Netherlands Publishes Draft Asbestos Decree Detailing Permits, Training And Transition Rules

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.

The regime covers chrysotile, actinolite, amosite, anthophyllite, tremolite and crocidolite. Its fuller asbestos-work provisions apply where serpentinite asbestos plus ten times the amphibole asbestos concentration exceeds 100 mg per kg of dry material. 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.

That correction is important because presenting the number as a new threshold would overstate the immediate compliance change. Foresight's earlier article on Directive (EU) 2023/2668 explains the European baseline. Its asbestos fibres evidence article concerns product contamination rather than workplace implementation.

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, until a decision or no later than six months after commencement. Comparable temporary treatment is proposed for certain businesses without the old process certificate.

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.

The biggest operational shift is governance, not the exposure number. Permit scope, worker competence records and digital evidence would become the practical compliance gates.

Practical call to action: Map activities to the proposed permit categories, identify workers needing course registration and prepare to file within one month once commencement is fixed.