Ending a registered partnership in the Netherlands

The Dutch registered partnership (geregistreerd partnerschap) is close to marriage in almost every legal respect, but it ends differently. Without minor children it can be terminated without ever seeing a judge; with them, the court route is compulsory. This article sets out both routes, the property, pension and maintenance consequences, and the international complications that most often catch out internationals in the Netherlands.

What a registered partnership is

The registered partnership was introduced on 1 January 1998. It is entered into before the registrar of civil status (ambtenaar van de burgerlijke stand), who draws up a deed. A person can be in only one registered partnership at a time, and cannot be married and registered at once (art. 1:80a BW).

The legal effects are largely those of marriage. Art. 1:80b BW declares the titles of Book 1 of the Civil Code on the rights and duties of spouses, on the statutory community of property and on marriage conditions to apply correspondingly — with one exception: there is no separation from bed and board (scheiding van tafel en bed) for registered partners.

Parenthood follows the same pattern. Under art. 1:199 BW the man in a registered partnership with the woman from whom the child is born is the legal father by operation of law, exactly as a husband would be, and registered partners acquire joint parental authority over children born during the partnership.

How it differs from marriage and from a cohabitation contract

The differences between marriage and registered partnership are narrower than people expect. The gap between both of those and a cohabitation contract (samenlevingscontract) — an agreement that creates no status — is far wider.

The route without a court: no minor children

This is the feature that distinguishes the registered partnership. Under art. 1:80c BW a partnership ends, among other ways, by mutual consent, through registration by the registrar of a dated declaration signed by both partners and by one or more lawyers (advocaten) or civil-law notaries (notarissen). The declaration states that, and when, the partners concluded an agreement on ending the partnership.

Two points are often misread. The partners cannot do this alone: the involvement of at least one lawyer or civil-law notary is a statutory condition. And the declaration is not the agreement — the agreement is the substantive document, the declaration the short instrument that goes to the registrar.

What the termination agreement must contain

Art. 1:80d BW requires the agreement to contain at least a statement by both partners that their registered partnership has irretrievably broken down (duurzaam ontwricht) and that they wish to end it. Without that, there is no valid agreement.

The same article lists further subjects the agreement may address — expressly not on pain of nullity, so an agreement that omits them is still valid:

• partner maintenance;
• who continues to use the home and the household effects;
• the division of the community of property, or the settlement of partnership conditions;
• pension equalisation.

Leaving these out is rarely wise: an unresolved pension entitlement or an undivided jointly owned house will resurface, and by then the leverage of a negotiated settlement has gone.

The three-month time limit

Art. 1:80d BW gives a hard deadline: the declaration must reach the registrar within three months of the date on which the agreement was concluded. The period runs from the agreement, not from the signing of the declaration.

If the three months lapse, the declaration can no longer be registered on that agreement and the partnership simply continues. The remedy is a fresh agreement, a fresh declaration and a new three-month period — which requires both partners to cooperate a second time. If one has changed position, the only route left is dissolution by the court. Agree at the outset who files: a partner, the lawyer, or the notary.

Registration is handled by the registrar of the municipality where the partnership was entered into; art. 1:80c BW confirms the registrar is always competent where that was in the Netherlands. Where the partnership was entered into abroad, the competent authority is the municipality of The Hague, Dienst Publiekszaken, afdeling Landelijke Taken. The partnership ends on registration, not on signature.

One mismatch matters for tax: the Belastingdienst takes fiscal partnership to end when both parties sign the termination agreement, provided they are no longer registered at the same BRP address — not at the later registration with the registrar.

The compulsory court route: minor children

Art. 1:80c BW closes the out-of-court route where the partners jointly exercise parental authority over one or more of their joint children, and where they exercise joint authority over one or more children under art. 1:253sa BW or art. 1:253t BW. In those cases the partnership can only be ended by dissolution (ontbinding) by the court.

Art. 1:80e BW makes the divorce provisions apply correspondingly, including those on maintenance, the use of the home and the division of assets. The dissolution takes effect on registration of the court’s decision in the registers of civil status — and, as in divorce, that registration must take place within six months of the decision becoming final, failing which it loses its force.

Proceedings are conducted through a lawyer. Partners may file a joint petition, which is faster and cheaper, or one may apply alone. Irretrievable breakdown is the ground, and it is not tested against the other partner’s denial.

The parenting plan

A petition concerning minor children must be accompanied by a parenting plan (ouderschapsplan) signed by both parents, in line with art. 815 Rv. It must set out at least:

• how the care and upbringing of the children are divided, and where the children will live;
• how the parents will inform and consult each other on important matters concerning the children;
• the costs of care and upbringing, that is, child maintenance.

If a joint plan genuinely cannot be produced, the petition must explain why and what has been attempted. The court can proceed on that basis, but a petition that ignores the requirement without explanation risks being held inadmissible.

Property consequences

For partnerships entered into on or after 1 January 2018, the default is the limited community of property under art. 1:94 BW. In broad terms, what each partner already owned before the partnership stays private, and gifts and inheritances received by one partner stay private; what is built up during the partnership, and joint pre-existing property, falls into the community and is shared equally on termination. For partnerships entered into before that date, the old all-embracing community of property continues to apply.

Partners can depart from the default by partnership conditions (partnerschapsvoorwaarden), which must be executed as a notarial deed and are entered in the matrimonial property register (art. 1:115 BW, art. 1:116 BW). Conditions can be made before or during the partnership. Where they exist, ending the partnership means settling the conditions — typically a set-off clause — rather than dividing a community.

