The Woo Request in the Netherlands

Almost every dealing with a Dutch public body leaves a paper trail: inspection reports, permit files, correspondence with competitors, internal memoranda. Much of it can be obtained by anyone who asks, through a Woo-verzoek — a request under the Wet open overheid. This article explains how the regime works, how to make a request that produces documents, and what to do when a body tells you your own information is about to be published.

What the Wet open overheid is

The Wet open overheid (Open Government Act) is the Dutch freedom of information statute. Art. 1.1 Woo states its starting point: everyone has a right of access to public information without having to demonstrate an interest, subject only to the limits the Act itself sets. Access is the rule; refusal is the exception and must be justified.

Chapter 3 governs disclosure by the body on its own initiative, chapter 4 disclosure on request, chapter 5 the exceptions. The Algemene wet bestuursrecht (Awb) applies on top: a decision on a Woo request is an administrative decision, with the usual routes of objection and appeal.

The Woo replaced the Wob on 1 May 2022

Until 1 May 2022 the governing statute was the Wet openbaarheid van bestuur (Wob). The Woo replaced it on that date without transitional provisions: pending requests were decided under the new Act. Three changes matter most.

• Active disclosure obligations. Art. 3.1 Woo makes disclosure on the body’s own initiative a duty of effort, and art. 3.3 Woo lists categories that must be published as a matter of course — decisions of general application, agendas and minutes, inspection and enforcement decisions, research reports and more. The duty of active disclosure in art. 3.3 Woo is brought into force in stages by royal decree for the categories of information named in it, and publication is signposted through a central index on overheid.nl. For a requester the lesson is simple: look first at what is already published.
• The contact person. Art. 4.7 Woo obliges every body to designate one or more contact persons to answer questions about what information it holds. A short conversation before filing tells you what exists and where — usually worth more than a carefully drafted but blind request.
• The penalty payment for late decisions is gone. Under the Wob a body that decided late automatically owed the requester a dwangsom. Art. 8.2 Woo switches that mechanism off for Woo decisions and decisions on objection. Delay therefore no longer costs the body money automatically, and it has become the most common practical problem with Woo requests. The remaining remedies are judicial and must be used deliberately.

Who may make a Woo request

Anyone. Art. 4.1 Woo allows any person to address a request for public information to a public body, with no nationality or residence requirement: foreign companies, journalists and NGOs have the same right as Dutch residents.

No interest need be shown: you do not have to explain why you want the information, and the absence of a personal stake is not a ground for refusal. Identity and motive are in principle irrelevant, because disclosure under the Woo is disclosure to the world at large — the answer is the same whoever asks. A company can therefore have a request made by an adviser without weakening it. It also means a competitor may be behind a request about you.

Which bodies are covered — and which are not

Art. 2.2 Woo sets out the scope: administrative bodies in the sense of the Awb — ministers, provinces, municipalities, water boards and the many independent regulators — plus a defined list of institutions that are not administrative bodies, including the chambers of the States General, the Council for the Judiciary, the Court of Audit and the National Ombudsman.

Outside its reach are the courts in their judicial function and the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State; purely private parties, so a contractor working for a municipality is not itself subject to the Woo; and information unconnected with the public task, since the definition of “document” in art. 2.1 Woo requires that link. But documents a private party has sent to a body, and that the body holds, are within reach — which is how much private-sector material becomes disclosable. Where a request goes to the wrong body, art. 4.2 Woo requires referral.

What can be requested

The object of a request is public information: information recorded in documents held by the body (art. 2.1 Woo). “Document” is broad — letters, emails, memoranda, spreadsheets, messages sent through apps used for the public task, databases, recordings.

