Netherlands to regulate ‘buy-now, pay-later’ services from 2026

The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) has announced that the BNPL sector and major e-commerce platforms will come under its supervision by November 2026, following the implementation of the revised Consumer Credit Directive.

The move comes amid mounting concerns over accumulated consumer debt and lack of consumer protections in the country’s BNPL sector. According to AFM, in 2024 Dutch consumers used BNPL to make 53 million online transactions totalling €5.1 billion – a 17% increase compared with the previous year.

The regulator says although the number of payment issues decreased, it says these still remained significant. It has also identified that major e-commerce platforms operating in the country have nearly as many deferred payment users as BNPL providers, posing similar associated financial risks for consumers.

Until recently BNPL providers were excluded from the Netherland’s consumer credit regime because

most BNPL offerings met the exemption criteria for consumer credit. These criteria are: the credit facility is provided for free; or no interest or other costs are calculated; or credit must be repaid within three months and any related charges incurred are insignificant

In 2025, following answers to submitted prejudicial questions to the European Court of Justice, the Dutch Supreme Court found that delayed payment interest and extra judicial costs should not be taken into account when determining whether the exemption criteria are fulfilled. However, if the BNPL provider anticipates a consumer default when entering into a credit agreement with a consumer and the associated costs for the consumer are part of the business model of the provider, delayed payment interest and extrajudicial costs may be taken into account. Whether or not this is the case needs to be determined by a lower court on a case-by-case basis. Multiple lower courts have made this assessment since the judgments handed down by the European Court of Justice and Dutch Supreme Court.

This has meant that, up until now, except in the limited circumstances set out above, BNPL providers were not required to undertake the types of creditworthiness tests typically expected of other financial service providers operating in the country.

However, following a consultation in April, the government implemented a Revised Consumer Credit Directive which removes this exemption and brings BNPL providers under the purview of the AFM for the first time.

The change will also make age verification a legal obligation for all BNPL providers operating in the country. AFM’s research points to indications of poor financial health among a portion of BNPL users under the age of 35. One in six users is overdrawn for an average of seven-to-eight days per month and they also reverse or miss around ten direct debits per year.

The regulator said it wants age verification for BNPL and e-commerce platforms to “take effect as soon as possible to prevent minors from using BNPL” and expects the changes to take effect by November 2026 “at the latest”.

Jeroen Schouten of Pinsent Masons said bringing the BNPL sector under the regulator’s scope would be good for consumers, but warned that the change could have a seismic impact on the wider e-commerce market which makes a significant use of BNPL as a payment method. “E-commerce vendors will receive new agreements from BNPL vendors with potentially unfavourable terms,” he said. “If BNPL revenue is a significant share of their online revenue the regulation may have a downwards effect on their overall revenue.”

Earlier this year the government urged Klarna to refrain from expanding its BNPL services into physical stores in the Netherlands over concerns it would create a heightened risk for consumers already struggling to keep up with deferred debt from online transactions.

In response to political calls for stronger consumer safeguards, at the start of July Klarna rolled out a new feature to enable Dutch consumers to “opt out” from accessing its BNPL products that involve credit, while still allowing them access to immediate payment options that do not involve deferred settlement. This follows an earlier implementation of the same feature in the UK.

AFM says it also supports lowering the threshold for creditworthiness assessments or credit checks registered with the country’s Central Credit Registration Office (BKR). Currently the threshold is €250, but the regulator says this should be lowered because its research indicates that 9 out of 10 BNPL transactions with payment issues are below this amount.