Non-disclosure of home addresses in Commercial Register from the New Year onwards

The Dutch Council of Ministers has endorsed a proposal aimed at amending the Commercial Registers Decree 2008 in such a manner as to provide for the non-disclosure, with effect from the first of January 2022, of the home addresses of entrepreneurs and company directors, as a way of taking the discouragement of the spurious deployment of Commercial Register-derived details to the next level. Government agencies and specific professional practitioners such as solicitors and bailiffs will still be able to access the protected home addresses.

A subsequent step in the fight against the abusive deployment of address details is to ensue from the Commercial Register Data Vision, which the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy is in the process of developing. Corporate business addresses will continue to be visible after the first of January 2022. The forthcoming amendment of the Commercial Registers Decree offers no solution for the category of entrepreneurs who run their business from their home address, it being the intention that the Commercial Register Data Vision should create options for enhancing the protection of the privacy of this particular category as well. An initial Data Vision version is scheduled for publication for consultation purposes this coming November.

Dutch version: Woonadressen afgeschermd in Handelsregister per 1 januari 2022