Defamation Law in the Netherlands: Smaad, Laster and Belediging

Dutch law deals with damage to a person's reputation in two entirely separate places, and the choice between them is the first thing a reader has to get right. The Wetboek van Strafrecht (Sr) makes certain statements criminal offences in Titel XVI of Boek Tweede, which is headed Belediging. The Burgerlijk Wetboek (BW) treats a damaging statement as a possible unlawful act (onrechtmatige daad), which a civil court can order stopped, corrected or compensated.

These are not two stages of one process. They begin in different ways, they are decided by different bodies, and they produce different outcomes, so a person may take one route, the other, or both. This page is the map for the Dutch defamation section: what the law consists of, who decides what, and which of the three guides below answers a given question.

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.

What Dutch defamation law consists of

The criminal side sits in Titel XVI of Boek Tweede Sr, headed Belediging. Three of its offences carry almost all of the everyday questions: smaad and smaadschrift in artikel 261 Sr, laster in artikel 262 Sr, and eenvoudige belediging in artikel 266 Sr.

Smaad is the intentional attack on a person's honour or good name by imputing a specific fact (bepaald feit), and smaadschrift is the same offence committed in one of the written, depicted or publicly read-out forms set out in artikel 261 lid 2 Sr. Laster is smaad or smaadschrift committed in the knowledge that the imputed fact is untrue. Eenvoudige belediging under artikel 266 Sr is an intentional insult that does not carry the character of smaad or smaadschrift, which in practice means that it imputes no definite act. The elements of each, and the exception in artikel 261 lid 3 Sr, are set out on the guide to smaad and laster and on the guide to belediging.

One rule governs all of them and changes what a reader should do next. Smaad, laster and eenvoudige belediging are klachtdelicten: under artikel 269 Sr they are prosecuted only on the klacht of the person against whom the offence was committed. What a klacht has to contain, who may file one and how long they have is the subject of the guide to filing a defamation complaint.

The civil side rests on artikel 6:162 BW, which obliges a person who commits an unlawful act to compensate the loss that results from it. None of the criminal elements is required here, so a statement that is not smaad can still be an onrechtmatige daad. A civil claim under artikel 6:162 BW runs independently of the criminal route: it needs no klacht and is not bound by the three-month klachttermijn.

The civil route is also where the remedies most people actually want live. A correction (rectificatie) can be ordered under artikel 6:167 BW, and urgent provisional relief can be sought in summary proceedings (kort geding) under artikel 254 Rv. Both of those, together with compensation and the question of which court hears the claim, are covered on the guide to smaad and laster.

Criminal or civil: two routes, not two stages

The short version is three lines. The criminal route asks whether the state should punish the person who made the statement, and the person defamed sets it in motion but does not control where it goes from there. The civil route asks whether the person who made the statement owes the person defamed something, and the person affected controls that claim from beginning to end.

The third line is the one people miss. Because the two routes have separate requirements and separate timetables, choosing one does not close the other, and a decision in one does not settle the other.

That has a practical consequence worth naming. Someone whose main interest is getting a publication corrected or taken down is describing a civil remedy, even if their first instinct is to go to the politie. A side-by-side comparison of what each route requires, what it can produce, who carries the cost and how to choose between them is set out on the guide to smaad and laster.

Which body decides what

The last row matters more than it looks. Complaints about false or damaging statements are often sent to the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens because the statement appeared online, but reputation is not what the AP supervises, and a defamation question sent there is a question sent to the wrong place.

Where each question goes

Questions about what the statement itself has to amount to belong to the guide to smaad and laster. It covers the elements of artikel 261 Sr and artikel 262 Sr, the exception in artikel 261 lid 3 Sr, and the whole civil route, including artikel 6:162 BW, rectificatie, kort geding and which court hears the claim.

Questions about what to do, and in what order, belong to the guide to filing a defamation complaint. It covers the klacht requirement, the period for filing, how a report is actually made and what the Openbaar Ministerie does with it.

Questions about an insult that imputes no specific fact belong to the guide to belediging. It covers artikel 266 Sr, the aggravated forms in artikel 267 Sr where the insult is directed at public authority, and the rest of Titel XVI that is neither smaad nor laster.

A recording is often the evidence in a defamation dispute, and the rules on making one and on producing it in court are separate from everything above. Those are covered on the Netherlands recording laws section page and on recordings as evidence. For a shorter country-level summary written as part of the worldwide defamation survey, see the Netherlands entry in the world defamation survey. The wider Dutch legal map is on the Netherlands law overview.