Noise from the neighbours: which rules and quiet hours really apply in the Netherlands?

Almost every Dutch page on noise nuisance opens with the same sentence: there is no legal quiet time, but between 10 pm and 7 am it should be quiet. The first half is correct. The second half is a custom that has come to look like a rule through repetition. Article 431 of the Dutch Criminal Code (Wetboek van Strafrecht) says, literally, that anyone who causes noise or neighbourhood disturbance by which the night's rest can be disturbed is punished with a fine of the first category. No time, no decibels. The night's rest of a nurse on an early shift starts at nine, that of a student at two; the law leaves this open on purpose.

The 10 pm figure comes from three places that have nothing to do with neighbours. House rules of housing associations and campsites have named that hour for decades. Bars and restaurants have closing times in the municipal bylaw. And for businesses there is an official day, evening and night split: 7 am to 7 pm, 7 pm to 11 pm and 11 pm to 7 am, each with a maximum noise level on the facade of a home (Environmental Quality Decree, Bkl, table 5.65.1). That split applies to a cafe, a workshop or a supermarket with deliveries, not to the neighbour with a drill.

What it means for you: someone who bangs on the wall for an hour at 9:30 pm or turns up the bass every evening at 8 pm is not off the hook because it is not yet ten. And someone who runs a fifteen-minute spin cycle at 11:30 pm is not automatically an offender because it is after ten. The question is always whether someone else's night's rest or peace at home is unreasonably disturbed, and the police officer, the enforcement officer or the judge weighs that case by case.

The split into day, evening and night does exist in Dutch law, but each slot carries a different rule, and only some of those concern neighbours. This is what really applies per slot, with the source. The 10 pm or 11 pm rule of thumb appears in none of them; some municipalities name such a quiet period in their bylaw, policy rules or reporting page, others (Amsterdam, for one) do not.

Bbl, Bkl, Criminal Code and model bylaw checked on 19 September 2026. The 7 am, 7 pm and 11 pm boundaries come from the business rules in the Bkl; between neighbours there is no legal clock.

Every page on this subject ends with the line: check your municipality's bylaw (APV). We did, for the ten largest municipalities, in the text in force on lokaleregelgeving.overheid.nl. The result: nine out of ten name no time at all in the noise nuisance article. The article is almost everywhere a copy of the VNG model: operating devices or sound equipment, or acting in a way that causes noise nuisance for a resident, is prohibited. At three in the afternoon just as much as at three at night.

If your municipality is not listed: search lokaleregelgeving.overheid.nl for the name of your municipality and the word geluidhinder. The article sits in chapter 4, section 1 of almost every bylaw. A quiet period stated on the municipality's website or reporting page is policy, not a bylaw; it says when the enforcement officer will come, not when your neighbour breaks the law.

Bylaw texts in force on lokaleregelgeving.overheid.nl, checked on 19 September 2026. Since the Environment Act a municipality may also place the rule in its environmental plan; a transition period runs until 2030.

There are six rules you can actually invoke. They differ in who enforces them and what the consequence is, and that is exactly what most pages skip. For one you call the police, for another you write to the owners' association, for a third you have to go to court yourself.

In addition, since 2017 the mayor has a power of his own for serious and repeated residential nuisance: article 151d of the Municipalities Act (Gemeentewet). If the municipal council has adopted this in a bylaw, the mayor can impose a behavioural order on the resident or the landlord (an order subject to a periodic penalty) and, if nothing else works, a ban on being in or near the home for ten days, extendable to four weeks. It is the only instrument by which an owner too can temporarily be kept out of his own house.

Criminal Code articles 23 and 431, Civil Code articles 5:37, 6:162, 6:265 and 7:213, Bbl article 7.17, the VNG model bylaw and the Public Prosecution Service's Feitenboekje Parkeren en Overlast 2026 (page 31), checked on 19 September 2026. Fine categories were raised on 1 January 2026.

The same racket falls under a different rule depending on who makes it and where you live. This is how it works out for the ten situations most cases are about. The last column says honestly how likely a complaint is to succeed, based on what courts decided in 2025 and 2026.