• The body need not create new information. The Woo gives access to what exists; it does not oblige a body to compile, calculate or draft anything. The Administrative Jurisdiction Division confirmed this on 13 March 2024 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2024:1066): there is no duty to produce information that does not exist, even where other rules said it should have been created. So a request phrased as a question (“how many inspections were carried out?”) invites refusal; one phrased as a search for records (“all inspection reports on site X in 2023 and 2024”) does not.
• The information must be held by the body. If a document has been lawfully destroyed under the Archiefwet, it is gone. Art. 4.1a Woo obliges a body to safeguard the preservation of documents covered by a request it has received — a real protection once the request is in.

Unlike the Wob, the Woo no longer requires the request to concern an “administrative matter”: the subject need only be sufficiently specified.

How to make an effective Woo request

A request may be made orally, in writing or electronically by the route the body designates (art. 4.1 Woo). The requester must indicate the subject, or the document relating to it. If the request is too general, the body must within two weeks ask him to specify it and assist him in doing so — a real duty, and a body that rejects a broad request without engaging is vulnerable on appeal.

The craft of scoping

• Name a subject, not a document. Asking for “the memorandum of 4 March” fails if it is dated 5 March. Ask for all information on a defined subject, then add the document types you expect.
• Define a period. An open-ended request forces the body to search everything, and is the commonest cause of delay.
• Name the actors. Identify the department, project, file or permit number and the counterparties; this narrows the search and makes an incomplete one hard to justify.
• Resist over-breadth. A request capturing ten thousand documents is not strong, only slow. Volume triggers art. 4.2a Woo, under which the body must consult the requester about prioritising a request that is sufficiently specified but too voluminous to decide in time. That consultation is useful, but it is also how a request becomes an open-ended project. Start narrow; you can always file again.
• Ask for the form you want (art. 4.5 Woo) — searchable files rather than scans, plus an inventory listing every document identified with the ground of refusal noted against each. An inventory is what makes a partial refusal reviewable.

The decision period, and its extension

Art. 4.4 Woo requires a decision as soon as possible and at the latest within four weeks of receipt. The body may extend that period once, by no more than two weeks, where the size or complexity of the information justifies it; the extension must be notified in writing with reasons before the original period expires. Six weeks is the statutory maximum. The clock is suspended while the body seeks the views of affected third parties, resuming when they respond or their period expires — routine in requests touching commercial files, and often several weeks.

What to do when the deadline is missed

Since art. 8.2 Woo removed the automatic penalty payment, waiting achieves nothing. The route is:

• Serve a notice of default (ingebrekestelling) once the period expires — a short written notice under art. 6:12 Awb stating that the body is in default and giving it two weeks to decide.
• Appeal directly to the district court if those two weeks pass without a decision; no objection procedure is required first.
• Ask for a judicial penalty payment. Where the appeal succeeds the court sets the period within which the body must still decide (art. 8.4 Woo) and can attach a penalty for each day of further delay under art. 8:55d Awb. This replaces the abolished administrative dwangsom; it is not automatic and must be requested.

Note the counterweight in art. 8.4 Woo: the court takes account of the size and complexity of the request and of the requester’s own conduct, and may allow a longer period, or withhold a costs award, where he refused to cooperate on scope or timing.

The grounds for refusal

Art. 5.1 Woo distinguishes two categories. Absolute grounds admit of no balancing: if the ground applies, the information stays closed. Relative grounds require the body to weigh the public interest in disclosure against the interest protected. The same article allows refusal in exceptional cases where disclosure would cause disproportionate disadvantage to an interest not otherwise listed — a deliberately narrow residual ground, not a catch-all.

Environmental information is treated more strictly in the requester’s favour, and the residual ground does not apply to it at all.

