year
What we have recorded
- 2026-09-172 years
As a rule a fixed-term employee may not be used beyond two years, and continuous employment past it is treated as a contract without a fixed term. Statutory exceptions allow longer engagement — completion of a defined project, covering an absent employee, education and training periods, older workers, and the use of professional knowledge or skills among them. The last of those covers a great deal of foreign professional hiring, so 'two years means automatic permanence' is not a safe reading.
Act on the Protection of Fixed-Term and Part-Time Employees
One reading so far. This becomes a history the first time the figure moves while we are watching — which is the part that cannot be reconstructed later.
Guides that depend on this figure
When this figure moves, every guide above needs the same edit. That is why it is tracked here rather than copied into each one.