Maintenance when your ex has a new partner: the Dutch rules

Spousal maintenance in the Netherlands ends by operation of law when the recipient remarries, enters into a registered partnership, or starts living with someone else as if they were married. That rule is in Article 1:160 of the Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek, BW), and once it applies the entitlement is gone permanently: it does not revive if the new relationship later breaks down. Child maintenance works differently and continues, because it is owed to the child and not to your former spouse.

The difficulty is almost never the rule itself. It is proving that the situation described in Article 1:160 BW has actually arisen, and knowing what you may and may not do while you are gathering that proof. This article sets out what has to be established, how the courts assess it, what happens to child maintenance when a step-parent appears, and how a maintenance order or agreement is formally changed.

When spousal maintenance ends because your ex has a new partner

Article 1:160 BW lists three events that end the obligation of a divorced spouse to pay maintenance: the recipient remarries, enters into a registered partnership, or goes to live with another person as if they were married or as if they had registered their partnership. The consequence is not a reduction and not a suspension. The obligation ends, on the date the situation arises, and no later court order can bring it back.

Two points follow from that severity, and both are frequently misunderstood. The first is that the ending is automatic in law but not in practice: if your former spouse disputes it, you still need a court to establish that the condition was met, and until you have that you remain exposed to enforcement of the existing order. The second is that because the effect is permanent, the courts interpret the provision restrictively. A new relationship, even a serious one, is not enough.

Marriage and registered partnership

These two are straightforward. Both are recorded in the Basisregistratie Personen (BRP), the Dutch population register, and the date is not open to argument. Maintenance ends on the day of the marriage or the registration, whether or not your former spouse agrees, and whether or not the new marriage improves or worsens their financial position. Financial need is irrelevant here: Article 1:160 BW does not ask whether maintenance is still required, only whether one of the three events has occurred.

A religious marriage that has no civil effect in the Netherlands does not trigger the provision on its own. It may, however, be evidence of the durable affective relationship that matters for the third ground.

Living together as if married: what has to be proved

The third ground is the one that is litigated. The Supreme Court applies four cumulative requirements, and all of them must be satisfied at the same time before the obligation ends:

• an affective relationship of a durable nature between the recipient and the new partner
• that the two of them cohabit, in the sense of sharing a home
• that they run a joint household, sharing the costs and the practical organisation of daily life
• that they care for one another mutually, so that each contributes to the other and not merely one to the other

Because the requirements are cumulative, failing one of them defeats the whole argument. Partners who stay together several nights a week but keep separate homes and separate finances do not meet the test. Nor does an arrangement in which one party pays for everything and receives nothing in return, since mutual care is missing. There is no minimum period fixed by law, but the relationship must be durable rather than experimental, and courts look at the situation over a stretch of time rather than at a single moment.

Registration at the same address in the BRP is strong evidence but is neither necessary nor sufficient. People who genuinely live together while deliberately maintaining separate registrations fall within Article 1:160 BW; people who share an address as housemates, without an affective relationship, do not.

Proving that your ex is cohabiting

The burden of proof lies on the party who wants the maintenance to stop. That is a demanding position, because the facts are in the other household and are not on public record. Courts assess the evidence freely under Article 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Wetboek van Burgerlijke Rechtsvordering, Rv), which means there is no fixed list of what counts, but some material carries far more weight than the rest.

An extract from the BRP showing both people registered at the same address is the strongest starting point, and it is easy to obtain. Beyond that, documentary evidence of a shared economy is what persuades: a tenancy agreement or mortgage deed in both names, joint bank or savings accounts, a shared home or liability insurance policy, utility contracts in both names, and correspondence addressed to both at the same address. Witness statements from neighbours, and photographs or social media posts showing an established shared life, support the picture but rarely carry a case on their own.

Weak evidence is easy to recognise once you know what the four requirements are. Regular overnight stays, joint holidays, appearing together at family events and being described as a couple by acquaintances all speak to an affective relationship, but say nothing about a joint household or mutual care. A file built only from that material tends to fail.

Where the payer resorts to observation, whether personally or through an investigation agency, the GDPR applies and so does the right to respect for private life. Dutch civil courts will generally still admit evidence obtained in breach of those rules, weighing the interest in establishing the truth against the intrusion, but they may attach consequences to disproportionate surveillance and the exercise is expensive. Proportionality is the practical limit: targeted observation over a defined period is defensible, sustained monitoring of a household is not.

One rule matters more than any of this. You cannot simply stop paying. A maintenance order or a registered settlement agreement is an enforceable instrument, and stopping payment on your own assessment exposes you to enforcement by a bailiff, seizure of wages and, where the LBIO is involved, collection charges. Apply to the court first, and continue paying, or apply at the same time for a provisional measure suspending payment.

