Payment Terms Legislation In Netherlands

Law of 13 December 2012 amending Book 6 of the Civil Code, specifically article 119a, enacts the EU Late Payment Directive (see European Union for details). Payment terms beyond the maximum of 60 days may be permitted in contract if it can be demonstrated that they are not harmful to the supplier. In early 2021 the Dutch Cabinet shortened the strict maximum payment terms to SMEs from 60 to 30 days.

The law of 23 March 2021 – Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Unfair Trade Practices Act enacts the EU UTP in the supply chain directive in the Netherlands (see European Union for details).

Betaalme is a not-for-profit initiative that aims to support SME access to reasonably-priced liquidity and promote payment terms to SMEs of 30 days.

See European Union for the Directive on Unfair Trading Practices in the Food Supply Chain which was adopted on 30 April 2019.

Article 119 of Book 6 of the Civil Code states that interest for late payment of commercial transactions is based on the statutory interest rate which was 8% in 2022.