The Dutch cabinet has brought back a plan that the previous government dropped. In a 7 October 2026 letter to the Tweede Kamer (reference 2026-0000499978), Housing and Spatial Planning Minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan, writing also for the Climate and Green Growth minister, said that from 2029 a smart hybrid heat pump will “in many cases” become the starting point when an old gas boiler (cv-ketel) is replaced. “Installing (only) a new boiler will then no longer suffice,” the letter says. It implements a line in the 2026–2030 coalition agreement.
The rule bites when a boiler is replaced, usually at a move, a renovation or the end of its life. Nobody has to rip out a working boiler.
What the letter decides
- Legal route: the rule goes into the Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (Bbl), the national building decree, by tightening the existing efficiency requirement for heating installations. The requirement is technology-neutral but set so that a hybrid heat pump meets it. A fully electric heat pump also passes. A boiler on its own, infrared panels, or electric heaters do not.
- Trigger: it applies when a boiler is replaced, “usually at a move, a renovation or at the end of its life.” The letter presents this as the point that avoids destroying capital.
- “Smart” requirement: new heat pumps must be controllable so they can run outside grid peaks or when power is cheap, to the standard in a Dutch Technical Agreement (NTA) the government says was published the same day. The government says it is already applying this through the ISDE subsidy.
- Exemptions foreseen now: homes to be connected to a heat network in the short term; apartment buildings, for reasons of space, noise and low energy use; and listed monuments, which need a permit for a heat pump. The letter says the government will look at whether and when apartments and monuments come under the rule. It has not decided on schools and commercial buildings.
- Timeline: an outside study of when a hybrid pump pays for itself within its lifetime is due in early 2027. Cabinet decisions on further climate measures come in spring 2027, followed by consultation and parliamentary pre-review (voorhang) in summer and autumn 2027. The amended Bbl would be published in mid-2028, making 2029 “the earliest feasible” start date.
Why the government says it is needed
The letter says boilers are being replaced by heat pumps too slowly to meet the goal of heating every building without natural gas by 2050. It describes that goal as an obligation arising from the EU’s revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD IV). It points to existing support: the ISDE, SVVE and SVOH subsidy schemes, which have money until at least 2030; financing through the Nationaal Warmtefonds; and the government’s advice website. It says it will look at purchase, installation and running costs and at installer capacity.
The political history
NOS reports that the Rutte IV cabinet planned a hybrid heat-pump requirement from 2026 and that the Schoof cabinet scrapped it after the PVV, NSC, VVD and BBB objected to the cost for households. NOS also reports that the minister called €6,000 “terribly much money” (verschrikkelijk veel geld) for many people. She said she was announcing the rule now so households can plan for it, and that interest-free loans are intended. Those remarks come from NOS’s report, not the letter.
What this piece refuses
Do not write that the Netherlands has “banned gas boilers.” A hybrid pump still works with a boiler, and the rule applies only on replacement. Do not write that the rule is law: the building decree has not been amended, and the scope is not final. Do not present NOS’s €8,000 and €6,000 cost figures as government findings; the letter gives no price.
Contested: The government argues that heat pumps lower energy bills and raise home values, and that the rule gives installers and manufacturers certainty to invest. Opponents of the 2022 version argued the up-front cost was too high for many households, and the minister’s own letter says the rule must be “economically feasible.” Whether it is depends on the payback study due in early 2027. The verified record is the letter and the government’s release.
Bottom line
Verified as of 7 October 2026 (Kamerbrief 2026-0000499978; Rijksoverheid release): the Dutch cabinet intends to amend the national building decree so that, from 2029 at the earliest, a gas boiler replaced in many homes must give way to a smart hybrid or fully electric heat pump. Apartments, monuments and homes due for a heat network are exempt at the start. Watch the payback study and scope decision in early and spring 2027, then the draft Bbl amendment.