Child maintenance does not end when your ex has a new partner

Child maintenance is owed by both parents to the child under Articles 1:392 and 1:404 BW, in proportion to what the child needs and what each parent can afford. A new partner in either household does not change that obligation, and the new partner's income is not added to the parent's income in the calculation. Maintenance runs until the child turns eighteen and then continues under Article 1:395a BW, as a contribution to living and study costs, until the child turns twenty-one.

There are two situations in which a new partner does become financially responsible, and both require a formal step rather than simply moving in.

When the new partner becomes a step-parent

Under Article 1:395 BW a step-parent owes maintenance to the minor children of their spouse or registered partner who belong to their household. Two conditions therefore have to be met: the new partner must be married to, or in a registered partnership with, your former spouse, and the children must actually form part of that household. Unmarried cohabitation, however settled, does not create a step-parent obligation.

Where it does arise, the step-parent stands alongside the two parents rather than in place of them. Article 1:397 BW governs how the total is divided between people who all owe maintenance, weighing each one's capacity to pay and the nature of their relationship to the child. In practice the step-parent's share is usually smaller than a parent's, but it can reduce what the non-resident parent pays. The reduction is not automatic: you have to apply to the court for it.

When the new partner obtains joint authority

The second route is Article 1:253w BW. Where a parent and someone who is not a parent exercise parental authority jointly, that other person is obliged to provide maintenance for the child under their authority. This obligation is not limited to married or registered couples, and it continues after the authority ends, for a period equal to the duration of the joint authority and in any event no longer than the child's twenty-first birthday.

Joint authority between a parent and a non-parent is granted by the court on application, so it is a documented event you can point to. If it has been granted, it is a genuine change of circumstances and a well-founded reason to ask for the child maintenance to be recalculated. Our explanation of how child support is calculated in the Netherlands sets out the elements the court works with.

How a new partner affects the calculation

Maintenance is calculated on two variables: what the recipient needs (behoefte) and what the payer can afford (draagkracht). The working method is set out in the guidelines of the Expertgroep Alimentatienormen, published annually as the Tremanormen. These are not law and do not bind the court, but in practice they are followed closely, and their figures are revised each year, so any calculation more than a year old should be checked before it is relied on.

The guidelines deliberately reduce the influence of a new household on the calculation. Housing costs, for instance, are not taken from the actual rent or mortgage but from a standard percentage of net disposable income fixed in the guidelines. The effect is that moving in with a new partner and halving your rent does not automatically reduce what you receive, and does not automatically increase what you pay. The same neutrality works in the other direction for the payer.

For the payer of child maintenance, a new partner who has an income of their own is generally assumed to provide for themselves, so the payer's capacity is assessed on a single-person basis. A new partner without an income does not increase the payer's deductible costs in the standard calculation either, although the court can depart from the guidelines where the result would be unreasonable in the individual case.

For spousal maintenance the position is simpler than it appears. Where the cohabitation meets the Article 1:160 BW test, the obligation ends outright and no calculation is made. Where it does not meet the test, for example because the partners keep separate households, the recipient's own income and reasonable expenses continue to determine the need, and the new partner's income is not counted. What can change the outcome is a genuine change in the recipient's own circumstances, not the arrival of the partner as such.

Finally, all maintenance is indexed by law each year under Article 1:402a BW. The percentage is set by the Minister of Justice and Security and published in the autumn to take effect on 1 January, and it applies whether or not either party does anything. Failing to apply the indexation is one of the most common sources of arrears.

How maintenance is changed or ended

Nothing changes on its own except the statutory indexation and the operation of Article 1:160 BW. A maintenance order or agreement has to be varied either by fresh agreement between the parties or by the court, and the route you choose determines how enforceable the result is.

Agreement between the parties

Former spouses are free to agree a new amount, or to agree that maintenance has ended, and to record it in an amended settlement agreement (echtscheidingsconvenant). Mediation is a workable route where the relationship allows it. Two cautions apply. A private agreement is not directly enforceable unless it is recorded in a notarial deed, which is an enforceable instrument under Article 430 Rv, or confirmed by the court in an order. And an agreement to reduce or waive child maintenance below what the law requires is void under Article 1:400(2) BW, because the entitlement belongs to the child. Our guidance on the divorce settlement agreement explains what such a document should contain.

