VOG Lookback Periods 2026: The Terugkijktermijn Table Explained

A Dutch certificate of conduct (Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag, or VOG) is not a clean-sheet test. Justis does not ask whether an applicant has ever come into contact with the criminal law. It asks what appears in the judicial records system (justitiële documentatie) inside a fixed window that closes on the day the application is assessed.

That window is the lookback period (terugkijktermijn), and it is the single fact that decides whether an old case still counts. For most applications it is four years. For a small group of offences there is no limit at all, and for roles with high integrity requirements it is ten. A separate special refusal ground reaches back twenty years, but that is a ground, not a category of role.

The periods are set in the Beleidsregels VOG-NP-RP 2025, the policy rules the Minister publishes in the Staatscourant. They took effect on 1 July 2025 and replaced the 2024 rules. This page works through the table, the date the clock starts from, and what happens when a conviction sits just outside the window.

One warning before the table, because it is where most published summaries go wrong. The frequently quoted five-year and eight-year figures are not buckets in the policy rules at all. They arrive through a separate exception that adopts whatever term a sector regulation or a permit already sets, so they have to be traced to that regulation rather than read off a list.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Netherlands law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Where the lookback period comes from

No provision of the Wjsg names a number of years. The window is policy rather than statute, and it lives in paragraaf 3.1.1 of the Beleidsregels VOG-NP-RP 2025, applied inside Justis by the unit those rules call the Centraal Orgaan Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag (COVOG). The decision itself is Justis's.

What the statute does supply is the test the window feeds, and that is worth stating plainly because it is often described as policy. Artikel 28 Wjsg builds both halves of the assessment into the definition: the risk to society given the purpose sought, and the weighing of the applicant's own interest. Both halves are statutory, not merely policy, and the objective and subjective criteria in the Beleidsregels elaborate a test the Act already contains rather than adding one.

What the certificate declares, and how the refusal test is applied, are set out on the Dutch certificate of good conduct.

The lookback period table

The table below follows the structure of paragraaf 3.1.1 itself: one default, then the exceptions it actually names, in its own terms.

Read that as one default plus a closed list of exceptions, not as a menu. Paragraaf 3.1.1 states four years as the rule and departs from it only in the cases it names, so a role that fits none of the exceptions is assessed over four years however sensitive it feels.

The shortened term for applicants under 23

Paragraaf 3.1.1 sub d shortens the window to two years where the applicant has not yet turned 23 on the day of the application. It keys on age at application, not age at the time of the offence.

Two conditions have to be met, and published summaries routinely give only the first. The records must show no sexual offence, no terrorist offence, no serious violent offence carrying six years' imprisonment or more, and no undermining (drug) crime carrying six years or more. The role must also not be a designated function requiring a VOG politiegegevens.

The explanatory note (toelichting) to the 2025 rules defines that last category precisely, and it is broader than drugs. It covers membership of a criminal organisation under artikel 140 Sr, organised drug offences under artikelen 10 lid 3 tot en met 5, 10a, 11 lid 3 tot en met 5 and 11b Opiumwet, and arms trafficking under artikel 55 lid 4 and lid 7 Wwm.

The shortened term also leaves the existing five, eight and ten year terms untouched. The toelichting is explicit that a young applicant's age does not lower the integrity requirements those longer terms rest on.

Where the five-year and eight-year figures actually come from

Five years for taxi drivers and eight years for weapons are quoted constantly, and they are real. They are not, however, in the general policy rules, and looking for them there is why the two so often get garbled.

Exception b is the route. It names no period at all: it says that where a special statute or regulation sets a different term, Justis follows that term, and where the application is tied to a permit, the term equals the duration of the permit. The number therefore has to be traced to the sector instrument in each case.

For licensed taxi work the instrument is the Besluit personenvervoer 2000. Artikel 82 lid 1 onderdeel c requires a VOG issued for the profession of taxi driver, no more than four months old, and artikel 83 lid 2 gives the on-board computer cards (boordcomputerkaarten), of which the driver's card (chauffeurskaart) is one, a validity of five years. Exception b then converts that five-year validity into a five-year window.

For weapons the eight years is a borrowing, and its scope is narrower than the shorthand suggests. Artikel 8 lid 3 of the Regeling wapens en munitie is an eligibility test for the applicant for a firearms trade recognition (erkenning) or for its designated manager (beheerder): that person must not have been convicted in the last eight years under the weapons statutes, the Opiumwet or a long list of Wetboek van Strafrecht provisions. Artikel 8 lid 4 extends it to comparable foreign convictions.

