Netherlands Drafts Public Permits And Training Rules For Asbestos Work

Netherlands Asbestos Decree Would Introduce Public Permits

The Netherlands has published a draft asbestos decree setting out the proposed operating system for Directive (EU) 2023/2668. The Implementatiebesluit wijzigingsrichtlijn asbest 2023/2668 was transmitted to Parliament and published on 28 September 2026.

The draft would reorganise the Working Conditions Decree and introduce permit categories for limited, basic and extended asbestos removal, plus start permits and permits for qualifying businesses from another European Union or European Economic Area state. It also details applications, refusal grounds, conditions, suspension and withdrawal.

Public permits would become the market-access requirement, while process certification or other prescribed compliance evidence would remain part of the system. Personal certification is a separate matter.

The regime covers chrysotile, actinolite, amosite, anthophyllite, tremolite and crocidolite. The proposed paragraphs 2–5 apply where serpentinite asbestos plus ten times the amphibole asbestos concentration exceeds 100 mg per kg of dry material. This threshold does not govern the exposure limit itself. Employers must provide role-specific theoretical and practical training, record workers and courses in a new register, manage medical surveillance and meet expanded notification and exposure-record duties.

Asbestos Exposure Limit Remains 2,000 Fibres Per Cubic Metre

The draft states an eight-hour time-weighted occupational limit of 2,000 fibres per cubic metre, equivalent to 0.002 fibres per cubic centimetre. This is not a newly lowered Dutch limit. The transposition table explains that the Netherlands already applied 2,000 fibres per cubic metre, so the decree preserves that protection while restructuring measurement and control provisions.

Transition Rules Depend On A Future Commencement Date

The decree is not in force. Commencement may be set differently for separate provisions by royal decree. Existing certified asbestos-removal businesses could continue without a permit if they apply within one month after commencement of Article 19a of the Working Conditions Act, until the application decision or ordinarily six months after that commencement. Comparable temporary treatment is proposed for certain businesses without the old process certificate. Enacted Article 45a(3) permits a ministerial extension until all initial applications are decided.

Measured from commencement of the implementing decree, applications filed in the first eight weeks may have a 16-week decision period. Pre-existing courses could be registered during the first six months, and employers would have up to six months to meet the new training obligation. Some evidentiary transitions extend to one year.