Rules checked on 19 September 2026. The cases are listed further down with their ECLI numbers. The chance of success is an estimate based on published rulings, not a guarantee.

The question of how many decibels of noise are allowed has an uncomfortable answer: between two homes there is no decibel limit on what you may produce. There are requirements for what the wall or floor must block, and those apply to new builds only. For an existing home from 1965 the law sets no minimum sound insulation between you and the neighbours; the level of the day it was built is the level that applies.

These are the figures that do exist, with what they apply to. They are here because a judge sometimes uses them as a yardstick, and because a neighbour who breaches one of these limits is a far easier case than a neighbour who simply lives loudly.

Buildings Decree (Bbl) and Environmental Quality Decree (Bkl), text in force on 19 September 2026. For the outdoor unit the law says 40 dB; the calculation rule in the Environmental Regulation allows 5 dB in daytime, hence 45 by day.

• A decibel meter on your phone is not evidence. In April 2026 the Amsterdam court wrote that noise measurements say nothing about the nature, duration and intensity of the sound, and that the standard in the Buildings Decree does not apply to a dispute between neighbours in an existing building.
• A measurement does count if it was done by an acoustic consultant according to NEN 5077 or the industrial noise measurement manual, with a report. That costs a few hundred euros and is often worth it in a full court case; not for a first conversation with the neighbours or the VvE.
• The municipality can measure and enforce itself where a business is involved. Between neighbours the municipality does not measure; then you depend on your log and witnesses.

Article 5:37 Civil Code refers to article 6:162 for the yardstick, and the Supreme Court fixed that yardstick on 3 May 1991 (ECLI:NL:HR:1991:ZC0235): whether nuisance is unlawful depends on the nature, severity and duration of the nuisance and the damage it causes, in connection with the further circumstances of the case. That sentence returns in almost every ruling about neighbours, and it determines what you have to prove.

• Nature: is the noise avoidable? Music, a dog left alone all day, an air conditioner too close to the boundary, can be avoided. Footsteps, a crying baby, a shower at six in the morning cannot. Avoidable noise weighs more heavily.
• Severity: how loud and how intrusive? Bass and vibration weigh more than the same number of decibels of voices, and noise at night more than in daytime.
• Duration and frequency: one evening is never unlawful, twice a week for six months can be. That is why the log matters more than the measurement.
• Surroundings: in a poorly insulated 1958 walk-up you have to tolerate more than in a detached house. The court looks at what is normal in this building and this neighbourhood, and whether you could have known it was noisy when you bought or rented.
• What the other side already did: a neighbour who laid an underlay, moved the speakers and sent the dogs to a sitter stands stronger than one who rejects everything. Conversely the complainant stands stronger if he first tried a conversation and mediation.
• How that played out in 2026: a bathroom relocated above the neighbours' bedroom in Amsterdam was not unlawful nuisance, because showering and flushing are normal living. An outdoor air conditioner unit in Gelderland was, because the 40 dB from the Bbl was exceeded and the unit could have been placed elsewhere.

In an apartment you first take a different route than in a terraced house. The deed of division and the house rules of the owners' association (VvE) bind every owner and, through the landlord, every tenant in the building. The 2017 Model Regulations prohibit hard floor coverings outside the kitchen and bathroom unless the floor meets a set standard; the fallback is an impact sound improvement of more than 10 dB. If the upstairs floor does not meet that, you do not have to prove the nuisance is unlawful: the breach of the regulations is enough.

This is how you use that route. Ask the board which model regulations apply and whether there are house rules on floors or hours. Ask the upstairs neighbours for the specifications of the underlay; a manufacturer gives a measured value in dB. If there is nothing or only a thin mat, write to the board asking it to enforce. The board can impose a fine if the regulations provide for it, and in the last resort the general meeting can deny the use of the apartment (article 5:112(4) Civil Code). If the board does nothing, you can ask the court yourself to hold the owner to the regulations.

What the route does not do: remove living noise on a floor that does comply. Anyone living in a 1960 building with a 14 centimetre concrete floor hears the upstairs neighbours walk, even on a floor that meets every requirement. Then only article 5:37 remains, with the weighing above, and for normal living that almost always goes the way of the upstairs neighbours. What does help is a suspended ceiling with resilient bars and insulation on your side; that is work for a professional and usually costs a few thousand euros per room.

If the neighbour is a tenant, you have a port of call an owner does not have: his landlord. Article 7:213 Civil Code obliges a tenant to behave as a good tenant, and nuisance to neighbours falls under that. The landlord can first impose a behavioural order (no music after a set hour, no visitors after midnight) and, on repetition, ask the court to terminate the tenancy and evict. The Gelderland court did so in February 2026, with an arrangement under which the tenant could stay as long as he kept to the agreements.

If you are a tenant yourself and the noisemaker rents from the same landlord, you can also hold that landlord to your own enjoyment of the property: persistent nuisance from a fellow tenant that the landlord can act against counts as a defect in your home (article 7:204 Civil Code). The landlord must remedy the defect (7:206), and as long as he does not you can claim a rent reduction (7:207), for social housing through the Rent Tribunal (Huurcommissie), within six months of reporting the defect in writing. There is a limit. In May 2026 the The Hague court dismissed a tenant's claim because the landlord had already done enough to limit the nuisance. The landlord must act; he does not have to win.

If you rent from a different landlord than the neighbours, that landlord is of no use to you: he can only enforce against his own tenants. Then you take the same route as an owner, through the municipality, mediation and the court on the basis of article 6:162 Civil Code.

Here hard hours do exist, and they are in article 7.17 of the Buildings Decree (Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving): commercial building and demolition work is carried out only on weekdays and Saturdays between 7 am and 7 pm. On top of that, table 7.17 sets the number of days a given noise level may hit your facade: up to 60 dB(A) unlimited, then decreasing to zero days above 80 dB(A). If a contractor wants to work in the evening, at night or on a Sunday, the municipality has to agree through a tailored requirement or an exemption, and many municipalities have policy rules with fixed hours for that.

Note the word commercial. The neighbour who demolishes his own kitchen on Sunday morning does not fall under 7.17. For him only the bylaw (noise nuisance to residents) and article 5:37 Civil Code apply. One Sunday morning of drilling is then not an offence; three months of every weekend from eight till eight can be. VvE regulations may contain DIY hours, and then those apply.

What to do about a contractor exceeding the hours: call or email your municipality's building inspection with the address, date and time. The municipality can stop the work and impose a periodic penalty, and that happens faster than with any other form of noise nuisance, because the standard is hard.

Almost every dismissed case lacks the same thing: proof of duration and frequency. Whoever says it happens every evening must be able to show it. This is what makes a file strong, in order of weight.

• A log with, for each occasion, the date, start time, end time, what you heard and where you were at the time. Not afterwards from memory, but on the day itself. A notebook or a note on your phone is enough; a table covering three months weighs more than everything below.
• Sound recordings with date and time, in addition to the log. Only record what is audible from your own home; a microphone against the wall or in the neighbours' garden breaches their privacy and turns against you.
• Statements from others: other neighbours, visitors, a community police officer who attended. Two households reporting the same thing remove the suspicion of oversensitivity.
• Reports to the police, the municipality, the landlord or the VvE, with date and reference number. Every report is proof that it was happening and that you raised it properly.
• Your own letters and the replies. A registered letter with a concrete request (bass off after 10 pm, lay an underlay, do not leave the dog alone) and a reasonable deadline shows the court that you gave the other side the chance to fix it.
• A measurement report from an acoustic consultant, only once you are heading for a full court case. For summary proceedings or a letter to the landlord you do not need it.

This is the order in which courts and landlords expect you to proceed. Skipping a step costs you points later.

