Operating pressure equipment in the Netherlands

Two regimes, one after the other

Directive 2014/68/EU ends at placing on the market and putting into service. What happens after that is national law. In the Netherlands it is the Warenwetbesluit drukapparatuur 2016 (pressure equipment decree, "WBDA") and the Warenwetregeling drukapparatuur 2016 (the regulation, "WRDA"). Together they decide whether your equipment must be inspected before it enters service and how often it must be re-inspected afterwards.

The pivot: a CE-marked item of equipment may not simply be put into service in the Netherlands. If it is designated, an inspection before entry into service comes first, carried out by a Dutch conformity assessment body. The duty and the cost sit with the user (decree, Art. 21) — but the question arises at the supplier's drawing board, and the customer hears it from you.

What you hand over on delivery

The inspection duty sits with the user, but without these documents he cannot meet it — and the handover stalls. This is the core; which items apply in your case depends on the category and the module chosen.

• EU declaration of conformity to the model of Annex IV (Art. 17(2)), from category II upwards carrying the notified body number. Under Article 4(3) there is deliberately no declaration and no CE marking.
• Instructions and safety information containing everything in Annex I point 3.4 — for use in the Netherlands at least in Dutch (WBDA Art. 18).
• Marking or nameplate to Annex I point 3.3: manufacturer, year of manufacture, identification and the essential limits PS, TS and volume.
• The proof test of the final assessment (Annex I point 3.2.2), with the applied test pressure PT and the test date marked on the equipment itself (point 3.3(b)). Point 3.2.2 does not require a report with the calibration data of the instruments; that comes from the quality records of the chosen module (Annex III) and from what the inspecting body asks for in practice.
• Material certificates for the pressure-bearing parts to EN 10204, in the type agreed by contract.
• Documentation of the safety accessories: set points, capacity and the accompanying declarations — the item most often missing.
• Maintenance and inspection advice, stating that reclassification is needed as soon as pressure, medium or use changes.

The technical file itself stays with you and is kept for ten years (Art. 6(3) of the directive; WBDA Art. 25(1) counts from manufacture). Your customer has no right to it; the documents above he does.

Which equipment is designated

Not every category is subject to inspection. The regulation designates per Annex II table which categories are covered — broadly: the higher categories of each table. For gas-filled vessels (table 2), for instance, categories III and IV; for liquid group 2 vessels (table 4), category II; for fired equipment (table 5), categories III and IV. Some tables extend the designation to lower categories for unstable, very toxic, explosive or aquatically toxic fluids.

Designated along with the vessels and piping are the safety accessories protecting them and the associated pressure accessories. There are exceptions too — air vessels up to 2,500 litres and 30 bar, for example, are exempt from both inspections.

The free check below determines the designation and the interval for a specific item, with the article reference at every step.

What is designated are the vessels and the installation piping themselves, plus the safety accessories protecting them and the associated pressure accessories.

Fixed re-inspection intervals (WRDA Art. 5)

Safety accessories follow the shortest interval of the equipment they protect. Extension and flexibilisation of intervals have conditions of their own.

What else the user must arrange

• Instructions for use at least in Dutch (decree, Art. 18). That is not a tightening: the directive expressly leaves the choice of language to the Member State (Art. 6(7)), and the Netherlands has made that choice. So an English manual does not suffice here.
• Proper maintenance and use as intended by the manufacturer (Art. 20).
• A record sheet with the declaration of entry into service (Art. 24) — only the Dutch inspection bodies may write on it.
• Modifications and repairs: Annex I of the directive applies analogously — except for affixing the CE marking — and the inspection body is informed without delay (Art. 26(1) and (2)). See repair, modification or a new product. A modification can create an inspection duty that did not exist before.
• Building for your own use: where a user designs, manufactures or assembles pressure equipment in-house for his own purposes, the conformity assessment runs through an NL conformity assessment body, not through a notified body (Art. 17a(2)); safety information and labelling in Dutch, and the NL declaration of conformity in Dutch or English (paragraphs 3 and 4).
• Re-inspection after relocation: designated equipment is inspected again after every assembly at a new place of installation (Art. 21) — moving it within the company is not a free action.

Large operating companies can, under conditions, run inspections through their own user inspection department under supervision of a designated body (decree, Art. 36) — worthwhile for a refinery with hundreds of designated items, not for a workshop with five vessels.

How reliable is this module?

The designation and the intervals are read directly from the WRDA 2016 text (BWBR0038317), not from a secondary source, and are covered by a test suite of 46 cases: every existing combination of the nine tables and four categories plus the check that non-existent combinations are refused, every conditional extension, every exception at its limit value, and a check across more than 280 combinations that a duty of re-inspection never occurs without an interval and vice versa. The module gives the fixed statutory interval; the rules for extension, flexibilisation and shortening are a matter for the designated body and are not calculated here. The outcome is guidance and does not replace a decision by an NL conformity assessment body or NL user inspectorate.

Mind the reference date. Articles 7 and 8 on interval extension and flexible intervals were amended with effect from 1 January 2026.

What this means for a non-Dutch supplier

Three practical rules. Tell your Dutch customer before delivery whether the equipment is designated and that an inspection before entry into service will follow — the invoice is theirs, the surprise should not be. Deliver the instructions in Dutch; it is a legal requirement of the use phase and a standard contract dispute. And hand over a complete final-assessment package — the Dutch inspection body will lean on your declaration, your proof test evidence and your safety accessory documentation at the first inspection.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading