Echtscheiding: How Divorce Works in the Netherlands in 2026

A Dutch divorce (echtscheiding) is procedurally simple and full of deadlines. There is one ground, no fault question and no waiting period before a petition can be filed, and one spouse can bring it alone.

What makes it feel harder than it is are the three things the statute insists on: a petition signed by an advocaat, a parenting plan (ouderschapsplan) where there are minor children, and a registration step after the court order that most readers do not know exists and that has a deadline of its own.

This page follows that order, gives the honest answer to the question of divorcing without a lawyer, and sets out what the procedure costs in 2026.

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.

One ground, no fault, and no waiting period

Artikel 1:151 BW is one sentence long. A divorce is granted on the request of one of the spouses where the marriage is duurzaam ontwricht, which translates as irretrievably broken down. There is no list of causes, no requirement to have lived apart for a period and no conduct test.

Artikel 1:150 BW decides who can ask. A divorce between spouses who are not separated van tafel en bed is granted on the request of one of them or on their joint request, so a petition by one spouse alone is as valid a route as an agreed one.

On a joint petition artikel 1:154 lid 1 BW makes the shared view of the spouses the basis of the decision: the divorce is granted where the request rests on the judgement of both of them that the marriage has broken down. The court does not investigate that judgement. Under lid 2 either spouse may withdraw the joint request at any time up to the moment of the decision.

The one situation in which a Dutch divorce can genuinely be held up is artikel 1:153 BW. Where the divorce would cause an existing prospect of benefits payable to the other spouse after the petitioner dies to be lost or seriously reduced, and the other spouse defends the petition on that ground, the divorce cannot be granted until a provision has been made that is fair to both of them, and the court can set a term for that. Lid 2 disapplies the brake where the other spouse can reasonably be expected to make sufficient provision themselves, or where the breakdown of the marriage is predominantly that spouse's own fault.

Why an advocaat has to sign the petition

A divorce petition must be signed by an advocaat under artikel 278 lid 3 Rv, which exempts only cases filed with the kantonrechter or exempted by a special statute, and a divorce is neither.

The reasoning behind that runs through two articles rather than one, and it is worth following, because it also settles which court hears the case. A divorce is started by a verzoekschrift under the divorce title of the Wetboek van Burgerlijke Rechtsvordering (Rv), so the general rule on petitions in artikel 278 Rv applies to it.

Artikel 93 Rv then lists what the kantonrechter hears: money claims below a statutory threshold, claims of undetermined value where there are clear indications they fall below it, cases about an arbeidsovereenkomst, a CAO, an agentuur-, huur- or consumentenkoopovereenkomst or consumer credit whatever the sum involved, and other cases the law assigns. Family and maintenance appear in none of those categories.

Dutch family and maintenance cases are heard by the rechtbank, not by the kantonrechter, whatever the amount at stake, because artikel 93 Rv does not assign family or maintenance matters to the kantonrechter at any value. Territorial competence follows artikel 262 sub a Rv, which points to the court of the woonplaats of the petitioner, or of one of the joint petitioners, or of one of the interested parties named in the petition.

Two provisions in the divorce title itself follow from the same rule. Artikel 816 lid 1 Rv requires the document served on the other spouse to state that a defence or a request for extra time can only be made by an advocaat, and artikel 279 lid 3 Rv provides that in cases where the petition must be filed by an advocaat, the person summoned appears in person or by advocaat. So a spouse can turn up personally, but the written defence itself is an advocaat's document.

What scheiden zonder advocaat actually means

This is one of the most searched Dutch family law questions, and the flat answer that it is impossible is only correct for one of the three situations behind the query.

A marriage. There is no route to a divorce without an advocaat, and no online or self service alternative. What is possible is to share one: nothing requires two advocaten, and a couple filing a joint petition commonly uses a single advocaat or a scheidingsmediator who is an advocaat. That is settled practice rather than a rule of law, so it should be read as what usually happens rather than as what the statute provides.

