Community service in the Netherlands: the taakstraf explained

A community service order (taakstraf) is unpaid work imposed as a principal sentence in Dutch criminal law, regulated in article 22c of the Dutch Criminal Code (Wetboek van Strafrecht, Sr). A court may impose up to 240 hours; the public prosecutor may impose up to 180 hours in a penalty order (strafbeschikking). The work is carried out in your own time under the supervision of the probation service, and must be completed within eighteen months of the judgment becoming irrevocable.

For most people the practical question is not what the sentence means in theory but what happens next: when the letter arrives, how the placement is arranged, what counts as an excuse for missing a day, and what the consequences are if the hours are not completed. This guide follows the order from sentence to completion, sets out the statutory deadlines, and explains the one procedure that matters most if things go wrong, the objection against conversion into substitute detention.

What a community service order is

Dutch criminal law recognises three principal sentences: imprisonment, the community service order and the fine. The taakstraf is therefore not a lenient alternative granted as a favour but a full sentence in its own right, and it may be combined with other sentences and with measures. Article 22c Sr provides that it consists of performing unpaid work, and that the judgment or penalty order states the number of hours and may describe the nature of the work. The statutory maximum for an adult is 240 hours.

The work itself is done at organisations without a profit motive: municipalities, care homes, hospitals, sports associations, the state forestry service and comparable bodies. It is genuinely unpaid, and it is performed outside your working hours, which is precisely what makes the sentence workable for someone in employment. Where it is practical, the probation service tries to connect the work to the offence, so that the sentence carries some meaning beyond the hours themselves.

Two routes lead to a taakstraf. The court can impose one after a hearing. The public prosecutor can also impose one without any hearing, in a penalty order under article 257a of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Wetboek van Strafvordering, Sv), where the maximum is 180 hours. That difference matters: a penalty order is not a conviction by a court, but accepting it by simply performing the work means you forgo the opportunity to contest the case. If you disagree with a penalty order, you can lodge an objection (verzet) within the period stated on it, and the case then goes to the court after all. Our Dutch criminal law guides set out the wider picture of sentencing and procedure.

Juveniles fall under a separate sentencing regime with lower maxima, and the range of options there includes a training order (leerstraf) alongside a work order. The rules described below concern adult criminal law.

When a community service order cannot be imposed

Article 22b Sr contains the statutory prohibition, generally known as the taakstrafverbod. Under paragraph 1, a community service order may not be imposed for an offence carrying a statutory maximum of six years’ imprisonment or more that resulted in a serious infringement of the victim’s bodily integrity, nor for a number of specifically listed offences, including certain sexual offences and offences against public authority. Under paragraph 2 it is also excluded where the offender was convicted of a similar offence within the preceding five years and served a community service order for it, or had that order converted into detention.

Paragraph 3 provides the escape route that is used in practice: the prohibition does not apply where an unconditional custodial sentence or a custodial measure is imposed alongside the community service order. A court that wants to impose community work in a case caught by the prohibition will therefore usually combine it with a short unconditional prison sentence, which is often equal to the time already spent in pre-trial detention.

Attempts to widen the prohibition have not so far succeeded. A bill extending it to violence against emergency service workers was rejected by the Senate in October 2022. A new private member’s bill with a similar aim was introduced in the House of Representatives in February 2025 and is still in the written preparation stage; it has not been adopted and is not in force. Until it is, article 22b Sr applies as it stands.

From judgment to first working day

Enforcement of criminal judgments has been the responsibility of the Minister for Legal Protection since the Act on the revision of the enforcement of criminal decisions came into force on 1 January 2020, with the Central Judicial Collection Agency (Centraal Justitieel Incassobureau, CJIB) handling the administration. Nothing happens while the judgment can still be appealed: enforcement begins only once it is irrevocable. If you appeal within the fourteen-day period in a criminal case, the sentence is suspended and the file does not go to enforcement.

Once the judgment is final, the file goes to the probation service, which invites you for an intake interview. Three organisations carry out this work in the Netherlands: Reclassering Nederland, the probation service of the Salvation Army, and the probation service for addiction care. At the intake the officer records your working hours, study commitments, caring responsibilities, language and any medical limitations, and on that basis selects a placement.

You cannot choose the organisation yourself, but the preference you express at the intake carries real weight, because a placement that does not fit is a placement that fails. Be candid about shift work, a chronic condition or a childcare arrangement at this stage rather than later; adjusting the schedule at the start is straightforward, while an absence that has already occurred has to be justified after the fact. The intake ends in a written agreement setting out the rules, the reporting obligations and the schedule.

The deadline: eighteen months

Article 6:3:1 Sv fixes the period within which the work must be completed at eighteen months after the judgment becomes irrevocable, and at nine months after a penalty order becomes irrevocable. That period is not affected by how long the probation service takes to arrange the placement, so delay at the start eats into the time available to you at the end.

The same provision extends the period in two situations: for the time you are lawfully deprived of your liberty, and for the time you are absent without authorisation. The second point is worth reading twice. Staying away does not run the clock down in your favour; it suspends it, and it is recorded.

Within that window the schedule is a matter of practical arrangement. Work is commonly done on set days each week, at weekends or in the evening, and a full-time employee can usually complete a moderate number of hours without taking leave. Your employer is not obliged to give you time off for a community service order, and is not entitled to be told why you need it; the sentence is served in your own time precisely so that employment is not disrupted.

Rules during the placement

The obligations during the placement are few but strictly applied: attend on the agreed days, arrive on time, follow the instructions of the work supervisor, behave properly towards colleagues and clients of the organisation, and report absence in the prescribed way before the shift starts. Hours are registered by the supervisor and can be checked through the probation service.

Illness is not a free pass, but it is not a breach either, provided you report it correctly and, where asked, substantiate it. What causes problems is the day someone simply does not turn up and explains afterwards. The probation service can issue a formal warning for a first serious lapse; a further lapse, or a pattern of lateness and unreported absence, leads to the order being declared not properly performed and the file being returned to the public prosecutor.

Conversion into substitute detention

When a court imposes a community service order it must, under article 22d Sr, order at the same time the substitute detention (vervangende hechtenis) to be applied if the work is not properly performed. That period is fixed in whole days, weeks or months, is at least one day and at most four months, and may not exceed one day for every two hours of community service. A 240-hour order therefore carries a maximum of 120 days.

If the probation service reports that the order has not been properly performed, the decision to apply the substitute detention is taken by a public prosecutor under article 6:3:3 Sv. The decision must state the number of hours not performed and the corresponding detention, and it is served on you. Note that the conversion is proportionate: hours already worked count, and only the remaining hours are converted.

Objecting to the conversion

You are not obliged to accept the conversion. Article 6:6:23 Sv gives you the right to lodge a written objection (bezwaarschrift) with the court, and the period is fourteen days from the service of the conversion decision. This is a strict deadline: an objection lodged late is normally declared inadmissible, and the detention then simply follows.

The objection sets out why the hours were not performed and, where relevant, what has changed. Illness supported by medical evidence, a hospital admission, an employer who abruptly changed the shift pattern, a placement that was never realistically feasible, or a caring situation that arose during the period are the kinds of circumstance that are argued successfully. So is a demonstrable willingness to finish the work now: the court can declare the objection well founded and, under the same provision, fix the number of remaining hours to be performed.

Because the alternative is detention, this is the moment to involve a lawyer rather than to write the letter yourself. Where you qualify on income grounds, subsidised legal assistance is available for this type of proceeding through the Legal Aid Board. In the meantime, keep working the hours if the placement still stands; nothing helps an objection more than a record showing you are performing.

How it compares with a prison sentence and a fine

The three principal sentences are not interchangeable, and the choice between them is made on the seriousness of the offence, the circumstances in which it was committed and the person of the offender. The rough measure the legislature uses when converting work into detention is two hours of community service for one day, which also gives a sense of where a taakstraf sits in relation to a short custodial sentence. It is not an exchange rate a court is obliged to apply when sentencing, but it explains why an order of 240 hours is regarded as a heavy sentence rather than a mild one.

In practice the choice is rarely between one sentence and another in isolation. Courts frequently combine a community service order with a conditional prison sentence, so that a period of good behaviour is attached to it, or with a driving disqualification, compensation to the victim, or a fine. A conditional element changes the calculation considerably: breaching the condition can bring the suspended sentence into effect on top of anything that happens to the community service order itself.

Where a community service order is realistically available, it is worth putting the case for it properly at the hearing rather than hoping for it. What helps is concrete: employment that would be lost through detention, a caring responsibility, treatment already under way, compensation already paid, and a clear statement of availability for the work. What does not help is a general plea about the harshness of prison. The defence is essentially a practical one, and it is made with documents.

Your criminal record and the certificate of good conduct

A community service order is a criminal conviction and is recorded in the judicial documentation register. So is a penalty order imposed by the prosecutor. That registration is not public, but it is consulted when you apply for a certificate of good conduct (Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag, VOG), which many employers require.

A registration does not automatically mean a refusal. Justis assesses whether the offence, if repeated, would obstruct the exercise of the specific function applied for, and it looks back over a period that depends on the screening profile and on the offence. An old conviction for a matter unrelated to the job is frequently no obstacle, while a recent conviction directly relevant to the position may well be. If a VOG is refused you can submit your views and then object, and the reasoning in that procedure is worth taking seriously rather than reapplying blindly. We discuss the assessment in more detail in our article on the VOG for internationals.

Two further consequences are worth mentioning. A conviction can affect the right of residence of a foreign national, particularly where the sentence reaches a certain level, and it can be relevant for a professional registration or a licence. If either applies to you, raise it with your lawyer before the hearing, because the sentence that is proposed may be negotiable in a way that its consequences are not.

The mistakes that lead to detention

Almost every conversion we see follows the same pattern, and none of the causes is complicated. Absence without timely notice is the first: one unreported day is a warning, the second usually ends the placement. Silence is the second: people who run into trouble at work or at home stop answering the probation service instead of asking for the schedule to be changed, which is nearly always possible if it is raised in advance.

Underestimating the deadline is the third. Eighteen months sounds generous, and it is, until a placement falls through in month twelve. Postponing the intake does not extend anything. The fourth is assuming that a change of address or telephone number will find its way to the authorities on its own; a conversion decision that is validly served at an old address still starts the fourteen-day objection period. And the fifth is treating the conversion decision itself as final. It is not, and the objection is often the last realistic opportunity to avoid detention.

If you have been sentenced to community service, are struggling to complete it, or have received a decision converting the remaining hours into detention, contact Law & More. Our criminal lawyers can assess the position, correspond with the probation service and the public prosecutor, and lodge a reasoned objection within the fourteen-day period. Where the sentence has not yet been imposed, we can also advise on whether a community service order is realistically available in your case and how to present the argument for it.

Community service as a sentence