The grounds that matter commercially

• Business and manufacturing data supplied in confidence. The strongest protection a company has, because it is absolute. But it is read narrowly: it covers data from which conclusions can be drawn about the technical operation, the production process or the distribution of goods, or about turnover and profit — not everything a company would prefer to keep quiet. Confidentiality must be real; data supplied without any indication of it, or already public, will not qualify. Anything outside that core is relative and can lose the balance.
• Personal policy views in documents drawn up for internal deliberation (art. 5.2 Woo). Advice and opinions of officials are in principle withheld; facts, forecasts and policy alternatives are not personal policy views and must be released. Such views may be released in non-attributable form, and for documents prepared for formal administrative decision-making they must be, unless internal deliberation would be disproportionately harmed. The Division read that concept broadly in its judgment of 8 October 2025 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2025:4814), holding that a body must show concretely how disclosure would hamper deliberation.
• Privacy, a relative ground: names and contact details of officials are commonly redacted, though senior office-holders acting publicly are less protected. Disproportionate disadvantage is invoked often and accepted rarely; it was applied, alongside the internal-deliberation ground, on 19 March 2025 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2025:1139).

Art. 5.3 Woo adds that for information more than five years old the body must weigh the passage of time: age erodes confidentiality.

Redaction and partial disclosure

The exceptions operate “in so far as” — per passage, not per document. A body may not withhold a hundred-page report because two paragraphs are sensitive: it must release the remainder with those passages blacked out and state which ground applies to which redaction. A decision refusing whole documents wholesale, or redacting without identifying the ground, is defective on that basis alone.

Costs

Making a Woo request is free, and so is the disclosure itself (art. 8.6 Woo). A body may charge a reasonable fee for copies, capped at the cost price of the data carriers supplied; it may not charge for time spent searching, assessing or redacting. Court fees apply on appeal, where a successful appellant is normally awarded a costs contribution.

Objection and appeal

• Objection (bezwaar) to the body itself within six weeks of the decision being announced.
• Appeal (beroep) to the district court within six weeks of the decision on objection.
• Further appeal to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division within six weeks of the judgment.
• Interim relief (voorlopige voorziening) may be sought where urgency requires it, alongside a pending objection or appeal.

The anti-abuse provision

Art. 4.6 Woo allows a body to decide not to handle a request where the requester manifestly has a purpose other than obtaining public information, or where the request evidently does not concern an administrative matter; that decision must be taken within two weeks of receipt, or immediately once the improper purpose appears. The threshold is high: the provision targets those who file to obstruct or extract money, not those whose questions are unwelcome. A conflict with the authority is not abuse.

Practical guidance

If you are making a request

• Check what is already published, and call the contact person under art. 4.7 Woo, before filing.
• Define subject, period, department and counterparties; ask for an inventory and the ground of refusal per redaction.
• Diarise the four- and six-week dates when you file, and serve a notice of default the moment the period runs out.
• Treat a partial refusal as a starting position: objection is free, and the decision on it is usually more informative.

If you have been told your information may be disclosed

This is where speed matters most, and where most value is lost by inaction.

• Take the invitation to give your view seriously. The body must hear affected third parties before deciding (art. 4:8 Awb, applied through art. 4.4 Woo). The zienswijze is your cheapest opportunity: it is when the body forms its position, and everything afterwards is uphill.
• Be specific, passage by passage. A blanket assertion that everything is confidential will be discounted. Identify the passages, state which ground applies, and explain concretely what commercial harm disclosure would cause. Offer a redacted version you can live with — bodies frequently adopt it.
• Watch the two-week window. Where the body decides to disclose and expects an objection, art. 4.4 Woo requires it to wait two weeks after announcing the decision before handing anything over; the third party is notified at the same time as the requester.
• Use the window. File your objection and, critically, apply to the interim relief judge within those two weeks: under art. 4.4 Woo that application suspends disclosure until the judge has ruled. This is the single most useful thing a company can know about the Dutch regime — disclosure is not a fait accompli, but only if you move inside the window. Once documents are released they are public, and no appeal undoes that.
• Think upstream. The best protection is applied when information is supplied, not when it is requested: mark genuinely confidential business and manufacturing data as such on submission, keep it separate from general correspondence, and supply no more than is needed.