The eight-year VOG window is not that rule applied directly. The explanatory note (toelichting) to the Beleidsregels VOG-NP-RP 2022 took the length from artikel 8 lid 3 RWM for one purpose, applications connected with membership of a shooting club (schietvereniging). A job in firearms security is therefore not automatically an eight-year case, and security work in civil aviation sits at five years under the EU aviation security rules rather than eight.

So the eight-year and ten-year terms are different things structurally, not by degree. Eight years is a period borrowed from another regulation through exception b for a named purpose. Ten years is exception a in its own right, triggered by Justis's judgment about the responsibilities of the role, and a role can fall under one without falling under the other.

The 2022 toelichting set the sector list out in one place, covering the driver's card (chauffeurskaart) and the operator's licence (ondernemersvergunning) for taxi and bus transport, professional road haulage (beroepsgoederenvervoer), civil aviation security and shooting club membership. The 2025 rules do not restate that list, but their own toelichting confirms that the existing five, eight and ten year terms remain fully in force, and Justis publishes the current overview.

Longer terms for a small number of roles

Very long periods are sometimes quoted for judicial and custodial staff. Paragraaf 3.1.1 sub a does allow it, in one line and no more: by way of high exception the ten-year term may be departed from where Justis has fixed a longer one.

The rules do not say how long, and no figure for those roles appears anywhere in the Beleidsregels or in the Wjsg. Justis maintains the current overview of functions with a deviating term, so a published overview is the authority for such a role rather than a number quoted second hand.

What a screeningsprofiel is, and what it actually decides

The screening profile (screeningsprofiel) is often described as the thing that sets the lookback period. That is not quite what it does, and the difference is worth getting right.

Paragraaf 3.1.3.3 of the Beleidsregels explains the mechanism. Risk to society is broken down using function aspects into risks for information, money, goods, services, business transactions, process, managing an organisation, and persons. A general screening profile and a number of specific profiles work those risks out in detail.

The profile therefore decides relevance, not duration. It tells Justis which offences could obstruct this particular role, which is the heart of the objective criterion in paragraaf 3.1.3. The length of the window is fixed separately by paragraaf 3.1.1.

The two meet at one point. Where the profile describes a role with large responsibilities or far-reaching powers, Justis can treat it as a function with high integrity requirements, and that judgment is what moves the term from four years to ten.

Two features of the objective criterion surprise applicants, and both are stated plainly in paragraaf 3.1.3.2. It is not relevant that the offence happened in private life rather than at work, and it is not relevant whether there is any real risk of repetition. The test is hypothetical: if this conduct were repeated, would it obstruct this role.

Paragraaf 3.1.3.5 adds a further route, the common thread criterion (rode draad criterium). The objective criterion can be met even where no individually relevant entry was found inside the window, if the entries together give a negative impression of the applicant's integrity.

It carries two conditions and both have to be satisfied. There must be a series of convictions, end-of-case declarations (eindezaakverklaringen), transacties, strafbeschikkingen, open cases or conditional or unconditional decisions to drop a case (sepots), and there must be at least one relevant entry in the applicant's records lying outside the lookback period.

Which date starts the clock

Knowing the length of the window is only half the calculation. Paragraaf 3.1.2 fixes which date an entry is measured by, in a strict order of preference.

The first available of the following is used: the date of the decision at first instance; failing that, the date the Openbaar Ministerie issued the strafbeschikking; failing that, the transactie date as recorded in the JDS; failing that, the date the Openbaar Ministerie decided to drop the case (sepot); and only failing all of those, the offence date (pleegdatum).

There are two departures from that order. Where more than two years passed between the offence date and whichever date the list produced, the offence date governs instead, unless the case concerns a sexual offence, a terrorist offence or a fraud offence. And for those same three categories, where the case is still open, the date used is the date the matter was brought to the Openbaar Ministerie and entered in the JDS.

The practical consequence is that a slow prosecution does not automatically push a case deeper into the window. A charge from 2021 that was only decided in 2024 is measured from 2021 in most categories, because more than two years elapsed.

A worked example, start to finish

Take an applicant convicted of simple assault (eenvoudige mishandeling) under artikel 300 Sr. The offence was committed on 4 January 2021, the politierechter gave judgment on 12 March 2021, and a fine was imposed. The application is assessed on 15 September 2026.

