A criminal record in the Netherlands is an entry in the Judicial Documentation System, the central register of criminal cases kept by the Ministry of Justice and Security. What people call a strafblad is in fact an extract from that system: an overview of the offences registered against your name. A conviction is not the only thing that lands there, and the consequences reach well beyond the criminal courts – most visibly when you apply for a Certificate of Good Conduct and the screening turns up something you had half forgotten.
What is registered on a criminal record?
Dutch law distinguishes between crimes and minor offences, and the distinction decides what appears in the register. If you have committed a crime – theft, assault, fraud, the more serious categories – it is always registered. A minor offence may be registered, but not necessarily: registration follows where the offence was dealt with by a fine above one hundred euros, by a punitive order from the public prosecutor, or by a comparable sanction.
That threshold explains why people are often surprised by what their extract contains. A single traffic fine settled administratively will not normally appear; a punitive order accepted without much thought quite possibly will. It is also why the way a case is disposed of matters as much as the underlying conduct.
What are the consequences of having a criminal record?
The most common consequence is the refusal of a Certificate of Good Conduct, the VOG. A VOG states that your past conduct is no objection to a particular role in society, and employers in education, healthcare, childcare, finance and transport routinely require one. Screening is done against the judicial documentation and assessed in the light of the position applied for, which is why the same entry can be harmless for one job and fatal for another. Our guide to the VOG procedure explains how that assessment works and what to do if the certificate is refused.
Beyond employment, a criminal record can stand in the way of practising certain regulated professions, and it can affect an application for a visa or a residence permit. Insurers may ask about a criminal past when you take out a policy; if they do, you are obliged to answer truthfully, and an honest answer can mean the policy is refused or offered on different terms. None of these consequences follows automatically from the entry itself – each is a separate decision by a separate body – but each of them starts with it.
How can you find out what is on your criminal record?
You can request your own extract from the Judicial Information Service, part of the Ministry of Justice and Security. It is worth doing before rather than after a job application, particularly if you have ever accepted a punitive order or paid a substantial fine without taking advice.
If you believe the register is wrong, you can submit a request for correction. The service decides on such a request in writing, in principle within four weeks. Correction is limited to putting right what is factually incorrect; it is not a route to having an accurate but inconvenient entry removed.
How long does information stay on a criminal record?
Judicial data are not kept indefinitely. The retention periods are set by law and depend on the seriousness of what was registered: periods for minor offences are considerably shorter than for crimes, and the gravity of the sentence imposed lengthens them further. For a punitive order the data are removed five years after the fine has been paid in full – which means that leaving a fine partly unpaid keeps the entry alive far longer than most people expect.
Retention is not the same as visibility. During a VOG screening the authorities look back over a period that depends on the position applied for, so an entry that is still formally registered will not necessarily be held against you.
What should you do if you are facing a fine or a punitive order?
Paying seems simpler than objecting, and that is precisely the trap. Accepting a punitive order is an acceptance of guilt, with registration as the consequence; the deadline for lodging opposition with the public prosecutor is short, in principle fourteen days, and it is easily missed by someone who assumes the matter is closed once the transfer is made.
There are good reasons to have the file assessed first. The public prosecutor can be wrong about the facts or about guilt. A prosecutor or a judge may take a milder view than the official who issued the fine. A lawyer can check whether the sanction is justified, advise on whether opposition is worth lodging, draw up the notice of opposition and appear at the hearing. The point is not to contest everything, but to make the decision knowingly rather than by default. Our overview of the Dutch criminal justice system sets out how the stages fit together.
Frequently asked questions
Is a criminal record the same as a conviction?
No. A conviction by a court is one way to end up in the judicial documentation, but a punitive order from the public prosecutor, and in some cases a fine above one hundred euros, produce a registration without any court ever ruling on the case.
Does a criminal record automatically mean no VOG?
It does not. The screening weighs what is registered against the duties of the specific position and the time that has passed. An entry that is irrelevant to the role, or old enough to fall outside the review period, need not stand in the way of the certificate.
Can an entry be deleted on request?
Only if it is incorrect. A request for correction addresses factual errors in the registration. Entries that are accurate remain until the statutory retention period has run.
Will a Dutch criminal record be visible abroad?
The Dutch register is national, but data can be exchanged with other states in defined circumstances, and foreign authorities frequently ask applicants themselves about criminal antecedents when considering a visa or residence permit. Answering such a question untruthfully creates a separate problem of its own.
Legal assistance
A criminal record has consequences that outlast the case that created it, and the moment to influence it is usually early – before a punitive order is accepted, or while the deadline for opposition is still running. Do you have questions about your registration, a refused Certificate of Good Conduct or a fine you are unsure about? Please contact the lawyers at Law & More; our criminal law specialists are happy to advise you.
