290 business space: lease rules for a Dutch salon

The paper your business stands on

Most guides about opening a salon are about the place: how many competitors sit there, who lives nearby, what the rent per square metre is. That is the guide on choosing a salon location. This guide is about the paper that comes afterwards and that you then hold for five to ten years.

There are two moments when you really read this contract. Just before you sign, and on the day something changes: the landlord wants to sell, you want to move, or there is a buyer for your business who needs the premises. At both moments almost everything hangs on a single question: is this 290 business space or not.

The good news first: if you rent a salon with a door onto the street, you are probably better protected than you think.

Why a salon is 290 business space in principle

Article 7:290 paragraph 2 sub a of the Dutch Civil Code names four kinds of business: retail, restaurant or cafe, a takeaway or delivery service, and the skilled trade business. One condition applies: the rented space must contain a room accessible to the public for the direct supply of movable goods or for services.

A hair salon, barbershop, beauty salon, nail studio or pedicure practice with its own entrance that clients walk into falls under that in principle, as a skilled trade business with a publicly accessible service room. Offices, storage units, workshops without a public area and practices that work purely by appointment behind a closed door fall under the residual category of article 7:230a.

What the heading of the contract says is not decisive. If a landlord writes "other business space within the meaning of article 7:230a" on top while you in fact run a publicly accessible salon, that heading is not the law. It is, however, a discussion you would rather have before signing than after.

Note paragraph 3 as well: the business space also covers the immovable appurtenances, the land belonging to it and the dependent dwelling. That is the classic borderline case of a building with a salon downstairs and a flat above. If that flat is dependent on the salon use, it comes under the same regime and therefore under the protection of 7:290. If the flat can be used and let independently, that is a separate question with its own answer.

Source: articles 7:230a and 7:290 to 7:307 of the Dutch Civil Code on wetten.overheid.nl and the page Bedrijfsruimte huren on ondernemersplein.overheid.nl. Checked September 2026.

Five plus five, and why you cannot sign it away

The core of the protection sits in article 7:292. A lease of 290 business space runs for five years, or for the longer fixed term you agreed. When that first term ends, the lease is extended by operation of law by five years. If you agreed a term between five and ten years, the second term becomes shorter than five years by exactly as much as the first exceeded five. Seven years is therefore followed by three.

Those ten years together are not a recommendation but mandatory law in the tenant's favour. Article 7:291 paragraph 1 says this section cannot be varied to the tenant's detriment. A deviating clause only holds if the court has approved it. Note what the statute does not say: paragraph 3 states that either party may request that approval and sets no deadline and no order, so it can still happen during the term. Approval only comes if the clause does not materially affect the rights you draw from this section, or if your commercial position relative to the landlord's is such that you reasonably do not need the protection. Paragraph 4 requires the request to include the text of the clause to be approved. And paragraph 2 rules out any variation of article 7:307 on lease transfer, approval or not.

The flip side: those ten years bind you too. To get out, you have to give notice against the end of a term, with at least one year of notice, by bailiff's writ or registered letter. Miss that date and you are locked in for another five years. So work it out on the day you sign and put a reminder fourteen months before the end of the term.

There is an exception you should know before signing a short lease. Article 7:301 says articles 7:291 to 7:300 do not apply to an agreement of two years or shorter. During those two years you therefore have no term protection and no rent protection. If use then continues beyond two years, an agreement for five years arises by operation of law on the same terms, with the two elapsed years deducted. A short two-year lease can therefore turn into a five-year one silently, and for a tenant that is usually good news.

When a landlord can actually get you out

Notice from the landlord does not mean you have to go. Article 7:295 provides that a lease that has been terminated by notice stays in force by operation of law until the court has ruled definitively, unless you gave notice yourself or agreed to the termination in writing. So never simply agree in writing to an ending; that hands away exactly the protection the law gives you. The landlord can go to court if he has received no written agreement six weeks after giving notice.

At the end of the first term there are only two grounds on which the court can grant the claim, and they are in article 7:296 paragraph 1. The first is that you have not run the business as a good tenant should. The second is pressing personal use by the landlord, his spouse or registered partner, a first-degree blood or affinity relative, or a foster child. Selling the premises expressly does not count as durable personal use; renovation that is impossible without ending the lease does.

That second ground contains a provision that is worth gold when the building is sold. Article 7:296 paragraph 2 says a claim on the ground of pressing personal use cannot be granted if the landlord is the legal successor of a previous landlord and is not that person's close family, and notice was given within three years of the succession being notified to you in writing. A new owner who buys the building to start something there himself therefore has to wait three years in principle.

At the end of the second term it gets broader. The court then decides under paragraph 3 on a reasonable weighing of the interests of landlord and tenant. Paragraph 4 adds two grounds on which it grants the claim in any event: if you do not accept a reasonable offer for a new agreement, insofar as that offer does not involve a change of rent, and if the landlord wants to realise a function that the applicable zoning plan has assigned to the premises.

If the court grants the claim, article 7:297 lets it set an amount the landlord must pay you towards moving and fitting-out costs. For a salon with basins, mirror walls and a plumbing layout, that is not a detail.

Rent review and indexation

Two things that often get confused.