Step one: which date counts. Paragraaf 3.1.2 sub a puts it on the date of the first-instance decision, 12 March 2021. Only about two months separate the offence date from the judgment, so the two-year reversal does not apply and 12 March 2021 stands.

Step two: which period applies. The application is for a warehouse role with no special integrity requirement, no weapons element, no transport permit and no sexual or terrorist offence in the records, and the applicant is 31. The standard four years applies.

Step three: draw the window. Four years back from 15 September 2026 opens the window on 15 September 2022. The entry sits on 12 March 2021, roughly eighteen months before the window opens, so it falls outside the applicable term and is not weighed under the objective criterion.

Now change one fact at a time.

If the role carried high integrity requirements, the term becomes ten years and the window opens on 15 September 2016. The same 2021 entry now sits comfortably inside it, and the objective criterion is applied to it in full.

If the applicant had been 22 on 15 September 2026, the term would shorten to two years, opening the window on 15 September 2024. Simple assault is not a violent offence carrying six years or more, so the shortened term is available.

If a six-month prison sentence had been served during 2023, the four-year window would be extended by those six months, and by any further period of custody, until it contained four full years with no deprivation of liberty. A window drawn on paper is not the same as a window in real time for anyone who has been inside.

If a second, relevant entry from 2025 also appeared, the 2021 entry stops being irrelevant. Paragraaf 3.1.1 requires Justis, once a relevant entry is found inside the term, to take all other relevant entries outside the term into account as well.

What happens when the conviction is older than the window

This is the question the table does not answer on its own, and the answer has three parts.

Where nothing relevant sits inside the applicable term, the Beleidsregels direct that the VOG is in principle issued. Paragraaf 3.1.5 opens with exactly that proposition: the certificate is granted where the applicant does not appear in the judicial records within the term, or appears with an entry too light to justify refusal.

That is a starting point rather than a promise. Two things can still bring an older case back into view.

The first is the pull-in rule already described. One relevant entry inside the window opens the door to every relevant entry outside it, and those older entries feed the balancing of interests (belangenafweging) and the estimate of the risk of a further offence, even though they cannot carry a refusal on their own.

The second is the special refusal ground of paragraaf 3.1.5, which works the other way round. It applies where nothing inside the term justifies refusal but an entry outside it is serious enough that, given the purpose of the application and the risk to society, the obstruction to the role is judged too great.

That ground is tightly bounded. The records of the twenty years before the application must show either an offence carrying twelve years' imprisonment or more for which the applicant received an unconditional prison sentence or youth detention (jeugddetentie), a hospital order (terbeschikkingstelling), or placement in an institution for juveniles; or an offence directed against a child, where the VOG is sought for a role working with children.

So a single old conviction for a lesser offence does not sit under this ground. It is designed for the small number of very serious cases where a mechanical four-year window would produce an outcome the statute could not support.

VOG politiegegevens has no lookback period at all

A second track exists alongside the ordinary VOG. Under artikel 35a Wjsg, for functions designated by ministerial regulation that require a high degree of integrity, the Minister refuses the certificate where police data shows links between the applicant and offences that pose a risk for the role. Those functions are listed in the Regeling aanwijzing functies VOG politiegegevens, which implements artikel 35a lid 1 Wjsg.

For the judicial records side of a VOG P, the term is ten years, because a designated function is by definition a high-integrity function. For the police data side, paragraaf 3.2.1 is explicit that no lookback period is applied at all.

What limits the police data is not a window but the retention regime of the Wet politiegegevens, together with the restriction in artikel 35a lid 3 Wjsg to data processed under artikelen 8, 9, 10 lid 1 onderdelen a en c, and 13 Wpg. Data about the applicant as a victim, a reporter or a witness is not relevant to the assessment and is not passed on for it.

Artikel 35a lid 4 Wjsg also sets up an Adviescommissie VOG-Politiegegevens, which reviews the quality and care of those decisions and reports annually.

Where this sits in the process

Artikel 37 lid 1 Wjsg gives the Minister four weeks to decide on an application concerning a natural person, and artikel 37 lid 2 extends that to eight weeks where the intention is to refuse. Justis states that processing time says nothing about the outcome. The published ranges, and what to do about a long silence, are on how to apply for a VOG.

An intended refusal arrives as a notice of intent (voornemen) rather than a final decision, and it can be answered before the decision is taken. The refusal test itself, and the objection and appeal route that follows it, are on the Dutch certificate of good conduct.

For what is actually recorded in the judicial records, and for how long, see Dutch criminal records and the JDS. The wider map of who decides what is on background checks in the Netherlands.