The short answer
The Centraal Insolventieregister (CIR) at insolventies.rechtspraak.nl is the Dutch judiciary's free public register of bankruptcies (faillissementen), suspensions of payments (surseance van betaling) and statutory debt rescheduling for individuals (WSNP). You can search a company by name or trade name, by KVK number (the last five digits are enough) or by postcode and house number. A record lists every publication in the case, the current curator or administrator with address and phone number, the supervisory judge (rechter-commissaris) and, where the curator filed them digitally, the curator's reports. The register only holds cases published after 1 January 2005, and a record disappears six months after the end of the insolvency is published. Public WHOA restructurings sit in a separate Whoa register; closed ones are not published at all.
Everything below comes from rechtspraak.nl and kvk.nl, read on 1 October 2026. General information, not legal advice.
What the register contains
Procedure | Who it applies to | What it means for you as a supplier |
|---|---|---|
Faillissement (bankruptcy) | Companies and individuals | A court-appointed curator takes over. You file your claim with the curator, with invoices as proof. |
Surseance van betaling (suspension of payments) | Businesses | The court suspends the company's payment obligations. A bewindvoerder (administrator) is named in the record. |
WSNP (statutory debt rescheduling) | Natural persons, which includes the owner of a sole proprietorship | The court decides on admission; a bewindvoerder manages income and deals with creditors. According to KVK it lasts at most 18 months in principle. |
Not in the register: amicable debt arrangements without a court (MSNP), which KVK says you cannot see anywhere, closed WHOA procedures, and cases published before 2005 or ended more than six months ago.
The sources compared
"Is this company insolvent?" and "which companies went bankrupt this week?" are different questions, answered by two search modes of the same register.
Source | Answers | Cost | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
CIR, search by entity or person | Is this company in bankruptcy or suspension, is this person in WSNP; curator, judge, reports | Free | Only since 2005; removed six months after the end |
CIR, search by date, court and publication type | Every insolvency published today, last week or since a date | Free | Nothing older than one year |
Whoa register on rechtspraak.nl | Public WHOA restructurings | Free | Closed procedures are absent |
KVK Handelsregister | Is the company registered, is a bankruptcy or WSNP admission recorded, who may sign | Search free, extract paid | Signing powers need a paid extract |
Route one: search a company by name or KVK number
Open insolventies.rechtspraak.nl and choose "Zoeken rechtspersoon/handelsnaam". The form opens on natural persons, so this first click matters. You then fill in one of three combinations:
Name. The legal name or a trade name. Wildcards such as comp* work.
KVK number. No wildcards, but the last five digits are enough. If you only have a name, find the KVK number first; it avoids confusing two companies with similar names.
Postcode and house number. A PO box number also works.
For a sole proprietor, search the owner as a natural person, with surname or date of birth combined with postcode and house number, or surname with date of birth. Try variants of prefixes such as "van de"; names are not always registered consistently.
The result list shows only the latest publication per case; click it for the full history.
What a record shows
name, address, trade name, KVK number and every publication since 2005
the most recent curator or bewindvoerder, with address and phone number
the rechter-commissaris, the judge who supervises the case
the insolvency number, such as F.19/13/123
the insolvency reports (verslagen) for bankruptcies and suspensions of legal entities, as PDF, if the curator filed them digitally
The reports are the part most people miss: they tell a creditor how the estate is progressing. Viewing is free; the court handling the case provides an official extract for a fee.
Route two: bankruptcies in the Netherlands this week
For a list rather than a single company, search on insolvency characteristics: a date (today, last week, or after a date you enter), one court or all courts, and one or all publication types. This search does not go back more than one year. The menu item "Bekendmakingen Insolventies" shows the insolvencies published in the Staatscourant each day.
For scale: KVK reports that 3,636 Dutch companies went bankrupt in 2025. For monthly figures, the judiciary now refers to CBS.
How long records stay
A registration stays searchable until six months after the end of the insolvency is published. After that it is gone, and parties that receive the data through the webservice must also destroy it within six months of the end. A clean result therefore means no current insolvency, not that the company or its director never went bankrupt.
The WHOA: restructuring outside bankruptcy
Since 1 January 2021 the Faillissementswet includes the WHOA (Wet homologatie onderhands akkoord). A court can approve an agreement between a company, its creditors and its shareholders when that prevents bankruptcy. Once approved, it binds all creditors involved, including those who voted against. Creditors vote in classes. A cooling-off period of up to four months, extendable by up to four more, can stop creditors filing for bankruptcy meanwhile.
The company chooses a public or a closed procedure. A public procedure is published in the Whoa register once a judge has taken a first decision: the opening date, the judge and case number, and details of the debtor. A closed procedure is not published. The judges' WHOA pool reports that in 2024 parties chose a closed procedure in 51 of 57 incoming cases. The Belgian counterpart is judicial reorganisation, which also has a public and a private variant.
Checking a Dutch customer before you extend credit
KVK Handelsregister. Search the name or KVK number, free. Check that it exists, that the details match, and whether it is bankrupt, in suspension or in debt rescheduling. An extract, which is paid, shows who may sign the contract.
The CIR. Search the exact KVK number that will sign your contract. For a sole proprietorship, also search the owner as a natural person.
Filed accounts. BVs and NVs file with KVK; sole proprietorships, vofs and cvs do not. Small companies file only a short balance sheet. KVK treats a filing missed several years running as a warning sign. What the formats contain is in Dutch annual accounts.
The Whoa register, for public restructurings.
None of these shows payment behaviour. For that layer, credit scores and limits, see how to run a company credit check in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Alerts
The public site lets you save a search so the form is prefilled next time; its help text describes no email alert. For monitoring, the judiciary offers the CIR webservice. It is free apart from your own data costs: you create an account in the subscription portal, and your software reads the latest publications every working day or checks your own customer file against the register, as XML. Queries are limited to 10 per second, there is no technical support, and the licence allows use only to inform business parties about insolvencies. Credit bureaus offer paid monitoring on a customer list.
If you sell in both countries, the split matters. Bizzy shows Belgian companies from the KBO register, the National Bank and the Belgian Official Gazette, so a Belgian customer's legal status and publications sit on the record. Dutch companies in Bizzy come from Creditsafe data, not the Dutch registers, so for a Dutch insolvency check the CIR stays your source.
Which route for which question
Your question | Route |
|---|---|
Is this Dutch company bankrupt or in suspension now? | CIR, search by KVK number |
Who is the curator and how is the estate doing? | CIR record and the curator's reports |
Which companies went bankrupt this week? | CIR, search by date, court and publication type |
Is the company restructuring under the WHOA? | Whoa register, public procedures only |
The same questions for a Belgian company | KBO and the Official Gazette, see how to check whether a Belgian company is bankrupt; the case file is in RegSol, which is not a public search |
Sources: CIR explanation, CIR FAQ, KVK, read on 1 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Dutch insolvency register free? Yes. Searching and viewing the Centraal Insolventieregister is free for everyone. Only an official extract from the court costs money.
Can I search the insolvency register by KVK number? Yes. Choose the search for legal entity or trade name and enter the KVK number. Wildcards do not work there, but the last five digits are enough.
Why can I no longer find an old bankruptcy? Records are removed six months after the end of the insolvency is published, and nothing published before 1 January 2005 is included.
Is a WHOA procedure in the insolvency register? Public WHOA procedures are published in the separate Whoa register on rechtspraak.nl. Closed procedures, the large majority, are not published anywhere.
Photo: the Peace Palace in The Hague, Michielverbeek, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons