Buitengerechtelijke incassowerkzaamheden

Broad definition, narrow Act

The definition in Article 1 of the Wki covers any activity to obtain payment of a money claim without going to court. Article 2 then limits the Act to out-of-court collection activities that meet three conditions at once: they are carried out or offered in a business or profession aimed at them, or in a way that looks like one; they are done for a third party or after the claim has been assigned; and they concern payment by a natural person who lives in the Netherlands.

The gap between the two articles matters. A lender chasing its own consumer loans carries out buitengerechtelijke incassowerkzaamheden in the sense of Article 1, but Article 2(b) keeps it outside the Act. An agency doing the same work for that lender, or a buyer that bought the loans, is inside it.

Who does them, and on what condition

The Act calls whoever carries out or offers these activities a verrichter of aanbieder van buitengerechtelijke incassowerkzaamheden; the Besluit kwaliteit incassodienstverlening shortens that to incassodienstverlener (Article 1.1). Article 4(1) prohibits carrying them out or offering them without a registration, or with a suspended one. Gerechtsdeurwaarders and advocaten on the tableau are exempt from that prohibition (Article 4(2)), but not from the quality rules in Article 13.

Where out of court ends

Buiten rechte is the boundary. Once a claim goes to court, the summons and the enforcement that follows are court proceedings. Since 1 October 2026 the two stages meet: a summons or petition that claims collection costs or interest must name every collector that worked on the claim out of court, with its registration number, and the court assumes a collector was unregistered when that information is missing (Rechtspraak). Article 18 then removes the costs of an unregistered collector's out-of-court work and stops interest from its written demand onwards.