The reason it feels lawyer-light is artikel 818 lid 1 Rv, which allows the hearing to be dispensed with altogether where there are no minor children who must be given the chance to express their views under artikel 809 Rv and, on a one-spouse petition, no defence was filed in time. Artikel 818 lid 2 Rv separately lets the court refer the spouses to a mediator, and lid 5 provides that the hearing takes place in a single sitting where possible.

A geregistreerd partnerschap. Here there is a genuine no-court route. Artikel 1:80c lid 1 sub c BW ends a registered partnership by mutual consent through the registration, by the registrar of the burgerlijke stand, of a dated declaration signed by both partners and by one or more advocaten or notarissen recording that they have concluded an agreement to end it.

Artikel 1:80c lid 3 BW shuts that route off where the partners exercise gezag, jointly or not, over one or more of their joint children, or hold joint gezag under artikel 1:253sa or 1:253t BW. Artikel 1:80d lid 1 BW says the agreement must at least record that the partnership is duurzaam ontwricht and that the partners want to end it, and lists maintenance, the home, the division of any gemeenschap and pension equalisation as matters it covers, expressly not on pain of nullity. Artikel 1:80d lid 3 BW gives the hard deadline: the declaration is only registered if it reaches the registrar within three months of the agreement being concluded.

An unregistered cohabitation. Nothing has to be dissolved, so there is no court, no advocaat and no registration. What survives the separation is child maintenance, gezag, contact (omgang) and whatever a cohabitation contract (samenlevingscontract) says, and those questions are the same whether or not the couple was ever registered.

The ouderschapsplan

Artikel 815 lid 2 Rv requires the petition to contain an ouderschapsplan signed by both spouses, covering their joint minor children whether or not they exercise gezag jointly, and the minor children over whom they hold joint gezag under artikel 1:253sa or 1:253t BW.

Artikel 815 lid 3 Rv fixes the contents. The plan must record how the spouses divide the care and upbringing tasks of artikel 1:247 BW or give shape to the right and duty of omgang in artikel 1:377a lid 1 BW, how they will inform and consult each other about important matters concerning the person and the property of the children, and the costs of the care and upbringing of the minor children.

That third item is why child maintenance is settled inside the divorce rather than after it. Both parents owe maintenance for their children under artikel 1:404 lid 1 BW, each according to their own draagkracht, and that duty continues until the child turns 21 under artikel 1:395a lid 1 BW. How the amount is worked out from the behoefte and draagkracht tables is set out on kinderalimentatie.

Two further leden matter in practice. Artikel 815 lid 4 Rv requires the petition to say which of the requested provisions are agreed and which are disputed and why, and how the children were involved in drawing up the plan; and artikel 815 lid 6 Rv provides that where the plan cannot reasonably be produced, other documents or another arrangement can be accepted, which is a matter for the court's judgement rather than an election by the spouses. Under artikel 815 lid 7 Rv the griffier sends a copy of the petition straight to the Raad voor de Kinderbescherming where provisions have to be made for minor children.

How the procedure runs

Artikel 815 lid 5 Rv lists the documents that go in with the petition: an extract of the marriage certificate, documents on the ground of jurisdiction, a birth certificate extract for every minor child of the spouses together or of one of them, the papers on any provisional orders, and, where the request follows a scheiding van tafel en bed, an authentic copy of that decision.

Where one spouse petitions alone, artikel 816 Rv requires a copy to be served on the other within fourteen days of filing. The document served names the date by which a verweerschrift or a request for extra time must be lodged, and that date is set with a term of at least six weeks from service, or at least three months where the other spouse has no known residence in the Netherlands.

Provisional orders for the duration of the proceedings are available under artikel 822 Rv, covering matters such as exclusive use of the marital home and the goods needed for daily life. Artikel 358 lid 2 Rv gives the petitioner and the interested parties who appeared three months to appeal a final beschikking, counted from the day of the decision, and artikel 820 Rv gives a spouse who did not appear at first instance three months running instead from personal service of the beschikking or from other service plus public notice.

The settlement agreement that most divorcing couples sign, the echtscheidingsconvenant, is a practice term rather than a statutory instrument, and each of its effects comes from a different provision. Artikel 1:158 BW lets the spouses agree spousal maintenance before or after the divorce order, artikel 1:159 BW allows a written non-variation clause, and artikel 819 Rv lets the court incorporate the arrangements the spouses have made, expressly including agreements on maintenance and on the costs of care and upbringing of a minor, wholly or partly into the beschikking. Where there are minor children the convenant does not replace the ouderschapsplan; both documents exist.

The order does not end the marriage, the registration does

A Dutch divorce takes effect only when the court order is entered in the registers van de burgerlijke stand under artikel 1:163 lid 1 BW, and under lid 3 the order loses its force if registration is not requested within six months of the day it became final.

Three consequences follow, and all three are reader critical. The court order alone leaves the couple married, so the marital property regime and the tax position continue until the registration. The six months run from the day the beschikking became final, in kracht van gewijsde, which is once the appeal term has expired or both spouses have filed an akte van berusting, not from the date the decision was given. And if the deadline passes, the beschikking loses its force and the whole procedure has to be run again.

The registration date is also the hinge for what follows. It is the day the spousal maintenance period starts to run, and artikel 1:165 BW lets the spouse who is living in the marital home ask the court, in the divorce order or later, to be allowed to carry on living there for six months after the registration against reasonable compensation.

What a Dutch divorce costs in 2026

The court fee is the predictable part. A divorce petition, and a standalone maintenance request, count as a request of undetermined value at the rechtbank, and the Wet griffierechten burgerlijke zaken sets the 2026 rates in its bijlage.

On a joint petition the griffierecht is charged once rather than twice, which is a real saving over two separate petitions. Artikel 2 Wgbz lets the amounts in the Act and its bijlage be changed each 1 January by ministerial regeling, so far as the consumentenprijsindex gives cause, so the figures above are the 2026 ones and nothing more.

The onvermogenden rate is not applied for separately. The griffier charges it where a toevoeging (a legal-aid grant) under the Wet op de rechtsbijstand has been granted or where an application for one has been filed, and if the toevoeging is later withdrawn or refused the difference is charged afterwards. So the toevoeging does two jobs at once: it subsidises the advocaat and it cuts the griffierecht from EUR 341 to EUR 93.

Personen- en familierecht has its own eigen bijdrage scale, and it is higher than the general one, so a figure copied from the standard table understates every band. The 2026 scale for family law work, on 2024 income as the reference year, is:

A mediation toevoeging is much cheaper, at EUR 69 up to the lower income band and EUR 138 up to the upper one, which matters because a scheidingsmediator is the usual route in an agreed divorce. The Raad voor Rechtsbijstand applies a discount of EUR 69 on the eigen bijdrage, automatically since March 2020, so there is no need to visit Het Juridisch Loket first to obtain it.

Two conditions cut across all of it. Assets bar a toevoeging regardless of income, measured against the vermogensgrens for the reference year, which for the 2024 peiljaar is EUR 36,952 per person. And where the case yields the client a substantial amount, for instance out of the division of the marital property, the toevoeging can be withdrawn afterwards on a resultaatsbeoordeling and the work billed commercially instead, which is where a good number of family law toevoegingen come unstuck.

Echtscheiding, scheiding van tafel en bed, and ending a geregistreerd partnerschap

Scheiding van tafel en bed is rare and is chosen mainly for religious or pension reasons. It is a separation that leaves the marriage intact rather than a gentler form of divorce, and under artikel 1:169 lid 2 BW the duration of the marriage is counted up to the day it is registered, which is the day the maintenance period starts to run.