Overview
As a member of the European Union, the Netherlands applies the EU’s product standards and certification approval processes. The Treaty of Rome requires all EU members to incorporate approved EU directives into their national laws. To establish common standards for all member countries, the EU regulates key product areas to protect the health and safety of consumers, as well as the environment. Additional information on European Union standards can be found in the European Union Country Commercial Guide.
The national standards body of the Netherlands is the Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute (NEN). The NEN manages international, European, and national standards in the Netherlands. Contact details can be found on the NEN website.
Standards
The NEN manages over 31,000 standards in the Netherlands. These include international (ISO, IEC), European (EN) and national (NEN) standards. There are over 800 standards committees in the Netherlands with roughly 5,000 committee members in total.
Testing, Inspection and Certification
To sell products in the Netherlands, U.S. exporters are required to apply the CE marking whenever their product is covered by specific product legislation. CE marking product legislation offers manufacturers many choices and requires decisions to determine which health and safety concerns need to be addressed, which conformity assessment module is best suited to the manufacturing process, and whether to use EU-wide harmonized standards.
Publication of Technical Regulations
The Official Journal is the official publication of the European Union. It is published daily on the internet and consists of two series covering adopted legislation as well as case law, and studies by committees. The Official Journal can be found on the ‘EUR-Lex’ website. National Technical Regulations are published on the Commission’s website to allow other countries and interested parties to comment.
Contact Information
Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute (NEN)
+31 15 269 0391
U.S. Commercial Service European Union
Jim Curtis, Standards Attaché
+32 2 811 5034
Use ePing to review proposed technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures
The ePing SPS&TBT platform (https://epingalert.org/), or “ePing”, provides access to notifications made by WTO Members under the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), distributed by the WTO from January 16, 1995 to present. ePing is available to all stakeholders free of charge and does not require registration unless the user wishes to receive customized e-mail alerts. Use it to browse notifications on past as well as new draft and updated product regulations, food safety and animal and plant health standards and regulations, find information on trade concerns discussed in the WTO SPS and TBT Committees, locate information on SPS/TBT Enquiry Points and notification authorities, and to follow and review current and past notifications concerning regulatory actions on products, packaging, labeling, food safety, and animal and plant health measures in markets of interest.
Notify U.S., operated and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 2003 to distribute and provide access to notifications (and associated draft texts) made under the WTO TBT Agreement for US stakeholders, has reached its end of life. Per obligation under the TBT Agreement, each WTO Member operates a national TBT (and an SPS) Enquiry Point. National TBT Enquiry Points are authorized to accept comments and official communications from other national TBT Enquiry Points, which are NOT part of the WTO or the WTO Secretariat. All comment submissions from U.S. stakeholders, including businesses, trade associations, U.S domiciled standards development organizations and conformity assessment bodies, consumers, or U.S. government agencies on notifications to the WTO TBT Committee should be sent directly to the USA WTO TBT Inquiry Point. Refer to the comment guidance at https://tsapps.nist.gov/notifyus/data/guidance/guidance.cfm for further information.