The Netherlands is one of Europe’s most attractive e-commerce markets. Dutch consumers are digitally confident, comfortable buying from international retailers, and they spend well. But before you start targeting them, you need to know that the Netherlands enforces consumer protection rules strictly – and the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has teeth. Fines run up to 900,000 euros or four per cent of annual turnover.
This checklist covers the ten legal requirements your webshop must meet to sell to Dutch consumers legally. Most of these rules apply across the EU, but the Netherlands enforces them more actively than many other member states.
1. Add a cancellation button – deadline: 19 June 2026
This one has a hard deadline. From 19 June 2026, every webshop selling to Dutch consumers must have a clearly visible cancellation button on the site. Customers use it to cancel a purchase or subscription in one step. After they click, they receive a confirmation, and the return window opens from that moment.
Action: Brief your developer now. The button must be easy to find – not buried in account settings. It sits alongside, not instead of, the existing withdrawal form.
2. Display your business details on every page
Dutch law requires your company information to be visible before a customer completes a purchase. The standard place is the header or footer on every page. You need to show your registered company name, your Dutch VAT number (if applicable), your business address, your e-mail address, your phone number, and your contact hours.
Action: If you do not have a Dutch VAT number yet, getting one is part of the market entry process. Your footer also needs to mention any complaints procedure or disputes committee you are affiliated with.
3. Verify your reviews – fake ones carry legal risk
Reviews on your Dutch-facing site must come from genuine customers. You must explain publicly how you verify this. The ACM actively investigates review fraud, and displaying paid or incentivised reviews without disclosure is a violation – including fake likes on social media placed on your behalf.
Action: Check whether your review platform (Trustpilot, Google, native system) meets these standards. Add a short note explaining your verification process. Disclose sponsored reviews explicitly.
4. Disclose personalised pricing or offers
If your site adjusts prices, product rankings, or offers based on a visitor’s location, browsing history, or customer profile, you must tell Dutch customers before they buy. A pop-up or a notice on the checkout page is the accepted approach.
Action: Audit your personalisation logic. If your pricing engine shows different prices to different visitors, you need a disclosure. This is particularly relevant for dynamic pricing models.
5. Calculate discounts correctly
Dutch rules on “was/now” pricing are clear: the reference price must be the lowest price charged in the thirty days before the promotion. You cannot inflate a price before a sale to make the discount appear larger. Comparing against a competitor’s price or a recommended retail price is permitted, but must be clearly labelled as such.
Action: Review how your promotions engine calculates reference prices. This is a common area of ACM enforcement, particularly during peak sale periods.
6. Explain the terms for free digital services
Offering a free trial, newsletter, or app in exchange for personal data? Dutch consumers have the right to cancel within fourteen days without giving a reason. You must explain the commitment period and the cancellation process upfront. If they cancel, GDPR requires you to delete their data promptly.
Action: Make cancellation as easy to find as sign-up. A buried unsubscribe process is a compliance risk and damages trust with Dutch customers, who are particularly sensitive to it.
7. Only use countdown timers for real deadlines
The ACM has explicitly warned webshops about countdown timers that reset or continue after they reach zero. Using a timer to create artificial urgency is classified as a misleading commercial practice. Dutch consumers and consumer organisations report these actively.
Action: Audit any urgency elements on your site – timers, low stock warnings, “X people viewing this now” notices. Each one needs to reflect reality. If it does not, remove it before entering the Dutch market.
8. Meet accessibility requirements if you are above the threshold
Webshops with more than two million euros in turnover or more than ten employees must make their site accessible to users with visual, hearing, or motor impairments. This means keyboard navigation, video subtitles, and plain language throughout.
Action: Run an accessibility audit using a tool such as WAVE or Lighthouse. Even if you fall below the legal threshold, accessibility improvements typically increase conversion rates – Dutch consumers include a significant percentage of users with accessibility needs.
Tip: with roughly 9% of all people visually impaired either temporarily or permanent, making your site more accessible for them instantly enlarges your target group. Especially if your competitor neglects this!
9. Make purchase information clear at the point of sale
Before a Dutch customer confirms an order, your site must show the main product or service characteristics, the full price including taxes and delivery costs, how their personal data is handled, how to cancel or return, accepted payment methods, delivery timescales and who is responsible for delivery, warranty details, the minimum fourteen-day cooling-off period, and how to raise a complaint.
Action: Walk through your checkout as a new customer. Is all of this information genuinely accessible, or does it require clicking through to a terms page? The ACM expects it to be visible at the point of decision.
10. Do not block EU customers – but you can limit your delivery zone
Under EU geo-blocking rules, you cannot refuse customers from other EU member states. If a Belgian or German customer lands on your Dutch-language site, you must serve them. You may offer different site versions for different countries, with adjusted products and pricing, but the customer must be able to choose which version they use.
Importantly, you are not required to deliver across the entire EU. Restricting delivery to the Netherlands is permitted – but you must allow EU customers to enter a Dutch delivery address or use a Dutch collection point.
Action: Check your checkout flow for any hard blocks on non-Dutch billing addresses or payment methods. These can trigger geo-blocking complaints.
11. Register for Dutch VAT before your first sale
Selling to Dutch consumers means dealing with Dutch VAT (BTW). If your annual turnover across EU countries exceeds 10,000 euros, you must charge the local VAT rate of the customer’s country – which in the Netherlands is 21% for most goods. You can handle this through the EU’s One Stop Shop (OSS) scheme, which lets you file a single VAT return for all EU sales, or register directly with the Dutch Tax Authority (Belastingdienst).
Action: Check whether you have already crossed the EU-wide 10,000 euro threshold. If so, OSS registration is likely your most efficient route. If you are storing goods in the Netherlands – via a fulfilment partner or Dutch warehouse – local VAT registration is mandatory regardless of turnover.
12. Set up a Dutch-compliant cookie and consent policy
The Netherlands applies GDPR strictly, and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) is one of the more active regulators in Europe. Your cookie banner must give visitors a genuine choice – pre-ticked boxes, “accept all” as the only prominent option, and consent walls that block content are all non-compliant. Analytical and marketing cookies require explicit opt-in.
Action: Test your consent management platform against Dutch standards. If your banner is set up for a more permissive jurisdiction, it likely needs adjustment before you target Dutch traffic. A compliant setup also protects your paid media campaigns – invalid consent can affect your remarketing audiences.
How the rules are enforced in the Netherlands
The ACM monitors compliance and investigates complaints submitted through Consuwijzer, the Dutch consumer reporting platform. International webshops are not exempt – the rules apply to any business selling to consumers in the Netherlands, regardless of where the business is registered. The Dutch KVK overview of these rules is updated regularly and is worth bookmarking.
If you are planning a Dutch market entry or already selling to Dutch consumers without having reviewed your compliance position, these ten points are your starting framework. Get the technical changes in place before June 2026, and treat the rest as your baseline – not your ceiling.
