Asking for a deposit in the Netherlands - what is legal, what is practical

Every mobile beauty professional we speak to asks the same question once they decide deposits are the right move: am I actually allowed to do this?

The short answer is yes. According to ACM ConsuWijzer, the consumer authority’s information service, there is no statutory maximum for a deposit on a service: you agree the amount with your client. (For buying a product the deposit is capped by law at 50%, but a treatment is a service.) What matters is how you collect, communicate and refund the money, not whether you are allowed to ask for it at all.

This article walks through the rules that matter most, with the source for each, and the practical setup you need so the deposit policy holds up if a client ever pushes back.

Is a deposit the same as a “consumer down-payment”?

A deposit on a service is a partial advance payment toward the agreed price. It is not a separate “fee” you keep on top of the treatment cost. When the client shows up, the deposit is credited against their final invoice. When they don’t, the deposit covers (part of) your loss, provided your terms say so up front.

The key rules to be aware of:

• Transparency. The deposit amount and the conditions under which you keep or refund it must be visible before the client books. A small line in a confirmation email afterwards is not enough. For an online booking you must tell the client, among other things, the price before they are bound (article 6:230m BW), and general terms must be made available before or when the contract is concluded (article 6:234 BW).
• Reasonableness. There is no percentage set in law. But a clause in general terms that is unreasonably onerous for the client can be annulled (article 6:233 BW), and ACM ConsuWijzer says cancellation costs must be reasonable and the business must be able to explain why. In practice 10-30% of the treatment price is considered reasonable and rarely leads to disputes.
• Refunds on cancellation. A client may always cancel a service agreement. Without a valid reason, you may charge reasonable cancellation costs (ACM ConsuWijzer), for example by keeping the deposit if that was agreed up front. Common practice: if the client cancels in time (24 hours ahead is the usual norm for in-home work) you refund the deposit in full; on a late cancellation or no-show you keep it.
• The 14-day cooling-off period (bedenktijd). A booking made online is a distance contract, and in principle the 14-day cooling-off period applies. Article 6:230p BW lists exceptions. Point e covers, among others, services “relating to leisure activities” booked for a specific time; whether a beauty treatment falls under that is not clear-cut. Point d is a second route: once a service has been fully performed, the cooling-off period ends, provided the client expressly agreed that you start within the period and acknowledged losing the right once the service is performed. So set out your cancellation rules clearly and have them checked if in doubt.

In other words: as long as your terms are clear up front and your deposit amount is reasonable, you are in a much stronger position if a client ever objects.

Four points that come up in a dispute

If a deposit dispute ever escalates (which is rare, but worth being prepared for), a court decides, or De Geschillencommissie, the consumer disputes committee, if you are affiliated with it directly or through a trade association. Without that affiliation it cannot hear the dispute. There is no fixed checklist, but these four points follow from the law and are worth covering:

1. Was the deposit visible at the moment of booking? The booking page or confirmation flow has to surface the deposit amount and the cancellation conditions before the client commits (articles 6:230m and 6:234 BW).
2. Could the client read the terms, and did they accept them? The law requires you to give the client a reasonable opportunity to read your terms (article 6:233 under b BW). A check-box “Ik ga akkoord met de voorwaarden” linked to your conditions page is a common way to evidence this.
3. Were the conditions clear and understandable? Terms for consumers must be drafted clearly and understandably, and where a clause is ambiguous the interpretation most favourable to the client prevails (article 6:238(2) BW). So vague legal language counts against you. “Bij annulering binnen 24 uur wordt de aanbetaling niet terugbetaald” is fine. Six paragraphs of legalese the client never read is not.
4. Were you reasonable about edge cases? Sudden illness, a family emergency, a flat tyre on the way to your appointment. An agreed rule does not apply where applying it would be unacceptable in the circumstances by standards of reasonableness and fairness (article 6:248(2) BW). A pro who refunds a sick client and keeps the deposit on a “forgot about it” no-show looks reasonable. A pro who keeps every deposit no matter what does not.

This is not an exhaustive list and no guarantee of how a dispute ends. But if your booking flow covers all four, you have the most important groundwork in place.

What your terms should actually say

For a simple policy you do not necessarily need a lawyer. A template like this is a good starting point:

Aanbetaling. Voor elke afspraak vragen wij een aanbetaling van €X (of X% van de behandelprijs). De aanbetaling wordt verrekend met de uiteindelijke factuur op het moment van de behandeling.

Annulering. Annuleer je je afspraak meer dan 24 uur van tevoren, dan ontvang je de aanbetaling volledig terug. Annuleer je binnen 24 uur of verschijn je niet op de afspraak, dan vervalt de aanbetaling als vergoeding voor de gereserveerde tijd en de reiskosten.

Uitzonderingen. Bij ziekte, familie-noodgevallen of overmacht - beoordelen wij het in redelijkheid. Neem zo snel mogelijk contact op zodat we samen een nieuwe afspraak kunnen plannen.