1. Go round, in daytime, without blame. Most upstairs neighbours do not know you hear their chairs. Say what you hear, when, and what you are asking. Do this before you put anything on paper.
2. Start the log the same day. Even if the conversation went well: if nothing changes, you have evidence from day one.
3. Call in neighbourhood mediation (buurtbemiddeling). It exists in 93 percent of municipalities, is paid for by the municipality and housing associations and is free for you; two thirds of cases end with a positive result. A judge almost always asks whether you tried this.
4. Pick the port of call that fits your situation from the table above: the landlord for a tenant, the VvE board for an apartment, building inspection for a contractor, the police for nighttime disturbance, the municipality or environmental service for a business. Report in writing and keep the reply. For serious and repeated nuisance you can ask the mayor for a behavioural order under article 151d of the Municipalities Act.
5. Send the neighbours a registered letter with what you are asking and a deadline of two to four weeks. Announce that you will take legal steps after that. If you have legal expenses insurance, this is also the moment to report the case.
6. If the nuisance persists, ask the court for an injunction with a penalty payment. In urgent cases that can be done in summary proceedings, usually within a few weeks; a full case takes longer but can also result in measures and damages. Without legal expenses insurance, summary proceedings with a lawyer usually cost a few thousand euros, and the loser pays part of the winner's costs.
7. Stop taking matters into your own hands. Banging back, cutting the power, filming the neighbours in their garden or posting them on social media turns the case around: then you are the one acting unlawfully.

On 19 September 2026 rechtspraak.nl lists 620 published civil rulings containing the words noise nuisance, neighbours and nuisance (geluidsoverlast, buren, hinder). Those are only the published cases; most subdistrict court cases are never published. The number per year is stable, and the outcomes show a pattern: complaints about avoidable noise backed by a file win, complaints about living noise without a file lose.

Count on uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl, search terms geluidsoverlast buren hinder, field of law civil, 19 September 2026. In addition 84 administrative and 10 criminal rulings.

• Gelderland District Court, 8 July 2026, ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2026:5663: the neighbours had to stop the noise nuisance from their outdoor air conditioning unit. The court took the 40 dB standard of article 4.107(2) Bbl into account in assessing how serious the nuisance was.
• Amsterdam District Court, 1 April 2026, ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:4205: claim dismissed. Noise measurements say nothing about the nature, duration and intensity of the sound, and the noise standard of the Buildings Decree does not apply between neighbours in an existing building.
• Amsterdam District Court, 10 June 2026, ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:5557: a bathroom moved to a spot above the neighbours' bedroom produced noise, but that was not unlawful nuisance.
• Rotterdam District Court, 21 January 2026, ECLI:NL:RBROT:2026:624: noise and odour nuisance from dogs. The neighbours were no longer allowed to keep more than three dogs.
• Gelderland District Court, 20 February 2026, ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2026:1487: the tenancy was terminated and eviction ordered for noise nuisance, because the tenant had breached article 7:213 Civil Code, the general terms and a behavioural order; the tenant was given an arrangement tied to the judgment.
• The Hague District Court, 28 May 2026, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2026:13790: a tenant sued his landlord over noise from neighbours. Dismissed: no unlawful nuisance, and the landlord had done enough to limit the nuisance.

If you receive a complaint yourself, the cheapest route is almost always a measure rather than a defence. Whoever can show he did something stands stronger before every body, and most measures cost less than one hour of a lawyer.

1. Under a hard floor, lay an underlay with a measured improvement of more than 10 dB, and keep the specification. In an apartment that is often compulsory; in a terraced house it is the argument that ends every complaint about footsteps.
2. Keep speakers and subwoofers away from the shared wall and off the floor, on a mat or decoupled feet. Bass travels through concrete as vibration and that is what the neighbours hear.
3. Place an air conditioning or heat pump unit as far as possible from the boundary and from the neighbours' bedrooms, and ask the installer for the calculation of the noise level at the boundary; for units since 1 April 2021 that is a legal requirement.
4. If you renovate with a contractor, keep to 7 am to 7 pm on weekdays and Saturdays, and warn the neighbours in advance with the expected duration. If you do it yourself, keep evenings and Sunday mornings free, even though that is not written anywhere.
5. Have a shared wall or a ceiling insulated if the building is noisy: a stud wall with resilient bars or a suspended ceiling with insulation makes a difference of 10 to 15 dB in practice. Post a job for it and ask for a price per square metre; a professional who has done this before can tell you in advance what it will achieve.