Either way the work is the same: identify what is community and what is private, value it, allocate it, and deal with debts. Joint debts remain joint towards creditors whatever the partners agree between themselves; a lender is not bound by a termination agreement, and a mortgage lender is under no obligation to release the departing partner from joint and several liability.

Pension equalisation

Ending a registered partnership counts as a “scheiding” for the purposes of the Pension Rights Equalisation (Divorce) Act (Wet verevening pensioenrechten bij scheiding, WVPS). The default is that each partner is entitled to half of the old-age pension the other accrued during the partnership, payable when that pension falls due.

Three points are worth acting on:

• Notify the pension provider on the statutory form within two years of the termination. Do so and the provider pays the equalised share directly to the entitled partner; miss the window and the entitlement survives, but must be claimed from the ex-partner personally.
• Equalisation can be excluded or varied — in partnership conditions or in the termination agreement itself, which is precisely why art. 1:80d BW lists pension as a subject for the agreement.
• Conversion (conversie) is an alternative: the entitled partner receives an independent pension entitlement of their own, cutting the lifelong link to the ex-partner. It requires the pension provider’s cooperation.

Separately from equalisation, the ex-partner generally retains a claim to a special partner’s pension (bijzonder partnerpensioen) for the period before termination.

The Wet pensioenverdeling bij scheiding, which will make conversion the standard in place of equalisation, has a target commencement date of 1 January 2028. Until it enters into force the WVPS regime described above applies.

Partner maintenance and its duration

Partner maintenance (partneralimentatie) applies to registered partnerships as it does to marriage, art. 1:80e BW declaring the divorce provisions correspondingly applicable. Entitlement turns on need on one side and capacity to pay on the other; the amount follows the Dutch maintenance guidelines (Trema-normen).

Since 1 January 2020 the main rule under art. 1:157 BW is that maintenance runs for half the duration of the marriage or partnership, with a maximum of five years. Three exceptions extend that:

• where the partners have children who have not reached the age of twelve, maintenance runs until the youngest child turns twelve;
• where the partnership lasted more than fifteen years and the recipient is within ten years of state pension (AOW) age, maintenance runs until AOW age is reached;
• a transitional rule for recipients born on or before 1 January 1970: where the partnership lasted more than fifteen years and the recipient is still more than ten years below AOW age, maintenance runs for ten years. The Act attaches no end date to this rule, but it expires of its own accord — once that cohort comes within ten years of AOW age the preceding exception applies instead, and the transitional rule has nothing left to bite on.

Where more than one exception applies, the longest period prevails, and in hardship cases the court can extend an expired period. Maintenance ends in any event if the recipient remarries, enters a new registered partnership, or lives with another person as though married.

Partners are free to agree a different duration, or to waive maintenance altogether, in the termination agreement. That is one of the real advantages of the out-of-court route: the outcome is negotiated rather than imposed.

Converting a registered partnership into a marriage

Art. 1:80g BW allows registered partners to tell the registrar that they wish their partnership converted into a marriage. The registrar draws up a deed of conversion. The partnership ends and the marriage begins at the moment the deed is entered in the register of marriages. Where the partners live outside the Netherlands and at least one holds Dutch nationality, the conversion takes place before the registrar in The Hague.

Conversion does not disturb family-law relationships with children born before it, and it creates no break in the relationship: for property and pension purposes the couple’s history runs on, which matters when calculating what was accrued during the marriage or partnership.

The reverse is no longer possible. Converting a marriage into a registered partnership — the mechanism behind the so-called flitsscheiding, by which a marriage was converted and then terminated out of court — was abolished with effect from 1 March 2009 by the Act of 27 November 2008 promoting continued parenthood and careful divorce. A marriage can therefore only be ended by the court, and there is no route from marriage back into a registered partnership.

The international dimension

Recognition abroad

The Dutch registered partnership is not a globally understood status. Recognition runs into obstacles in five EU Member States, which have no registered partnership in their own law: Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Outside the EU the picture is far more uneven, and many countries will treat registered partners as unmarried.

The consequences are practical: residence rights for a partner, inheritance, tax treatment, and whether a foreign authority will accept that the relationship existed at all. If you are likely to move abroad, converting into a marriage under art. 1:80g BW before you go is the standard advice, because marriage travels better than partnership.

Jurisdiction and applicable law

The Brussels IIb Regulation on matrimonial matters does not cover registered partnerships. Jurisdiction to end one is therefore determined by Dutch national rules of civil procedure, principally art. 4 Rv. The Dutch court has jurisdiction where either the applicant or the respondent has his habitual residence in the Netherlands, or where both partners hold Dutch nationality.

On applicable law, art. 10:86 BW provides that whether a registered partnership entered into in the Netherlands can be ended in the Netherlands by mutual consent or by dissolution, and on what grounds, is governed by Dutch law. Recognition of partnerships entered into abroad, and of terminations obtained abroad, is dealt with elsewhere in Title 4 of Book 10 BW; art. 10:91 BW limits the application of that title in respect of partnerships entered into before 1 January 2005.

The property consequences of registered partnerships with a cross-border element fall under EU Regulation 2016/1104, applicable from 29 January 2019 among the eighteen participating Member States. It allows a limited choice of law and determines which law governs the partners’ property. Maintenance is governed by its own EU and Hague instruments rather than by the property regulation.

For an international couple, the answer to “which court, which law” cannot be assumed from where you live now. Establish it before an agreement is drafted, not after.