That is the entire policy. Three paragraphs. Clear, fair, defendable.

Drop it on your voorwaarden page, link to it from your booking page, and put a one-line summary above the deposit-payment step (“Je betaalt nu €X als aanbetaling. Bij annulering meer dan 24 uur van tevoren krijg je dit volledig terug.”) and the amount and terms are visible before the client books.

The deposit is one half of the agreement; the notice window and what happens on a late cancellation are the other. We walk through those three decisions in setting a cancellation policy as a mobile beauty pro.

Refunding cleanly: the operational side

That is the legal groundwork. The operational side is where most pros run into trouble - because if a refund is awkward, the policy collapses.

The clean way:

• Refund through the same channel the client paid. If they paid via iDEAL, refund via iDEAL. If they paid by card, refund to the card. Do not ask them for an IBAN they didn’t volunteer - it looks like a scam to them and it is more work for you.
• Refund quickly. State a timeframe in your terms and stick to it; within 24-48 hours heads off most questions.
• Send a confirmation email that says exactly what was refunded and when. “Hi [client], we hebben je aanbetaling van €15 vandaag teruggestort op je bankrekening.” That is it. One sentence.
• Keep a record. Tax authority (Belastingdienst) and your own bookkeeping both expect a clean trail of deposits in and refunds out. A booking system that logs each transaction is enough.

Manual refunds via Tikkie reversal or a separate bank transfer work but they create more administrative friction than they are worth.

What a deposit does not protect you against

It is worth being honest about the limits.

A deposit will not save you from a client who:

• Cancels at exactly 24 hours and 1 minute every single time. Some clients game the rules. The 24-hour window is the price you pay for the policy looking fair to everyone else.
• Wants their money back after the fact anyway. A client cannot reverse an iDEAL payment themselves, only the recipient can refund it (Betaalvereniging Nederland), but a complaint or dispute still costs you time. So document everything: what the client saw when booking, when they cancelled and what you refunded.
• Leaves a one-star review because they were upset about the deposit. The trade is more no-show protection in exchange for slightly more bookings that bounce off your policy. Most pros report the trade is overwhelmingly worth it.

What a deposit does protect you against is the bulk-case no-show - the casual booker who would have ghosted you for free but is unwilling to ghost you for €15.

Communicating the policy without making it weird

The framing matters more than the rule. Two phrasings, same policy:

Defensive (avoid this): “Wij vragen een aanbetaling omdat te veel klanten niet komen opdagen.”

Confident (use this): “Een aanbetaling bevestigt je afspraak en garandeert je tijdslot. Volledig verrekend met je factuur na de behandeling.”

The second one frames the deposit as a service feature - the client is getting something (a guaranteed slot) - not as a punishment. Same money, same legal effect, much better client reaction.

Most pros also find that adding a brief explanation on their voorwaarden page helps with the small minority who ask: “Vraagje over de aanbetaling - waarom doen jullie dit?” with a friendly two-line answer (“Omdat we mobiel werken plannen we onze dag rond bevestigde afspraken. De aanbetaling helpt ons je tijdslot vrij te houden - en is volledig refundable bij tijdige annulering.”) closes the question almost every time.

What to do today

If you are setting up your deposit policy:

1. Write the three-paragraph terms above into your voorwaarden page.
2. Make sure the deposit amount and the 24-hour cancellation rule are visible on your booking page before the client commits.
3. Pick a deposit amount that is 10-25% of your average treatment price - see our breakdown of no-show costs for the maths on what this protects.
4. Pick a payment method that refunds cleanly - for the Netherlands that is iDEAL. How to set it up: connecting iDEAL to your beauty business.

If you are using a booking system that does not handle deposits, refunds and a clear pre-booking disclosure for you, you are doing extra admin work that the software should be absorbing.

pbw.life is built specifically for mobile beauty professionals in the Netherlands. You set one deposit policy (a fixed amount or a percentage of the treatment price) and from then on every booking collects the deposit automatically via iDEAL, straight into your own Mollie account. You also set a cancellation policy that the client accepts when booking: a timely cancellation is refunded in full automatically, and on a late cancellation the deposit is refunded or kept, as your policy says. See how deposits work for every case.

Start your free 30-day trial at pbw.life - at signup you link your payment method with a €0.01 check payment, and you can cancel anytime. Or view our pricing if you want to see what each tier includes first.

pbw.life is booking software with built-in deposit collection, built-in retention periods and AVG rights handling for mobile beauty professionals in the Netherlands. Questions about how the policy plays out for your specific situation? Email us at info@pbw.life. This article is general information, not legal advice. For an opinion on your specific case, talk to a Dutch consumer-law lawyer; for a dispute with a client you can turn to De Geschillencommissie if you are affiliated with it. Statutes and sources checked on 2 October 2026.