Indexation is contractual. Nearly every model lease says the rent is adjusted annually to the consumer price index published by Statistics Netherlands. That is an agreement, not a statute, and it is one of the clauses you check when signing: which index, from what date, and whether there is a floor that rules out a decrease.

Rent review is statutory and about something else: whether your rent is still in line with comparable premises nearby. Article 7:303 paragraph 1 gives tenant and landlord alike the right to ask the court to fix the rent afresh. That is possible after an agreed fixed term ends, and beyond that each time at least five years have passed since the last agreed rent took effect.

The yardstick sits in paragraph 2: the average of the rents for comparable business space in the locality over the five years preceding the claim, converted to today's price level. Paragraph 3 holds a rule tenants often do not know: an increase based on improvements you made at your own expense will be refused. If you paid for the basins and the whole interior yourself, the landlord cannot base a rent increase on them.

A practical obstacle sits in article 7:304 paragraph 1: a rent review claim is only admissible if it comes with an expert report by one or more experts appointed jointly by the parties. If you cannot agree on an expert, the court appoints one on request, and the date of that request counts as the date the claim was brought. So start that route well before the moment you want the new rent to take effect.

Lease transfer when you sell

This is the article a salon sale runs aground on, and it is precisely the article that saves your position.

When you sell your business, the buyer wants the premises. If the landlord will not cooperate in transferring the lease, article 7:307 paragraph 1 gives you the right to claim authorisation to put the buyer in your place as tenant. The court assesses that under paragraph 2 with two tests at once. It can only grant the claim if you, or whoever runs the business, have a compelling interest in transferring the business. And it always refuses if the proposed tenant offers insufficient guarantees for full performance of the agreement and for proper conduct of the business. Under paragraph 3 the court may attach conditions to the authorisation.

Two things follow from this, and both matter in a transaction.

First, this right cannot be contracted away. Article 7:291 paragraph 2 allows judicial approval of deviating clauses except where the deviation concerns article 7:307. If your contract says transfer is excluded, that does not hold on this point.

Second, the lease transfers as it is. The buyer steps into the running agreement, with the running term and the existing conditions. He does not get a fresh five-year period. If you are in year nine of ten, he is buying premises with one more year of certainty. That is a real difference in price and it belongs in the negotiation. What else to check in such a transaction is set out in the guide on buying an existing salon.

In practice the order is: first try to reach a contract transfer with the landlord, because that is faster and cheaper. If that stalls, 7:307 is your fallback, and the existence of that fallback usually makes the conversation with the landlord a good deal smoother.

What to check in a ROZ model lease

Most landlords use the model from the Raad voor Onroerende Zaken for retail space and other business space within the meaning of article 7:290. The current one is the Huurovereenkomst Winkelruimte 2025, version 20250603, adopted by the ROZ on 5 March 2025. Its accompanying general terms were deposited with the registry of the district court in The Hague on 3 June 2025 and recorded there under number 10/2025. It replaces the December 2022 model, whose article 4.5 was separately amended in April 2024. So check which year sits at the top of your own contract: a landlord still working from 2022 is not wrong, but is out of date. It is a landlord's model. That is not a criticism, it is a starting assumption while reading.

Six points to walk through before you sign.

The designation and the permitted use. Does it say 7:290 or 7:230a, and does the described use match what you will do, including nail treatments or skincare if you want to add those?

The duration and the extension term. Five plus five, or something else, and from what date. Work out the notice date and put it straight into your diary.

Maintenance. Which maintenance items sit with you and which with the landlord. For a salon the pipework, the drainage and the hot water supply are the expensive ones, and they rarely sit where you expect.

Indexation. Which index, from what date, and whether a decrease is excluded.

The deposit or bank guarantee. How many months of rent, and when you get it back.

Deviating clauses. Everything added as a special provision at the bottom of the contract. That is where the departures from the statutory protection live, and they are voidable without judicial approval. An exclusion of lease transfer certainly does not belong there.

And a seventh that is not a clause: ask about the zoning plan and the permits your activity needs. Premises may be let as business space and that still says nothing about what the municipality allows there.

What to do with your own lease

If a contract is on the table or a term is running out, this is the order.

This week: pull out your lease and note three things. Which regime it falls under, when the current term ends, and what the last date for notice is if you wanted out. Put that last date in your diary with a reminder fourteen months earlier.

Next week: lay the special provisions next to the statutory scheme from this guide. Anything that works out worse for you than the law is a subject for discussion and possibly voidable.

This month: if a sale or acquisition is in play, start the conversation with the landlord about a lease transfer now. Do it before there is a purchase agreement, not after.

And continuously: make sure your business is tied to your name and not to an address. If you move, your clients only move with you if they know where you are and how to book. Just as you record complaints and liability in your complaints handling, you want your client contact somewhere that does not hang off a building.

You do not need a subscription that does not match your volume for that. CelerBook charges per appointment: the first 5 appointments each month are free, after that you pay 0.25 EUR excluding VAT per completed appointment, with a maximum of 30 EUR per month for a solo business and 5 EUR per additional active staff member. No contract, and no usage means no cost. You get your own booking page on your own subdomain carrying your opening hours, your address and your cancellation terms. Move to different premises and you update the address and the hours while your clients keep the same link and the same confirmation emails. Your client base with notes and history stays yours, whatever happens to the lease. Try CelerBook for free.