Salesperson at your door: your right to cancel within 14 days

Door-to-door sales in the Netherlands come with a statutory cooling-off period: if you sign a contract with a salesperson at your door, you can cancel it within fourteen days without giving any reason and without paying a penalty. Dutch law calls this a contract concluded outside the business premises (overeenkomst buiten de verkoopruimte), and the rules are set out in articles 6:230g to 6:230z of the Civil Code, which implement the European Consumer Rights Directive. If the trader failed to inform you about that right in the prescribed way, the period is extended by up to twelve months.

That is the core of the protection, and it applies to energy contracts, insulation and solar panel deals, subscriptions signed at a market stall and charity direct debits agreed at a festival. This article explains when the rules apply, exactly when the period starts and ends, what the trader must give you in writing, what happens if the work has already begun, which contracts fall outside the right of cancellation, and what to do when a trader refuses to cooperate.

Which contracts count as door-to-door sales

The legal category is broader than the doorstep. A contract concluded outside the business premises covers any agreement made in the simultaneous physical presence of trader and consumer in a place that is not the trader shop or showroom, an agreement offered there and concluded shortly afterwards in the shop, an agreement concluded during an excursion organised by the trader, and an agreement concluded after the consumer was personally and individually addressed in a place that is not the business premises. In practice that captures the salesperson at your door, the stand in a shopping centre gangway, the market stall, the festival stand and the visit at your workplace.

The reason for the extra protection is the situation rather than the product. You did not come to buy, you cannot compare prices on the spot, you may feel social pressure to be polite, and the conversation is designed by the seller rather than by you. The legislator therefore gives you a period afterwards in which the decision can be reversed, and imposes on the trader a duty to hand over the essential information in a form you can keep and read at your leisure.

The separate Door-to-Door Sales Act (Colportagewet), which gave an eight-day cooling-off period, was repealed in 2014 when the Consumer Rights Directive was implemented. Everything now sits in Book 6 of the Civil Code, and the protection is stronger: a longer period, more detailed information duties, mandatory rules that cannot be contracted away, and a body of case law requiring courts to apply consumer protection rules of their own motion. That last point matters: a consumer who is sued for payment does not lose the protection simply because they did not think to raise it.

The rules apply to consumers, that is to natural persons acting outside their trade or profession. A sole trader who signs a contract for the business does not have the statutory right of cancellation, although a mixed use case can still fall on the consumer side if the professional purpose is limited. Our overview of consumer protection in Dutch contracts sets out the wider framework.

Fourteen days, and exactly when they start

The consumer may cancel the contract without giving reasons within fourteen days. Dutch law calls this ontbinding; the European term is withdrawal, and they mean the same thing here. No penalty may be charged and no reason has to be given, and a clause in the contract saying otherwise is void.

The starting point depends on what you bought. For a service, the period runs from the day after the contract was concluded. For goods, it runs from the day after you, or someone you designated, received the goods. Where an order covers several items delivered separately, the period starts after the last item; for a regular delivery over a period of time, after the first delivery. The period ends at the close of the fourteenth day, and if that day falls on a weekend or public holiday it does not shift.

Sending the notice on the last day is enough; it does not have to have arrived by then. Even so, waiting until the final day is a bad idea, because the burden of showing that the notice was sent in time rests on the consumer, and a message that cannot be proved is worth little. Send it early and keep the evidence.

What the trader must give you, and in what form

Before the contract is concluded, the trader must provide a defined set of information, and for a contract concluded away from the business premises it must be given on paper or, if the consumer agrees, on another durable medium, in plain and intelligible language. The trader must also hand over a copy of the signed contract or a confirmation of it. A verbal explanation, however clear, does not satisfy this duty.

The information that must be supplied includes the following, and this is one of the places where a list is the honest way to present the law:

• the identity of the trader: name, trading name, geographic address, telephone number and, where applicable, the Chamber of Commerce registration number;
• the main characteristics of the goods or services;
• the total price including taxes and all additional charges, or the manner in which the price is calculated;
• the arrangements for payment, delivery and performance, and the time by which the trader will perform;
• the existence of the right of cancellation, the conditions, the period and the procedure for exercising it, together with the model cancellation form;
• who bears the cost of returning goods, and, where work may start during the cooling-off period, that the consumer will owe a proportionate amount for what has been performed;
• the duration of the contract and the conditions for terminating it, including any minimum term.

This information is not decoration. It forms part of the contract, and the trader cannot change it unilaterally afterwards. Charges the consumer was not told about before signing are not owed. And if the trader disputes whether the information was given, the burden of proving compliance rests on the trader, not on the consumer.

What happens if the trader does not comply

The most important sanction is automatic. If the trader has not informed the consumer about the right of cancellation in the prescribed manner, the fourteen-day period is extended by twelve months. If the trader supplies the missing information within that year, a new fourteen-day period starts from that moment. This is not a discretionary favour; it follows from the statute, and it is the reason why contracts signed at the door months earlier can still be cancelled.

There is a second route where the sales method itself was the problem. A commercial practice is misleading if it gives false information or omits material information, and it is aggressive if, through harassment, coercion or undue influence, it significantly impairs the consumer freedom of choice. Pressure tactics at the door belong in that discussion: refusing to leave, insisting the price is available only today, invoking neighbours who have supposedly signed, or discouraging the consumer from taking time to think. A contract concluded as a result of an unfair commercial practice can be annulled, and the trader bears the burden of proving that the information it gave was accurate. Our article on unfair commercial practices under Dutch law sets out how that test works.

Courts apply these rules on their own initiative where a consumer is sued, and the sanction must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. In practice that can mean the claim is rejected, that the payment obligation is reduced, or that the cancellation is upheld long after the original fourteen days. What the outcome will be in a particular case depends on which duties were breached and how serious the breach was, so beware of anyone who promises a fixed percentage discount in advance.

How to cancel, and what happens next

There is no prescribed form. A clear statement that you are cancelling the contract is enough, sent by e-mail, by letter, through the trader online form or on the model cancellation form the trader should have supplied. Name the contract, the date it was concluded and what it concerned, add your contact details and the account number for the refund, and keep a copy of the message together with proof that you sent it. Registered post is not required, although for a large contract it removes an argument.

Once you have cancelled, the trader must reimburse all payments received, including any delivery costs, within fourteen days of receiving the notice, using the same means of payment you used unless you agreed otherwise. Where goods are involved, the trader may withhold the refund until the goods have been returned or until you have shown that you sent them. You in turn must return the goods within fourteen days, and you bear the direct costs of return unless the trader agreed to bear them or failed to inform you that they were yours.

You are allowed to inspect and test the goods as you would in a shop. Handling that goes beyond establishing the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods can make you liable for the reduction in their value, and that liability only exists if the trader informed you about the right of cancellation in the first place. In other words, a trader who kept quiet about the cooling-off period cannot then charge you for depreciation.

Cancellation also reaches the arrangements that hang off the contract. Ancillary agreements concluded in connection with it, such as a finance agreement taken out to pay for an installation or a service subscription sold with the product, are terminated by operation of law when the main contract is cancelled, without cost to the consumer. If a lender continues to collect instalments, notify both the lender and the trader in writing and refer to the cancellation.

Two points about evidence are worth remembering. The consumer has to be able to show that the cancellation notice was sent within the period, which is why the message and its timestamp should be saved rather than deleted once the refund arrives. Everything else runs the other way: it is for the trader to prove that it provided the mandatory information, that it obtained your express consent to start work early, and that a statutory exception applies. That allocation of the burden of proof is the practical heart of this protection, and it is the reason why a thin file usually favours the consumer rather than the seller.

When work has already started

Cancelling remains possible when the service has already been partly performed, but the financial consequences depend on what the trader did beforehand. If you gave express consent for the work to begin during the cooling-off period, and the trader informed you about the right of cancellation and about the fact that you would owe a proportionate amount, then on cancellation you pay a proportionate part of the agreed price for what has actually been performed.

If one of those conditions is missing, the position changes fundamentally: no payment is owed for the performance already delivered. That is a deliberate sanction rather than a windfall, and it is why the sequence matters so much in insulation, solar panel and energy contracts where installation or supply often begins immediately. The same logic applies to digital content delivered during the period: you only lose the right of cancellation if you expressly consented to immediate performance and acknowledged that you would thereby lose it, and the trader confirmed that consent in writing.

When there is no right of cancellation

The statutory exceptions are limited and are interpreted strictly, and the trader who invokes one has to prove that it applies. The main categories are goods made to the consumer specifications or clearly personalised, such as a kitchen designed and produced for your home; perishable goods; sealed goods that are not suitable for return for reasons of health protection or hygiene once unsealed; goods that after delivery are inseparably mixed with other items; and services that have been fully performed where performance began with the consumer express prior consent and acknowledgement that the right would be lost on completion.

Urgent repairs and maintenance requested by the consumer are treated separately: where you specifically asked the trader to come and carry out an urgent repair, the right of cancellation does not apply to that repair, although it does apply to any additional services or goods supplied on the same visit that you did not ask for. A boiler engineer called out on a winter night may therefore charge for the emergency repair, but a maintenance subscription sold during the same visit remains cancellable.

Financial services concluded at a distance and certain other categories have their own regimes with comparable but not identical rules, and contracts about immovable property fall outside this framework entirely. If you are unsure which regime applies, the safest course is to send the cancellation notice within fourteen days anyway and to argue about the category afterwards.

Energy, insulation and solar panels

Energy contracts are among the products most often sold through door-to-door sales, and they come with an extra layer of regulation. Since 1 January 2026 the Energy Act (Energiewet) has replaced the Electricity Act 1998 and the Gas Act, and it sets requirements for supply contracts with consumers, including what the contract must state and how changes and terminations are handled. Supervision lies with the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which can act against suppliers over misleading or aggressive sales practices and against agents selling on their behalf. The fourteen-day right of cancellation applies alongside those rules, and a contract clause purporting to exclude it has no effect. Our glossary entries on the Energy Act and the consumer energy contract explain the terminology.

Insulation and solar panel installations raise the question of when the work may begin. The installer may not start during the cooling-off period unless you have expressly asked for it, and if that request was never given or the information duties were not met, cancellation leaves you owing nothing for what has been done. Because these contracts often run to five figures and are financed or linked to a subsidy application, it is worth checking two things before signing: whether the price is in line with quotations from established local installers, and whether any subsidy the salesperson mentions actually exists and is available to you, since a promise about a grant that turns out to be unavailable can amount to misleading information.

Subscriptions, memberships and charity direct debits signed on the street follow the same fourteen-day rule, and the ordinary rules on contract duration and renewal apply on top of it. Consumers who sign up for a subscription that renews automatically should read our article on automatic renewal of subscriptions under Dutch law, because the cancellation rules there are more favourable than most people assume.

If the trader refuses to cooperate

Start with a written demand: state that you cancelled on a given date, that the refund is due within fourteen days of that notice, and set a short final deadline. Keep the tone factual and keep everything in writing, because this correspondence is the evidence if the matter escalates. Do not agree to a partial refund or to a settlement offer before you know what the legal position is, and do not let a trader tell you that cancellation is impossible without pointing to the statutory exception it relies on.

If that does not work, several routes are open. Many sectors have a disputes committee that issues binding advice at low cost, which is often the fastest route for medium-sized amounts. The ACM consumer information service ConsuWijzer provides guidance and collects reports that feed into enforcement. The Legal Services Counter (Juridisch Loket) gives free initial advice, and subsidised legal aid may be available depending on income. Consumer claims are heard by the subdistrict court (kantonrechter), where you may act without a lawyer, and a well-documented file with the contract, the information you did or did not receive and the cancellation notice is what decides the case.

Beware of collection agencies. A trader who ignores a valid cancellation sometimes passes the claim to a debt collector, and collection costs may only be charged if the statutory rules on notice and on the maximum for consumer collection costs have been followed. Reply in writing, dispute the claim, refer to your cancellation and keep paying nothing that is not owed; silence is what turns a disputed claim into a court order by default.

How to protect yourself at the door

The simplest rule for door-to-door sales is not to sign during the visit. Ask for the offer in writing by e-mail, say that you compare every quotation, and close the door on that note. A trader who objects to a written quotation and a night to think about it is telling you something useful. Ask for the company name and the Chamber of Commerce number and look the company up while the salesperson is still there; check whether the entity on the contract is the same one the salesperson named.

Watch the standard pressure techniques: a price that is only valid today, a claim that the neighbours have already signed, a limited number of places, a discount that requires an immediate signature, or an offer to fill in the form for you. None of these are illegal in themselves, but together with a signature obtained on the spot they are exactly the pattern that supports an argument about an aggressive commercial practice later. If you do sign, read what you signed the same evening and check whether you received the written information, the contract copy and the cancellation form.

Municipal rules can help. Many municipalities regulate door-to-door selling in their general local by-law (Algemene Plaatselijke Verordening), for example by setting permitted hours, requiring a permit for certain activities, or attaching consequences to a sticker on the door. What applies differs per municipality, so it is worth checking the by-law of your own municipality if callers are a recurring problem, and reporting persistent breaches to the municipality as well as to the ACM.

Finally, act quickly if you have doubts. Cancelling costs nothing during the cooling-off period, and a contract that turns out to be fine can always be signed again. Waiting is the only step in this whole process that can actually cost you money.

Common questions

Can you cancel if you have already paid? Yes. Payment has no effect on the right of cancellation, and the trader must refund everything received within fourteen days of your notice.

Does the right apply to a contract concluded by telephone? Yes, but under a different heading. A contract concluded entirely at a distance carries its own fourteen-day right of cancellation. If the call was followed by a visit at which the contract was signed, it is a contract concluded away from the business premises and the rules described here apply.

What if you signed on behalf of your business? The statutory consumer protection does not apply to contracts concluded in the course of a trade or profession. General contract law still offers arguments where the trader misled you or where general terms were never provided, but the automatic fourteen-day right does not exist there.

Do you have to give the goods back before you get your money? You must return them within fourteen days of your notice, and the trader may withhold the refund until the goods are back or until you have proved that you sent them.

Law & More advises consumers and businesses on contracts concluded away from the business premises, on cancellation and refunds, and on disputes about aggressive or misleading sales. If a trader disputes your cancellation, refuses to refund or sends a collection agency, please contact us so that we can assess your position and respond in time.