The Landelijk Bureau Inning Onderhoudsbijdragen (LBIO) is sometimes mentioned in this context, and its role is often misunderstood. The LBIO collects child and spousal maintenance where the payer is in default, applies the statutory indexation, and handles international recovery. It does not determine, recalculate or vary the amount owed. Only the parties, by agreement, or the court can do that.

Applying to the court

Where agreement is not possible, the route is an application to vary maintenance under Article 1:401 BW. The court may vary or withdraw an order or an agreement if it has ceased to meet the statutory standards because of a change of circumstances, and separately, under Article 1:401(4) BW, if the original decision was based on incorrect or incomplete information from the outset. An application to establish that maintenance has ended under Article 1:160 BW is brought in the same way.

Proceedings in family matters are conducted by an advocaat (Dutch qualified lawyer); representation is mandatory. The application sets out the change relied on and the evidence for it, the other party may file a defence, and the court holds a hearing before deciding. It can give the decision retroactive effect, and where Article 1:160 BW is established the effective date is the date the cohabitation began rather than the date of the application.

The non-modification clause

Many settlement agreements contain a niet-wijzigingsbeding, a clause excluding variation of spousal maintenance. Article 1:159 BW permits this, provided it is agreed in writing. Its effect is strong: an ordinary change of circumstances is then not enough. Under Article 1:159(3) BW the clause can only be set aside where circumstances have changed so drastically that the applicant can no longer reasonably be held to it, which is a high threshold and rarely met.

Three things such a clause does not do. It cannot restrict child maintenance, which is void under Article 1:400(2) BW. It does not survive if the parties agree otherwise. And it does not override Article 1:160 BW, since that provision ends the obligation by law rather than by variation. If you agreed a non-modification clause, read it before assuming your position is fixed. A related question, whether the obligation stops when the payer reaches state pension age, is addressed in our article on whether partner alimony automatically ends at AOW age.

Concealment, repayment and common mistakes

A recipient who begins cohabiting is not committing an offence by failing to announce it, but the practical consequences are serious. Many settlement agreements impose an express duty to notify a change in living arrangements, and breach of that duty is a breach of contract. More importantly, once a court establishes that Article 1:160 BW applied from a given date, everything paid after that date was paid without legal ground and is in principle recoverable as an undue payment under Article 6:203 BW.

Recovery is not automatic, though, and it is worth being realistic about it. Dutch courts exercise restraint where maintenance has already been spent on ordinary living costs and repayment would push the recipient into hardship, and they can limit the amount or the period. Concealment cuts the other way: a recipient who actively misled the payer has a weak case for restraint. What there is not, contrary to a persistent misconception, is any fine or penalty for concealment as such.

Several avoidable mistakes recur in these files. Stopping payment before the court has ruled is the most damaging, because it converts a defensible position into arrears and enforcement costs. Building a case on the affective relationship alone, without evidence of a joint household and mutual care, is the most common reason a well-motivated application fails. Waiting too long is the third: memories fade, tenancy agreements are replaced and bank records become harder to obtain, while the arrears you are trying to recover keep growing.

The corresponding mistake on the receiving side is assuming that a new relationship can be structured to avoid Article 1:160 BW by keeping two registered addresses. The court looks at how people actually live, not at the register, and a construction that exists only on paper is usually visible in the tenancy, the bills and the bank statements.

Practical steps to take now

If you pay maintenance and believe your former spouse is cohabiting, request a BRP extract for the address, gather the documentary material described above over a period rather than a single week, and take advice before you confront anyone, because a warning tends to produce a change of registration rather than a change of living arrangements. Keep paying while you do it.

If you receive maintenance and are starting a new relationship, work out where you stand before you move in together. Whether Article 1:160 BW applies to your situation is a legal question with a permanent answer, and it is far cheaper to establish it in advance than to litigate it two years later with a repayment claim attached. If a trial period is what you want, it has to be agreed in writing with your former spouse, because the law itself does not provide one.

And in either case, check what your settlement agreement actually says. A duty to notify, a non-modification clause, an agreed definition of cohabitation or an agreed trial period will often decide the outcome before any of the general rules come into play. Our guide to alimony in the Netherlands covers the wider framework for child and spousal support, and our family law guides set out the surrounding rules on divorce and children.

Frequently asked questions

Below you will find answers to the most frequently asked questions about maintenance when your ex enters into a new relationship.

How Law & More can help

Our family law team advises on spousal and child maintenance in the Netherlands, including applications to establish that maintenance has ended under Article 1:160 BW, applications to vary maintenance under Article 1:401 BW, defence against such applications, and the evidential work that both require. We also advise recipients on their position before a new relationship begins, which is usually the least expensive moment to resolve it. If your circumstances have changed and you would like to know where you stand, please contact us.